The Sabbath begins at 9:51 P.M. on Friday, July 11, and concludes at 11:13 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:33 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:51 P.M. Sunday is the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in Great Britain and the weekend plus Monday is the celebration of National Day in Mongolia.
Natalja Cheifec continues her lecture and discussion series Thursday with a lesson on what kosher food requirements means and how they affects Jewish life. To receive zoom credentials and view and participate in the discussion, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, July 10
Place: internet
The Lithuanian Jewish Community has signed a cooperation agreement with Vilnius University for closer collabaoration in Jewish studies and Judaica research, including joint efforts initiating new educational and cultural projects.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said: “This is a great honor and very useful for us … especially with Vilnius University with its centuries of learning and research. Jewish history and culture doesn’t start and end with the Holocaust. There is a millennium of the Yiddish language, a rich history and an abundance of deep and significant traditions which we want to pass on to future generations.”
Vilnius University rector and professor Rimvydas Petrauskas commented: “The Lithuanian Jewish Community is an important partner for us. This agreement is an opportunity to stimulate knowledge of the history and even the present-day of the Jewish community.”
Pro-rector for partnerships professor Artūras Vasiliauskas and organization contact coordinator Daniel Šematovič were also present at the signing of the historic agreement.
The Sabbath begins at 9:57 P.M. on Friday, July 4, and concludes at 11:24 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:39 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:57 P.M. July 4 is Independence Day in America and is a national holiday there with foreign embassies closed. July 6 is Coronation of Mindaugas Day in Lithuania, also a state holiday but fallis on a Sunday this year.
The Sabbath begins at 9:59 P.M. on Friday, June 26, and concludes at 11:31 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:41 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:59 P.M.
An international seminar for Lithuanian teachers dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the YIVO Institute (Jewish Research Institute) in Vilnius was held at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library, and a virtual museum was presented with a prepared methodological manual entitled “Beba’s Story,” based on the story of Beba Epstein, a girl who lived in Vilnius.
The opening of the seminar was attended by library director Aušrinė Žilinskienė, Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, MP Emanuelis Zingeris, diplomats from the USA and Germany and deputy Vilnius mayor Vytautas Mitalas.
The seminar was attended by 40 teachers from different locations in Lithuania who are interested in the history of Lithuanian Jews and the possibilities of using various historical sources in their curricula.
Speakers included Egidijus Aleksandravičius of Vytautas Magnus University, YIVO sirector Jonathan Brent, director of the National Library’s Judaica Center Lara Lempertienė and historian Saulius Sužedelis.
The seminar was organized by the YIVO Institute (USA) in cooperation with the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library, the city of Vilnius, the Goodwill Foundation and the Lithuanian Jewish Community.
by Sergėjus Kanovičius, www.lrt.lt
When a half year ago German ambassador to Lithuania Cornelius Zimmermann asked me whether I’d object to an initiative by which soldiers from a Germany armored brigade would help document Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, I was at a loss for words. The first thought which occurred to me was, why now Lithuanian soldiers?
But as I sat in the waiting room of the German embassy… Over 14 years in the life of Maceva (Matseva, Hebrew for monument), there’s been a bit of everything–Austrian and German volunteers, Christian, Lithuanian high school students, US embassy staff, visitors from Israel. But Bundeswehr soldiers maintaing Jewish cemeteries and documenting grave monuments? Why?
The Sabbath begins at 9:59 P.M. on Friday, June 20, and concludes at 11:32 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:41 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:59 P.M. In various countries the summer solstice is celebrated on various days from June 20 to 23, the longest day of the year and the official beginning of summer. In Lithuania June 24 is St. John”s Day and is a non-work day.
ewish scouting leader Michail Adomui Kofman is planning a scouting camp at the Vaitlunkis camp and recreation area in the Panevėžys district to be reached and exited by boat from July 2 to July 8.
The program includes abundant activities, four meals per day, amenities and camp badges and emblems.
The cost is 90 years for the full program, 15 euros per day for part-time participants and a donation of 30 euros from adult volunteers and older scouts. Part-time volunteers are asked to pay 5 euros per day. Parents and guests attending visitor’s day are asked to pay 10 euroes per day. Scout leaders supervising groups of young people are not asked to pay anything. There are discounts for two children from the same family at 75 euros per person, and 3 members of the same family pay just 6- euros each. Discouns don’t apply to adult family members.
Natalka Cheifec will deliver her weekly lecture on Jewish life followed by discussion on Jewish judicial commissions, i.e., Jewish courts. The internet lecture and dsicussion starts at 6:30 P.M. this Tursday, June 19, via the zoom platform.
Among the topics she plans to address:
• Criteria for selecting judges;
• Definition of theft and its eight species;
• Punishment for murder;
• Definition of unintentional homicide;
• The death penalty;
• Greater guilt of inciter over perpetrator;
• Definition of bribery;
• Sanctuary;
• Rules of war.
To receive zoom credentials, click here.
Soldiers from the German Bubdeswehr’s 45th armored brrigade and members of the Maceva Jewish cemetery preservation group spent four days last week cleaning up the old Jewish cemetery and Holocaust monument in Merkinė in southeast Lithuania.
Merkinė is the site of early if not the earliest Jewish settlement in Lithuania.
Brigade commander Christoph Huber, German ambassador to Lithuania Cornelius Zimmermann and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky visited the cemetery to see the soldiers’ work at a special ceremony for concluding the upkeep mission.
About 130 soldienrs working with people from Lithuania’s Maceva Jewish cemeteries initiative removed moss, polished headstones and cleared brush from the site. Members of Maceva photographed the markers and cemetery as well.
One German soldier stationed in Lithuania since April said: “It’s not an obvious thing to me that I as a German soldier can contribute to the meaningful work by Maceva at Jewish cemeteries. This was an especially moving experience for me, to look at our complicated page of history in Lithuania.”
The Sabbath begins at 9:56 P.M. on Friday, June 13, and concludes at 11:29 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:38 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:56 P.M. Saturday is Flag Day un the United States.
The Vilnius Jewish Public Library is pleased to announce a presentation of a translation of Shmaryahu Pustopetsky’s book From Lithuania to Israel via Siberia on Monday, June 16.
Translators Regina Kopilevich, an accomplished genealogist and tourist guide for Jewish Vilna, and historian and author Dalia Epšteinaitė will discuss the book with sociologist and historian Violeta Davoliūtė who specializes in family studies as moderator.
Pustopetsjy was a military officer in pre-World War II independent Lithuania, and was deported to Siberia, He was an active member of the Beitar movement before the Holocaust. In the book, he discusses both world wars, Litvak culture in the 1930s, the story of the so-called prisoners of Zion and the brutal prison camps under Stalin.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Monday, June 16
Place: Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Gedimino prospect no. 24, Vilnius
Natalja Cheifec’s internet discussion club will meet via the zoom platform this Thursday, June 12, at 5:30 P.M. To receive zoom credentials, click here.
The Sabbath begins at 9:50 P.M. on Friday, June 6, and concludes at 11:20 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:32 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:50 P.M. Friday is D-Day in the United States. Catholic, Russian and Greek Orthodox and other Christian churches celebrate the Feast of Pentecost Sunday.
Mohamed Soliman, an illegal alien resident in El Paso, Texas, and originally from Egyot, used a home-made flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to set 12 Jews on fire Sunday afternoon in Boulder, Colorado.
One victim was a Holocaust survivor.
Soliman targeted the weekly Sunday silent march by members of the Jewish community in Boulder held to remember the hostages still kidnapped in Gaza.
Soliman yelled “free Palestine” and claimed the Coloradan Jews were “burning my people.”
The Sabbath begins at 9:42 P.M. on Friday, May 23, and concludes at 11:08 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:24 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:42 P.M. Shavuot or Shavuos begins at sundown on Sunday, June 1, and ends at sundown on Tuesday, June 3 (or in Israel at sundown on Monday, June 2).
Shavuot is the holiday which celebrates the receiving of the Torah. This marks the day the Jewish people received the Law. It is celebrated on the 6th day of Sivan on the Jewish calendar. This is a state holiday in Israel.
Shavuot means “weeks” in Hebrew. It is the seventh week from the second day of Passover. It marks the day when Moses received the Ten Commandments of G_d on Mount Sinai. They were written on two stone slabs. These are known in Hebrew as Aseret haDvarim and in Greek as the Decalogue.
Natalja Cheifec will deliver a lecture and host questions and discussion on the Jewish holiday Shavuot on the internet at 5:30 P.M. on Thursday, May 29.
To register and receive zoom credentials, click here.
Ninth-graders and teacher Jekaterina Ledneva from the Velžys Pro-Gymnasium in the Panevėžys set up a Tolerance Center at their school and visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community as part of that initiative. They wanted to know more about the pre-Holocaust local Jewish population, Jewish customs and traditions, holidays and what happened in the Holocaust. The students visited the ghetto territory in the northern Lithuanian city and laid floral wreaths at the monument marking the former ghetto gate.
Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman spoke to the young people as part of the Community’s ongoing educational outreach program and spoke about how Jews and Lithuanians lived together before the Holocaust, often enough as co-owners of businesses, sharing their expertise. They celebrated holidays together and shared in their joys and misfortunes, sometimes sacrificing their last bit of bread for one another, Kofman said. Russian and Jewish children attended the same high schools both in Tsarist Russia and independent Lithuania, Kofman recalled.
The ninth-graders also learned about Jewish holidays including Passover, Purim, Rosh Hashanna and others, and the stories behind these holidays. Kofman spoke about kosher food and why healthy food and cleanliness is so important in Jewish tradition. The students had the chance to sample matzo bread and heard the story of unleavened bread during the Exodus from Egypt. The students posed many questions and had a chance to tour the Community building as well.