Photo by Virginija Valuckienė
Dear members,
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is pleased to invite you to a concert by cellist Valentinas Kaplūnas and friends. The program includes painting and literature as well as music.
Registration is required by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
Time: 2:00 P.M., Sunday, March 22
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
The Films & Coffee café at the corner of Šv. Mikalojaus and Pranciškonų streets in the Vilnius Old Town will host an exhibit by Gediminas Dubonikas and Vytautas Tinteris on the Litvak population of the Old Town before the Holocaust and when Jews were imprisoned in two ghettos there. The exhibit opens at 7:00 P.M. on March 25. Triteris said the exhibit is appropriate for children.
The Ninth Fort in Kaunas opened an exhibit called Rescuers on March 15. The opening coincided with Lithuania’s Day of Rescuers of Jews. The museum invited members of the Kaunas Jewish Community, families of rescuers of Jews and Righteous Gentiles and others.
Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, Palanga Jewish Community chairman Vilius Gutmanas, daughter and granddaughter of Righteous Gentiles Iga Makutėnienė, speaker of Lithuanian parliament Juozas Olekas and Darius Jakavičius, chairman of the Commission on Battles for Freedom and Historical Memory, participated, along with other family members of Righteous Gentiles.
A moment of silence was followed by a reading of the names of rescuers of Jews in the city and district of Kaunas. Students from the Naujalis music gymnasium performed. the Ninth Museum’s Vytautas Petrikėnas and Vytautas Švėgžda, the director of Multimediamark who organized the exhibit, presented it in more detail to the audience.
Photo: 7News Australia
The Australian Football League paid a pre-game tribute to the victims of the Bondi Beach massacre but removed all mention of Jews at the last minute.
AFL CEO Andrew Dillon claimed the change to the script was intended to be “more inclusive,” by excluding the fact almost all of those murdered by terrorists were Jews celebrating Hanukkah at the annual event on Australia’s iconic Bondi Beach last December. Apparently the AFL didn’t want to offend Islamic terrorists and extremists resident in Australia.
Dillon said he didn’t know who decided to remove “Jew” as an offensive word.
Now one of the teams in the match has ‘fessed up:
Swans Admit “Error of Judgment” in Bondi Tribute
Sydney has apologized for omitting a specific reference to the Jewish community in its pre-game tribute to victims of the Bondi terror attack
The Panevėžys Regional History Museum hosted an event to mark Lithuania’s Day of Rescuers of Jews Sunday. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman, son of Righteous Gentiles Vidmantas Markevičius and museum director Donatas Juzėnas spoke at the event.
The official Lithuanian commemorative day was first marked on March 15 in 2023. March 15 is the date Yad Vashem recognized Lithuanian librarian Ona Šimaitė for her work rescuing Jews from the Holocaust. Vidmantas Markevičius’s family rescued nine Jews in the Kupiškis region.
Viltis school students read the names of Jews rescued and their rescuers in the Panevėžys district.
The event featured a screening of the documentary film “Irena” about the late Irena Veisaitė. Veisaitė as a girl was rescued from the Holocaust by Stefanija Ladigienė.
Lithuania’s Day of Rescuers of Jews on Sunday was marked by the Šiauliai District Jewish Community and the Lost Shtetl Museum at an event at Righteous Gentiles Square in Šiauliai which then moved on the museum in Šeduva. Community members, members of the Lithuanian parliament and students from the Juventa school remembered the Righteous Gentiles who rescued Jews from the Holocaust. Conservative MPs Ingrida Šimonytė and Paulė Kuzmickienė provided moving speeches and Pinchas Nol spoke about how the Paluckas family rescued him. Nol spoke by video link from Israel. Juventa students provided a live musical performance.
Following three attacks on synagogues in Toronto last month, the US has seen at least four terrorist attacks in the last three weeks: a Senegalese supporter of Iran shot nightclubbers in Austin, Texas; ISIS terrorists threw three bombs which failed to detonate in New York City at a crowd of anti-Islam protestors; a Hezbollah family member attacked Michigan’s oldest Jewish community with firearms and explosives which he failed to detonate and a man shouting “Allahu akbar” attempted to murder an ROTC class at Virginia’s Old Dominion university, killing one.
Two synagogues/Jewish schools in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and one in Liege, Belgium, were the subject of unsuccessful bombings.
In the UK around 10 suspected Iranian spies were arrested for spying on Jews in London.
Two of the American attacks came after the Trump administration leaked to journalists counter-intelligence indicating Iran had sent a “go signal” to “sleeper cells” in North America. Security was increased in Los Angeles for the Academy Awards over the weekend.
The Sabbath begins at 6:18 P.M. on Friday, March 13, and concludes at 7:14 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 6:00 P.M. and completed before sunset at 6:18 P.M. Tuesday, March 17, is St. Patrick’s Day (March 16 in Labrador and Newfoundland). Sunday is Rescuers of Jews Day in Lithuania.
by Geoff Vasil
Even if president Trump declares mission accomplished, as many Americans are urging, the war with Iran won’t end. The new hidden imam ayatollah has issued official if non-credible instructions to keep the Hormuz chokehold closed in order to strangle world oil supply. Raising on a busted flush, Iran’s terrorist regime thinks by dictating to its neighbors and attacking them it can hold onto power until US public opinion comes to their rescue.
The problem with that is the neighbors and the world can’t afford to play that game. France seems to be the only country willing to say so out loud, sending naval vessels whose ultimate goal seems to be the Persian Gulf. The new doctrines of drone warfare have scared off the world’s largest navy from conducting safe-conduct escorts as they did back in the 1980s in response to threats from the same regime.
The only sane response to Iran’s gambit is to fight it out along the Iranian coast, from Basra to Hormuz, targeting drones and missile launchers. The neighboring Gulf states have never been fans of the Islamic Republic, but now almost the entire world has an interest in protecting the oil supply militarily.
An explosive device detonated before dawn outside a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liège, damaging the building and nearby homes; officials condemned the blast as a serious anti-Semitic incident, as police launched an investigation
An explosion occurred early Monday morning outside a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liège, causing property damage but no injuries.
The blast happened around 4:00 A.M. local time near the synagogue on Rue Léon Frédéricq. The synagogue’s main window was shattered, and windows in buildings across the street were also blown out by the force of the explosion, according to local residents cited by the French-language Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.
Liège mayor Willy Demeyer described the incident as a “criminal and anti-Semitic act.”
“I absolutely condemn this violent act of anti-Semitism which runs counter to Liège’s tradition of respect for others,” Demeyer said.
Full story here.
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 Sugihara Foundation awarded Holocaust and Righteous Gentile historian Danutė Selčinskaja the Person of Tolerance for the foregoing year 2025 and awarded writer Sergey Kanovich the recipient of the Leonidas Donskis prize in Kaunas Sunday.
The Sabbath begins at 6:05 P.M. on Friday, March 6, and concludes at 7:00 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 5:47 P.M. and completed before sunset at 6:05 P.M. Sunday is International Women’s Day. Wednesday, March 11, is Lithuania’s Day of Restoration of Independence, a national holiday marking the act passed by the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet on March 11, 1990, restating the country’s independence from the Soviet Union.
by Holly Evans, Friday, March 6
The four men, an Iranian national and three dual British-Iranian nationals, were arrested on Friday morning
Four men have been arrested on suspicion of aiding Iran’s intelligence service by spying on locations and individuals linked to the Jewish community in London.
Detectives from Counter Terrorism Policing London said the men, one Iranian national and three dual British/Iranian nationals, were detained shortly after 1:00 A.M. on Friday at addresses in Barnet, Watford and Harrow as part of a pre-planned operation.
The Metropolitan Police said the men arrested were 52, 40, 55 and 22, with searches ongoing at their addresses.
Six other men aged 29, 39, 42, 49 and two aged 20 were arrested at the same location in Harrow on suspicion of assisting an offender.
The Ilan Club is pleased to announce a pottery class for children aged 4 to 12 and their parents. The cost is €10 per lesson, but the first class on Saturday, March 7, is free. To register, send an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
Time: 11:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M., Saturdays (first class March 7)
Place: Ilan Club, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
by Geoff Vasil
The next phase of hostilities in Iran includes degrading missile launch pads and freeing up the Persian Gulf for shipping. Iran has a limited number of longer-range missiles and is seeking to use them before they’re destroyed. That means there will be a tapering off in attacks on Israel within two or three days but probably an increase in attacks on nearer neighbors with shorter-range rockets. The attacks so far seem to be a dead-man’s-switch response to the assassination of the ayatollah, a policy to enflame the region, almost literally running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Saudi Arabia could strike back; Kuwait has already demonstrated their readiness to fight, and Qatar reported shooting down Iranian “aircraft,” presumably fighter jets rather than drones.
The Iranian Persian Gulf coast has been undergoing fortification for decades according to various sources. Freeing shipping lanes from attack could mean targeting numerous launch pads and artillery all along that coast as well as degrading the Iranian Navy and the infamous “Iranian gun boats.”
If the military and security command structure continues to be destroyed, power vacua will probably arise in different areas of the country. Only about 50% of the population are native Persian (Farsi) speakers with numerous ethnic groups distributed throughout. The Kurds are probably the largest dissatisfied group, but the Arabic-speaking province Khuzestan adjacent to Kuwait and Iraq is supposed to be a hotbed of discontent. Even if the Islamic Republic can hang on in the Tehran basin, the outer provinces could fall to dissidents.
Natalja Cheifec continues her lecture series and discussion club with a discussion of Purim symbols, traditions and the deeper significance of the Jewish holiday. To receive zoom credentials and participate, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, March 5
Place: internet
The Palanga Jewish Community invites you to visit an exhibit of photographs called “Jews of Palanga: An History in Photographs” at the Palanga Youth and Volunteer Center, Vytauto street no. 110, Palanga, opening March 3 and running till March 31.
With more than 20 authentic period portraits of interbellum Palanga, the exhibit tells the story of the Palanga Jewish community’s daily life, urban spaces and communal and cultural sites integrated in the landscape of the Lithuanian seaside resort town.
The exhibit is a joint project of the Palanga Jewish Community and the Palanga Youth and Volunteer Center. Mindaugas Surblys is the curator.
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
The decision by Israel and the United States to strike Iranian military installations and the leaders of its nuclear and terrorist networks constitutes an act of self-defense against a rogue state that for years has openly threatened to destroy the Jewish state and Western civilisation. Iran is the primary sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East and across the world through its proxy organisations Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen. These terrorist groups have targeted indiscriminately innocent civilians for years, culminating in the massacre of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023. Moreover, the Iranian regime was approaching the capacity to directly strike Israel and other countries in the region with nuclear weapons, representing a clear existential threat to the Jewish state. No people and no country can or should stand idly by when its sworn enemy is not only pledged to destroy its very existence but also possesses the nuclear capability to carry out that threat.
We stand as always with our brothers and sisters in Israel during these difficult times, and we commend president Donald Trump of the United States for his decision and leadership. We also stand with the Iranian people, who deserve to be free from the yoke of an oppressive regime, and we support their aspirations for freedom, dignity and democracy.