The LJC and the Ilan Club invite children aged 7 to 13 to a fun Simchat Torah celebration at the Karvys manor. We’re meeting at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at 11:00 A.M. on October 11. Places are limited. Please register by October 9 by sending an e-mail to sofja@lzb.lt or for more information call +370 601 46656.
Despite restrictions because of the corona virus, the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius has constructed the traditional sukka there to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot. Traditionally called the Feast of Tabernacles in English, Sukkot is better translated as the Day of Tents in modern English. This year it began October 2 and it lasts for seven days. The idea is to “dwell” or spend time in the tent or temporary structure during each day of the week-long holiday. It is traditional to handle the etrog, a fruit in the citrus family, and to wave a palm frond inside the sukka, or dwelling, and to eat and celebrate, remembering the past when the Hebrews lived in tents after the exodus and liberation from Egypt. The Torah says one should wave the branches and fronds of three pleasant trees during the holiday, including palm fronds, willow branches and the branch of a leafy deciduous tree which the Talmud specifies is the myrtle. The trees and the etrog together constitute the four species. The palm fronds are first made into a bundle which becomes the first element, to which are added two willow branches, then three myrtle branches in a specific pattern, This three-fold branch and etrog are waved around on each day of the seven days by observant Jews in adherence to Leviticus 23:40. Visitors to the sukka are also supposed to have a good time there.
The sukka at the Choral Synagogue is only open during scheduled prayer services as part of entry restrictions designed to curb the spread of the corona virus. Please check prayer service schedules or call ahead if you intend to visit and spend time in the sukka.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community will be closed October 4 and 9 for the holiday of Sukkot.
Sukkot is a holiday when Jews remember their liberation from slavery in Egypt and their journey to the Holy Land. The holiday has two meanings: the mundane meaning of harvest and the sukka, Hebrew for tent, the temporary dwelling of the forefathers after they left Egypt.
The Panevėžys Jewish Community will celebrate Sukkot at 2:00 P.M. on October 4 at Community headquarters.
Members, partners, friends and children are invited to take part. Children will receive gifts. There will be a food service for everyone with fall harvest foods.
The Rokiškis people’s theater Nutildyta mūza will present a skit directed by Neringa Dainienė.
Panevėžys Jewish Community members will be provided masks and disinfectant.
Admission is 3 euros.
We eagerly await you in holiday high spirits. Please tell us if you plan to attend this event at the Panevėžys Jewish Community.
Gennady Kofman, chairman
Panevėžys Jewish Community
Before Yom Kippur, please forgive me if I unintentionally hurt people. I wasn’t sensitive enough, I can admit that right now. I needed to exert myself to better recognize and understand others, to become more sensitive. “I’m sorry” is the most miraculous phrase which could ever be uttered. It is a bridge between war and peace and is the foundation for the survival of humanity.
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman,
Lithuanian Jewish Community
B”H
Sunday, September 27
5:45 P.M. Meal before fast
6:46 P.M. Start of fast
6:30 P.M. Kol Nidre prayer
Monday, September 28
10:00 A.M. Shacharit
12:30 P.M. Iskor (remembrance prayer)
5:30 P.M. Mincha
6:30 P.M. Final prayer Neila
7:55 P.M. End of fast/meal
Donations in the memory of loved ones (as written in the Izkor prayer) will be accepted on Sunday from 4:00 P.M. in the synagogue
Dear Holocaust survivors,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are gathered here today to pay our respects to the hundreds of thousands of Lithuanian Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust.
Shoah means catastrophe. But this is not just the tragedy and catastrophe of the Jewish people. The Shoah is Lithuania’s. This is the Shoah of all mankind. This is a Shoah of our humanity, compassion and ambivalence.
Here alone in Paneriai, we, the state of Lithuania, lost tens of thousands of our fellow citizens with whom we built the independent Lithuanian state together. Fighting together in the battles for independence, suffering together the young state’s most difficult years, together putting our hopes in the future of an independent Lithuania.
We lost talented scholars, artists, poets, doctors, businesspeople and artisans, teachers and clerics. Me lost elders who preserved the memory of hundreds of generations living together in friendship, and we lost the children who would have been this country’s future.
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda has issued Rosh Hashanah greetings to the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the global Jewish community.
He wished the people of Israel strength, resolution and health in the struggle against the corona virus and its effects, and Jews of Lithuania and the world a beautiful, sweet New Year’s celebration and success in all things. “We live in a time-period filled with challenges, but holidays always remind us of the fundamental values, placing our misfortunes in the background. Today is it is important not to forget the power which shared goodness, support and unity have. I wish you a successful and peaceful 5781,” the Lithuanian president said. He also said it’s significant 2020 was declared the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History. “Despite the outbreak of the pandemic, we were successful in marking the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Vilna Gaon, in appreciating his influence on the development of Judaism, and in recalling the undeniable contribution the Jewish community has made in promoting Lithuania’s image in the world.
Members of Lithuania’s parliament Gediminas Kirkilas and Aušrinė Armonaitė sent Rosh Hashanah greetings to the Lithuanian Jewish Community as the country’s Jewish community marked the beginning of the new year, 5781 on the Jewish calendar.
Former prime minister Gediminas Kirkilas, now deputy speaker of parliament and chairman of the European Affairs Committee there as well as heading his Social Democratic Labor Party, regularly sends greetings to the Community on major holidays and occasions.
Aušrinė Armonaitė was voted in as an MP in 2016 on the Liberal Movement ticket and was a member of the independent faction there. In 2019 she helped found and was voted in as chairwoman of the new Freedom Party. Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius is a deputy chairman in the new party.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is greeting the new year, 5781, with the publication and distribution of our Jewish calendar for the coming year. As well as being attractive and nice to look at, this year’s calendar, as in past years, points back to our shared Litvak legacy. Every featured item once belonged to the Lithuanian Jewish communities and Lithuanian synagogues.
Dr. Aistė Niunkaitė has written a text about Jewish symbols and shared it with us in Lithuanian and in English translation below.
§ § §
See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel…
Prayer service schedule
Friday, August 18, 6:45 P.M: Mincha/maariv holiday prayers, kiddush, holiday treats
Saturday, August 19 10:00 A.M.: Shacharit (morning prayers); 12 noon blowing of shofar horn; treats and gifts (Jewish calendar for 5781, honey cakes, special gifts for children); 6:00 P.M. Tashlich prayer service at Bokšto street no. 19 in Vilnius
The year 5781 is almost upon us. The Lithuanian Jewish Community is celebrating the new year with our calendar, which has become a tradition, dedicated this time to the unique symbols of the Jewish people and their significance.
Before talking about the next year, I can’t pass over the foregoing which became a year of challenges and coming together for the entire world. The corona virus restricted our social life and the Community’s operation, but at the same time showed to us we are capable of taking care of our members, especially the elderly, that we can apply and perfectly well use digital technology and that even under the most difficult conditions we were able to mark the dates so important to Jews, Israel, Lithuania and the world and our own holidays.
The Community was not able to mark appropriately the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History declared by the Lithuanian parliament because of the pandemic. But the historical past of Jews and its importance for Lithuania’s culture don’t fit within the frames of a single year, so I promise we will continue to organize events dedicated to Lithuania’s Jews, to Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman aka the Vilna Gaon and other important people. There can never be too many such events.
On Sunday, September 6, 2020, the Lithuanian Jewish Community held a fun celebration of the European Day of Jewish Culture. Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and Community members, the Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yosi Levy, Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department director Vidmantas Bezaras and guests had a good time and attended the Hebrew language lesson provided by Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymansium principal Ruth Reches. The public, invited by the LJC, came to celebrate the first Sunday in September by sampling Jewish treats made at the Bagel Shop Café, located on the first floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community building in Vilnius, a center of Litvak bagel culture.
The Bagel Shop Café presented paintings from Mark Kaplan’s collection during the event.
Participants also attended the lecture “Deification and Demonization of Jews: Anti-Semitic Superstitions in Society.”
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is continuing the tradition of marking the annual event European Days of Jewish Culture, this time for the fifth year, with a program of events in Vilnius scheduled for Sunday, September 6, 2020.
All parts of the event program are free and open to the public. The number of participants has been limited this year due to health concerns so please register as soon as possible.
For cooking lessons, register by sending an email to kavine@lzb.lt
For the Jerulita tour, register by sending an email to travel@jerulita.lt
To register by internet, click here.