Yiddish – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Fayerlakh Performs at Public Library

The Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh performed at the Adomas Mickevičius Public Library in Vilnius on March 30. They were invited to perform there by the library’s Song Club who wanted to learn more about Jewish song and whose members had bilingual lyric sheets in Lithuanian and Yiddish. Borisas Kizneris began on violin, demonstrating popular Yiddish songs, and invited the audience to join in, which they did. After the music, Fayerlakh director Larisa Vyšiauskienė spoke about Passover. Matzo was distributed to all attendees.

Photos by Mindaugas Masaitis

2026-04-01

Dear Jewish Scientific Institute! Book Launch

The Judaica Research Center of the Lithuanian National Library is launching the book “Dear Jewish Scientific Institute!” April 7. The book is a collection of YIVO correspondence presented in Lithuanian (and presumably English judging from the cover) providing readers a look at the textual legacy of the YIVO and their fruitful work in pre-Holocaust Vilnius.

Judaica Research Center director and editor of the book Lara Lempertienė, historian Juozapas Paškauskas, Yiddish translator Aistė Puidokaitė, English translator Dalia Cidzikaitė and book designer Deimantė Rybakovienė will speak on a panel moderated by Jolanta Budriūnienė.

Time: 6:00 P.M., April 7
Place: Lithuanian National Library, Vilnius

2026-03-262026-03-26

Fayerlakh Concert

The Song Club at the Adomas Mickevičius Public Library in Vilnius is hosting a concert by the Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh at the end of March. Club members will receive instruction in singing Yiddish folk songs in Yiddish, with synchronous texts in Lithuanian and Yiddish, under the tutelage of Fayerlakh veterans. The event is free and open to the general public.

Time: 6:00 P.M., Monday, March 30
Place: Adomas Mickevičius Public Library, Trakų street no. 10, Vilnius

2026-03-252026-03-25

Modestas Saukaitis: Between Gold Dust and Fluxus

The Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center in Vilnius is hosting an exhibit of works by the late Modestas Saukaitis. Saukaitis was an artist, art and book restorer and interior designer. He curated the first Fluxus exhibition in Lithuania with Gintaras Sodeika. Fluxus was an art movement started by Lithuanian-American artist, writer and filmmaker Jonas Mekas and was loosely associated with Guy de Bord’s Situationist International movement. Saukaitis passed away in 2024. He was deeply interested in Litvak history and his works on exhibit include a tribute to Righteous Gentile Ona Šimaitė and various takes on Jewish Vilna, with inscriptions in Hebrew and Greek characters, displayed in mirror-reverse for whatever reason. This exhibit is based on a previous exhibit of works by Saukaitis at the Shofar Gallery under the Jewish Culture and Information Center in Vilnius was based on texts by Abraham Sutzkever, the Yiddish poet and Litvak partisan (see below).

According to the host gallery, the exhibition features “verre églomisé works, assemblages, archival Fluxus material and video documentation as well as an overview of the artist’s work in interior design and restoration.” The exhibit opened March 6 and runs till May 23. The gallery is located at Malūnų street no. 8 in the Užupis neighborhood of Vilnius.

2026-03-242026-03-27

Shavl Celebrates Purim with the Musical “A Modern Story of Esther”

The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community expanded Purim celebrations this year by inviting the general public from Šiauliai and elsewhere with a musical held at the Laptai Gallery of the Šiauliai Culture Center on March 3. The musical was called A Modern Story of Esther based on the text by Itzik Manger and composer Dov Seltzer. The performance space was packed by audience members. The musical itself is a modern version of the traditional purimshpil.

The play was preceded by a presentation by Community member and actress Jūratė Budriūnaitė-Kamrazer on the history, significance and traditions associated with this Jewish holiday.

Vytautas Magnus University Music Academy students performed in the musical, which was followed by traditional Purim treats including homentashn.

The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community thanks musical director Audronė Eitmanavičiūtė, musical conductor Sabina Martinaitytė and their team of talent from Vytautas Magnus in Kaunas. They also thank the Laiptai Gallery for providing the space and making the event such a success.

2026-03-172026-03-17

Faina Kukliansky Presents Autobiography at Vilnius Book Fair

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman presented her book about her life and family “Dainos iš mėlynos užrašinės” [Songs from a Blue Notebook] at the Vilnius Book Fair early Friday afternoon and signed copies for readers. She also held a book-signing event there late Saturday evening.

Covering three generations of Litvaks, the recorded memories move from her grandparents who miraculously survived the Holocaust, her parents in the concentration camps to the youngest generation, Faina and her sister Sulamita, the generation of Jews who came out of survivors of the Holocaust.

The book can be ordered via internet here, here and here.

2026-03-092026-03-09

Happy Purim

Dear Community members,

A happy and colorful Purim!

Our ancestors taught us a very important thing: to make use of every opportunity to enjoy life. Even as history has been full of challenges, we chose light, unity and joy. Therefore laughter, music and song ring out in our homes and community today.

May your tables be laden with fruit, your friendships be sincere and your hearts open. May there be no lack of homentashn, symbolizing the ear of the vizier Haman who sought to harm the Jews as a reminder to us that evil and falseness never win, but courage, hope and unity do.

I hope the joy of Purim inspires in us strength, a sense of belonging and togetherness and faith in the future.

Hag Purim sameakh!

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

2026-03-032026-03-03

Special Sabbath with Performance by Actress from Israel

Lithuanian Jewish Community members are invited to a special Sabbath celebration with a performance by the Israeli actress Tatyana Khazanovskaya of “Wandering Stars,” a play by Nina Michoels based on the novel by Sholem Aleichem. The play will be in Russian. The cost is 10 euros and registration is required by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt. The event will last about 75 minutes.

Time: 7:00 P.M., Friday, February 20
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius

2026-02-17

Palanga Jewish Cemeteries: Inscriptions, Records, Territories

Information from Mindaugas Surblys, Palanga Jewish Community

When fire ran rampant in Palanga in 1830, old burial pinkhas were destroyed, dating back to 1487. Beginning in 1831 burial records were kept for the new Jewish cemetery at the edge of town. For a time two Jewish cemeteries operated in tandem in Palanga, the old one since 1487 till 1892, located inside Birutė Park. The new cemetery was instituted near Naglys Hill.

There are ten remaining headstones (matsevot) of different sizes made from granite and cement with inscriptions in Hebrew letters. Three headstones are broken in their upper sections. One is splintered with fragments lying on the ground. Many of the surviving monuments are difficult to read.

Several inscriptions are legible and correspond to the burial records of the Palanga Jewish community. The inscriptions match the information in the pinkhas, for example, “Here lies our dear and honored father who was famous for his charity work and high moral character, Natan Frank, son of Hirsh (Tzvi), deceased on Rosh Hashanah, 1935” (partial translation).

2026-02-022026-02-02

Driver Rams Car into Chabad HQ in New York City

Photo: Chabad Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn on January 28. Photo by Louis Keene

by Louis Keene and Jacob Kornbluh, Forward, January 29, 2026

The incident occurred on a day of celebration in the Chabad community. No one was hurt.

CROWN HEIGHTS–A driver crashed a car into an entrance of the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn Wednesday night, damaging the building on a night thousands were gathered there to celebrate.

Video circulating online and verified by eyewitnesses shows a vehicle repeatedly driving into the building’s doors at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights neighborhood, the main synagogue of the Chabad movement and one of the most recognized Jewish institutions in the world. One witness said the driver had yelled at bystanders to move out of the way before he drove down a ramp leading to the doors.

2026-01-29

American Embassy Hosts Presentation of New Community Center

Goodwill Foundation co-presidents Rabbi Andrew Baker and Faina Kukliansky presented plans for a new Lithuanian Jewish Community Center at the US embassy in Vilnius last week.

World-renowned Litvak architect Massimiliano Fuksas’s team are drafting plans for the new building to be built at the site of the Great Synagogue complex in Vilnius Old Town.

Baker and Kukliansky provided details at the presentation on a planned YIVO exhibit at the new center telling the history of Litvaks, Litvak life, traditions, the people and their mass murder during the Holocaust.

2025-12-25

Natalja Cheifec on Shtetl Life

The shtetl was bit just a tiwn, but a self-contained world where Jewish traditions were maintained, students attended the yeshiva, people were married and buried under the precepts of Judaism and almost everyone spoke Yiddish.

To receive zoom credentials, click here.

Time: 6:00 P.M., Tuesday, December 4
Place: internet

2025-12-04

Dolskis and Gorbulskis Comcert Great Success

The concert “When Dolskis Met Gorbulskis” concert at the Kaunas State Pjilharmonic ib late October was a rousing success according to all involved.

THe concert celebrated the 150th birthday of Lithuanian estrada music founder Daniel Dolksis and the 100th birthday of Benjaminas Gorbulskis, a composer who contributed much to this genre of popular stage music.

Performers included tenor Rafailas Karpis, the Lithuanian Symphonic Horn Orchestra formerly known as Trimitas and a number of other talented musicians and actors.

The Kaunas Jewish Community would like to apologize to everyone who was unable to attend because of limited seating or had to stand during the free concert.

Some snapshots from the remarkable evening follow.

2025-11-192025-11-20

Condolences

Roza Bloch has passed away. She was born in 1930 in Kaunas, survived the Kaunas ghetto, the Kaunas concentration camp and the Stutthof concentration camp. Almost her entire family was murdered, excepting her maternal grandparents who also survived the Holocaust. She repatriated from the Soviet Union with her family to Israel in 1973. She was a long-standing member of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel and served on its board of directors. We extend our deepest condolences on her loss to her friends and family, members of the Association and to all who knew and loved her.

2025-11-17

Sabbath Celebration with Vegetarian Dishes Inspired by Lewando

The team of the fotmer Bagel Shop Café, now called Pylimo 4 (the street address) is pleased to announce a Sabbath celebration featuring vegetarian dishes inspired by Fania Lewando from Vilnius, the author of a vegetarian cookbook published in Yiddish in 1938.

It happens this Friday, November 14. The menu pays tribute to Lewando’s cuisine which reflects Litvak traditions. Participants are asked to donate €22 per diner, but smaller donations are also very acceptable. The point is to celebrate the Sabbath together. To suggest dishes, for more information amd to register, send an email to gut.shabbos.vilnius@gmail.com.

2025-11-11

Jewish Grandmother Inspires Concert Program

Pianist Gintaras Januševičius has inspired Lithuanian audiences with his concert programs in recent years. Now he’s taking inspiration from his own family.

“My grandmother was Jewish and lived in Novosibirsk, Tashkent and near the end of her life in Haifa,” Januševičius said.

Januševičius is calling this new concert program Freylakh, literally “happy” in Yiddish, but usually denoting a happy song, plural freylakhs.

“This program is a reflection of her smile, optimism and strength,” Januševičius said.

The program includes works by Mendelssohn, Gerschwin, Schulhoff and others.

2025-10-292025-10-30

Panevėžys Jewish Community and City Officials Visit Lost Shtetl Museum

Members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community and Panevėžys municipal officials visited the Lost Shtetl Museum in Šeduva October 17.

Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofmanas.presented a new Jewish calendar to museum staff.

2025-10-232025-10-24

Moyshe Kulbak Lecture

The Judaica Research Center at the Lithuanian National Library presents a lecture by Center director Lara Lempertienė at 6:00 P.M. Tuesday, October 28, on Yiddish poet and novelist Moyshe Kulbak called “I Am This City: Moyshe Kulnak’s Vilnius” in :Lithuanian.

Lempertienė for many years has worked with Jewish texts from Lithuania and Europe and has research manuscripts in the National Library’s Judaica collection. She was graduated from Vilnius University as a philologist, studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was a visiting scholar at Oxford University’s Hebrew and Judaica Studies Center. She earned a doctorate for her thesis “Rabbinical Exegesis in the Context of Traditional Jewish Education in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.”

The lecture will take place at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum in Vilnius where an accompanying exhibit of art by Tania Mourad is on display touching on the Holocaust experience and Litvak poetry, with street graffiti transcribed into the Yiddish alphabet. For more information, call +370 5 261 6764 or send an emial to the museum at kasiulio.muziejus@lndm.lt.

Time: 6:00 P.M., Tuesday, October 28
Place: Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum, Goštauto street no. 1, Vilnius

2025-10-222025-10-22

Documentary on Jakov Gens

The Vilnius Gewish Public Library will screen the documentary “The Commandant’s Daughter” featuring the recollections of Ada Gens, daughter of Vilnius ghetto Jewish Police chief Jakov Gens (aka Yakov, Jacob, Jokūnas Gens) at 6:00 P.M. Wednesday, October 22. Jakov Gens’s great-grandson Alexander Phibbs is to speak at the event.

Gens as de facto ruler of the Vilnius ghetto made controversial and lasting decisions for the survival of a remnant of Vilna Jewry. His post-Holocaust legacy was as nemesis to the FPO underground partisan organization, although Gens died in Gestapo custody. Gens displayed a clear preference for Hebrew over Yiddish as the language of the Jews in the future state of Israel.

Great-grandson Alexander Phibbs says heard his grandmother’s stories as a child but didn’t attach greater historical significance to them then. Phibbs began doing his own Holocaust research in 2008 and came across his grandmother Ada’s testimony to the US Holocaust Museum, and realized how little he really knew about Jakov Gens and the role he played in the Vilnius ghetto.

2025-10-212025-10-21

YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture

The Science and Encyclopedia Publishing Center of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library and the Judaica Research Center there are pleased to announce the publication of a Lithuanian translation of Cecile Esther Kuznitz’s acclaimed monograph “YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation.”.

The book presentation will take place at 6:00 P.M on October 21 in the Conference Hall (5th floor) of the National Library. The event will feature the author Cecile Esther Kuznitz, professor of history and director of Jewish Studies at Bard College; Laimonas Briedis, cultural geographer and Vilnius researcher; and Jolanta Mickutė, scholar of Eastern European Jewish history. The discussion will be moderated by Lara Lempertienė, director of the Judaica Research Center.

Originally published in English in 2014, “YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture” is the first comprehensive history of the YIVO founded in Vilnius in 1925. As the only in-depth study of the institute’s activities in Vilnius before World War II, the publication of a Lithuanian translation is a long-awaited and significant cultural event.

2025-10-21

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