The Sabbath begins at 8:28 P.M. on Friday, April 18, and concludes at 9:30 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 8:10 P.M. and completed before sunset at 8:28 P.M. Passover ends Sunday at sunset. Sunday is also Easter on the Catholic, Western Christian, Russian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Coptic Church calendars. Most government offices and some grocery stores will be closed Monday.
Faivel Kuras has died. He was a singer for the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and Fayerlakh extend our deepest condolences to his widow Irina, children, grandchildren and many friends.
Dear Community members, friends, supporters and dear reader,
Greetings to all Jews on the great holiday Passover. This holiday crows the liberation of the Jews from the oppression of the Egyptian pharaoh and our becoming one people and a free people.
Passover isn’t a time of noisy gatherings. It is a traditional family holiday when the home is cleansed of leavening agents, children seek out the hidden pieces of matzo, when the whole family sits down at the seder table and reads the Haggadah.
We are so very happy that this year the majority of Litvak families are celebrating Passover in line with all traditions and rules, celebrating at home with their families. Our staff and homecare workers are also visiting our members who live alone that they might also feel cared for and share in the holiday spirit of warmth and joy.
I wish everyone a happy family Passover. Let’s always remain free and let’s always be happy.
Happy Passover! Hag Pesach sameach!
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community
The Vilnius Jewish religious community extends its greetings to all on one of the most significant Jewish holidays—Passover—and informs that, due to Mr. Krinsky’s (who is neither the rabbi of the Vilnius Choral synagogue nor of the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community) refusal to sign a liability agreement for an event he intended to organize, the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community as the sole owner and administrator of the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius has made the decision to temporarily close the synagogue.
On February 7, 2025, while celebrating his wife Dina Krinsky’s birthday, Mr. Krinsky gathered a group of guests at the Choral Synagogue. Some of the guests became ill after the banquet and several were hospitalized with salmonella.
Contrary to the requirements of the laws of Lithuania and the internal regulations of the Choral Synagogue, Mr. Krinsky did not report this incident in the prescribed manner and as a result, this information remained unknown to the institutions responsible for sanitation and hygiene.
The Vilnius Jewish Religious Community refuses to take any responsibility for Mr. Krinsky’s actions and therefore demanded that all events organized by his community in the Choral synagogue take place only upon the signing of a liability agreement. This agreement, in addition to Halachic laws, would include commitments to comply with hygiene, fire safety and occupational safety standards. Unfortunately, Mr. Krinsky refused to sign the liability agreement.
The Sabbath begins at 8:16 P.M. on Friday, April 11, and concludes at 9:15 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 7:57 P.M. and completed before sunset at 8:16 P.M. Passover begins at sunset on Saturday..
Happy birthday to Palanga Jewish Community chairman Vilnius Gutmanas. The entire Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes you good health, happiness and success in all your efforts. May the coming year bring new opportunities and many moments of happiness.
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community
The Martynas Mažvydas Lithuanian National Library in Vilnius will host the launch of a new collection of talks and interviews by the late Litvak novelist Griogiry Kanovitch at 6:00 P.M. on Wednesday, April 16.
The book is called “Tiesa gydo. Vieši žodžiai ir interviu, 1988–1993–2022” [Truth Heals: Public Speeches and Interviews, 1988-1993-2022] and was edited by Virginijus Gasiliūnas.
Virginijus Gasiliūnas, Kanovitch’s son and writer Sergejus,and literature researcher Rima Kasperionytė will engage in a panel discussion moderated by Dainius Vaitiekūnas. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky is to deliver an introductory speech.
The event is expected to last two hours and is free and open to everyone.
Photo: Chaim Grade’s Sons and Daughters was originally serialized in the 1960s and ’70s in New York-based Yiddish newspapers (from YIVO and Alfred. A. Knopf via JTA).
The editors discuss how a previously-lost decades-old manuscript was found and pieced together. It’s being called “probably the last great Yiddish novel”
by Andrew Silow-Carroll, April 7, 2025
JTA–Sixty years after he first began serializing it in the Yiddish press and 42 years after publisher Alfred A. Knopf acquired the book, Sons and Daughters–the last novel by the late, great Yiddish novelist Chaim Grade–lands in bookstores this week. To call it long-awaited is an understatement.
How the novel came to be published in English translation is a story of family intrigue, literary detective work and dogged creativity on the part of its translator and editors.
The result, a sprawling 600-plus-page book about a rabbi in 1930s Lithuania and the different paths taken by his children, is “quite probably the last great Yiddish novel,” the critic Adam Kirsch writes in the introduction. Dwight Garner in a New York Times review calls it “a melancholy book that also happens to be hopelessly, miraculously, unremittingly funny.”
Full story here.
The Panevėžys Jewish Community received a report April 2 a sign marking the boundary of the Old Jewish Cemetery in the city of Panevėžys had been removed and left nearby. Local residents called the police regarding the incident and the municipal administration was informed.
On April 4 members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community and Loreta Paškevičienė from the city’s architectural department surveyed the state of the Old Jewish Cemetery and made a number of determinations regarding upkeep and renovation.
The sign was set back up.
One of the recommendations was to remove some dead trees and replace them with sapling pines. On April 5 a group of volunteers from the Panevėžys Jewish Community did that and generally cleaned up the area. They also reset and braced some older pines blown down in the storm late last year.
Despite the bad weather, the Panevėžys Jewish Community reported the volunteers planted about 40 saplings that day with help from local arborist Algimantas Kirkilas.
Natalja Cheifec will provide a special lecture on Passover traditions Wednesday via internet. She’ll discuss Egyptian slavery, liberation, Moses, unleavened bread and meaning of being passed over and chosen in the context of the Jewish people.
To receive zoom credentials, click here.
Time: 5:30 P.M., Wednesday, April 9
Place: internet
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky represented Lithuania at the second Civil Society Forum on Combating Anti-Semitism and Fostering Jewish Life held in Brussels on April 1 and 2.
The forum was set up by the European Commission.
More than 250 EU and international organizations, specialist and activists attended this year’s forum. Participants discussed strengthening social dialogue and new initiatives to increase mutual understanding. Katharina von Schnurbein was an organizer of the forum and is the EC’s coordinator for combating anti-Semitism, and is a friend of the LJC.
Dear reader,
The Bnei Maskilim progressive Jewish community invites you to Passover seder. Rabbinical students Emma Aaronson, Dani Pattiz and Viljamas Žitkauskas will lead ceremonies. Join us and celebrate the spirit of freedom and fellowship.
On this evening like no other we will remember the story of Exodus, read the Haggadah, sing the traditional prayers together and sample the holiday foods according to Passover tradition.
Registration is required. Confirm your participation by sending an email to viljamas@lzb.lt.
Time: 7:00 P.M., April 12
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
Borisas Liberčukas has died. He was born in 1936. He was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. Our deepest condolences to his widow, children and friends left behind.
Photo: Marker commemorating Juozas Krikštaponis. Though the city was ordered to remove the bas-relief and inscription, they didn’t do so. Photo by Gediminas Nemunaitis
Ukmergės žinios, April 5, 2025
The Lithuanian administrative court for regions handed down a decision in the case of commemorative markers honoring Juozas Krikštaponis in Ukmergė (Vilkomir).
The cort found partially in favor of the plaintiffs and annulled a decision issued by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania (Genocide Center) on August 23, 2023, calling for the removal from the marker stone of the image of the Lithuanian partisan and accompanying inscriptions.
Relatives of Krikštaponis, the Lithuanian Union of Freedom Fighters and the Lithuanian Association of Political Prisoners and Deportees opposed the decision by the director of the Genocide Center and took their complaint to the administrative courts.
The administrative court for regions found the Genocide Center’s decision to remove the bas-relief of Krikštaponis was made without adhering to the law, and that the Center failed to provide clear, specific and reliable evidence that Krikštaponis was complicit in crimes of genocide against Jews.
The Sabbath begins at 8:06 P.M. on Friday, April 4, and concludes at 8:59 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 7:43 P.M. and completed before sunset at 8:06 P.M. Tuesday is also International Romani Day.
Hungarian president Viktor Orban welcomed Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on a visit to the capital Budapest Wednesday. Orban extended the invitation back in November. Shortly after the visit Wednesday Orban announced Hungary was withdrawing from ICC membership, joining non-members Israel, United States, China, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Burundi and others.
Full story here.
Matzo is available at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius during working hours in packages of 450 grams and 1 kilogram.
Natalja Cheifec will present a new lecture Thursday featuring Sefer Even Shlema, a collection of commentaries by the Vilna Gaon.
Lecture to include:
-negative features (midot) and how to correct them;
-the ability to be satisfied with little;
-trust in the Almighty and how to serve Him;
-the war against innate sin;
-fear and love of the Most High and following His law;
-raising and teaching children;
-vain speech;
-prayer;
-reward and punishment;
-hell, paradise and final judgment.
To receive zoom credentials to participate via internet, click here.
Time: 5:30 P.M., Thursday, April 3
Place: internet
Alexander Phibbs arrived at the Šiauliai Jewish Community last week looking for more information about his ancestors.
His grandmother A. Gensaitė-Ustjanauskienė was born in Kaunas and went abroad with her mother after World War II. Gensaitė spoke seven languages and found emplyment as a translator with the US federal government.
Phibbs’s great-grandfather Jakov Gens was a Jew from Šiauliai and a veteran of Lithuania’s battles for independence during World War I. He is better known as the controversial chief of the ghetto police in the Vilnius ghetto. He was murdered in September of 1943 at Gestapo headquarters in Vilnius.
Phibbs said he spent a lot of time with his grandmother listening to stories from her homeland, which led him to seek more information about his family and to visit Lithuania.
Community members showed him around the city, including the school Gens attended and the old Jewish cemetery.
For the seventh year now the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius has held a bar and bat mitzvah ceremony for young Jews coming of age.
Sholem has held the ceremony at both the Choral Synagogue and the Lithuanian Jewish Community in past years, and the LJC was proud to host it yet again last Thursday.
We are grateful to Viljamas Žitkauskas and the Bnei Maskilim association he directs for their sincere and moving concern and care, and for the help they provided the young people, and to Rabbi Nathan Alfred who came from Israel for the fourth year now to guide our young people in their extremely important journey moving into adulthood.
A big thank-you as well goes to our special guests including LJC friend, cantor of the Pestalozzistraße Synagogue and director of the Geiger Cantor Collegium in Berlin, Isidor Abramowicz, and to collegium student and rebbetzin Alla Mitelman.
May all our new adults experience the fullness of life. Mazl tov!