Religion

Bravery of a Japanese Diplomat on Exhibit in Cape Town

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“Sugihara didn’t only save my grandfather, he also saved me. Because if not for Sugihara I may very well not be standing here today.” These were the words of Rebbetzen Sarah Feldman of the Gardens Synagogue in Cape Town, speaking on Monday at the opening of the Jewish Refugees in Shanghai exhibition at the South African Jewish Museum. Her grandfather, Rabbi Shimon Goldman, hailed from the city of Shedlitz in Poland.

by MOIRA SCHNEIDER | Feb 02, 2017

When Hitler invaded Poland, signalling the start of the Second World War, Rabbi Goldman, then a teenager, escaped to Lithuania and was fortunate to have been issued a visa by the Japanese consul there, Chiune Sugihara, acting contrary to his government’s express instructions.

“Sugihara was faced with a huge moral dilemma,” Rebbetzen Feldman related.

“His humanity won. Together with his brave wife Yukiko, this righteous couple worked non-stop issuing 300 visas a day – the amount that would usually take a month to issue.” In so doing, the couple saved 6,000 Jewish lives.

Full story here.

About Jews and a Dream

[Note: The proposal Mr. Ivaškevičius makes in the following opinion piece in no way reflects the position of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. In fact, on several points it contradicts the positions of the LJC stated publicly in the past, namely, regarding the rebuilding of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius. Also, at least three Litvak museums, much like the one he proposes, are currently in the planning stage, two in Vilnius, and one scheduled to open in the shtetl of Šeduva in late 2017 or early 2018. The following translation is presented to our readers merely for the sake of information and the interest of our readers.]

by Marius Ivaškevičius
www.DELFI.lt

Yes, again, about Jews. Although, not really, this is perhaps more about us. About Vilnius, really, of which they were a part, and now we are. And this time not about repentance, guilt or about what we’ve lost, on the contrary, about what we can still get back. I want to propose a plan for how our dead Jews could still serve us.

About Vilnius

I love this city and I always tell my foreign friends it is a hidden pearl. When you need peace, it is peaceful. When you want noise and excitement, it has something to offer. The beauty here is obvious, brick-and-mortar and alive, the old architecture, the beautiful men and women, in a word, something to look at. For a long time my stories hit a polite wall of promises: “yes, of course, we will have to go there someday.” Someday, never. But suddenly it began to work. As if my foreign friends had made an agreement among themselves, they began to flood into Vilnius, asking what they should see first in this city.

So I got the opportunity to look at Vilnius not through the eyes of an insider living here, but through the eyes of someone who had just arrived. And I realized Vilnius doesn’t have anything to offer them. The Old Town, sure, it’s charming. But that charm wears off after a half day. You can spend the evening and night on the weekends in the bars. Then what? Then they want museums, but here these, it turns out, are each more boring than the last. Old armor, weapons and glazed tiles they have already seen, the picture galleries are only of local significance, there are no masterpieces and it takes a real fanatic, a tourist dedicated to art, to “consume” what is on offer.

The only thing which is truly not disappointing is the theater. The theaters of Vilnius are world-class and many drama enthusiasts come just for this, to see Nekrošius, Tuminas and Koršunovas in their hometown. Perhaps sometimes they murmur after the show about a lack of subtitles or translation, but essentially they’re satisfied. The plays fill their evenings, and during the day, seeking new experiences, they visit the Museum of Lithuanian Theater and Cinema, certain that it will be of the same high caliber as our theater which it represents. But they find that same museum boredom instead. A stoppage of time and museum women knitting.

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Pope Says Anti-Semitism Opposite of Christian Values

“Unfortunately, anti-Semitism, which I reject in all forms of thinking which are the antithesis of Christian principles, is still very common in our time”, Pope Francis said in a meeting with representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, reports the website regions.ru.

The Pope also cited a document published 50 years ago, Nostra Aetate, which identified approaches to solving the problem of anti-Semitism. It specifically states that the Church “feels obliged to do everything possible to help our Jewish friends to overcome anti-Semitic tendencies.” Head of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt called meeting fruitful.

The Anti-Defamation League is an American Jewish NGO and is considered one of the leaders in combating anti-Semitism.

Pope Francis also recalled his visit to Auschwitz last year, saying: “There are no adequate words to describe the horror and cruelty of sin that was going on there. I pray the Lord have mercy, and such tragedies are never repeated.”

Lesson by Rebbetzin Esther Isaacson

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Dear women and girls,

You are invited to a lesson by Rebbetzin Esther Isaacson called

The Laws of Washing Hands

at 6:30 P.M. on February 22 on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius.

Portrayal of Other Ethnicities in Shrovetide Traditions

In the run-up to the Lithuanian holiday of Užgavėnės (Shrovetide), the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum’s Tolerance Center will hold a discussion called Portrayal of Other Ethnicities in Shrovetide Traditions. The traditional holiday features people dressed up as Jews with masks with hooked noses. Speakers are to include Dr. Laima Anglickienė, the head of the cathedral of ethnology and folklore studies at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas; Libertas Klimka, an ethnologist and professor at the Lithuanian Educology University; the writer Dainius Razauskas and representatives from the Lithuanian Human Rights Center and the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman Service.

The discussion is open to the public and is to take place at 4:30 P.M. on February 21. The Tolerance Center is located at Naugarduko street no. 10/2 in Vilnius.

Agreement with Jurbarkas on Synagogue Square Memorial

On February 9 the Lithuanian Jewish Community signed an agreement with the Jurbarkas regional administration and the New Artists College CAN of Israel on a projected called “Synagogue Square Memorial.” The memorial is dedicated to remembering the Jews of the shtetl (formerly known as Yurburg or Jurburg in Yiddish and Georgenburg in German) and is to be located on Kauno street in Jurbarkas where one of the most beautiful wooden synagogues in Europe once stood. The memorial is being created by Israeli sculptor David Zundelovich, who comes from Lithuania. It is to portray the waves of the Nemunas River and the wooden synagogue and is to be made of gray and black basalt. It is to include the names of Jews who lived in Jurbarkas and the names of people who rescued them during the Holocaust, with inscriptions in English and Hebrew.

Jurbarkas regional administration head Skirmantas Mockevičius said the group is looking for funding for the memorial. “Jews lived in Jurbarkas for a long time and there is no monument, so sign, even though they were the majority of the community,” Mockevičius told BNS. From three to four thousand Jews called Jurbarkas home before the Holocaust. The head of the regional administration said residents weren’t interested in a graveyard memorial and wanted the memorial to appeal to the people, including the youth. Under the plan the memorial is to be built within 8 months from the signing of the agreement. Mockevičius expected it to be in place in Jurbarkas by the fall.

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A Tale of Two Synagogues in Vilnius: Both Survived the Meat Grinder of History

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… If you call the Choral Synagogue the fortunate daughter, then another surviving synagogue near the bus station and train station could be called the poor stepdaughter in terms of appearance and visitors. The building located at Gelių street no. 6 only bears slight resemblance to a house of prayer. Restoration of the abandoned building began recently, in 2015.

Using several sources of financing, this synagogue has been slowly getting back on its feet over the last two years to become what it once was, a house of prayer. It’s said that it was the first stop for Jews arriving in Vilnius by train from all points in Lithuania. That’s hardly surprising, since the synagogue is right next to the railroad tracks!

This synagogue was in a state of imminent collapse until 2014 and its rebirth began with a “STOP” ribbon put up around it, followed by work to strengthen the roof. Over the three years since repairs began, great progress has been made. But it probably won’t be completed in 2017, it will take years longer.

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State-of-the-Art Jewish Museum Planned in Šeduva

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Preliminary design concept for the Lost Shtetl Museum

Plans have been announced for a state-of-the-art Jewish museum scheduled to open in 2019 as part of the Lost Shtetl memorial complex in Šeduva, Lithuania.

The museum complex is to be designed by the Finnish company Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects who also designed the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. POLIN won the 2016 European Museum of the Year Award. They are towork together with local partner Studia2A established in 1994 and headed by Vilnius Art Academy dean of architecture Jonas Audejaitis.

The museum is to be located next to the sprawling Šeduva Jewish cemetery, completely restored and opened in 2015 as part of the memorial complex. The complex includes memorials at three sites of Holocaust mass murders and mass grave sites and a symbolic sculpture in the middle of the town. A study of the Jews of Šeduva was conducted as part of the project and is to result in a documentary film called Petrified Time by film director Saulius Beržinis.

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Memorial statue in Šeduva. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Sergey Kanovich, founder of the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund, said the Lost Shtetl Museum will employ advanced technologies to teach visitors the history and culture of Šeduva and similar Litvak shtetls. It is expected to serve as an educational and cultural center.

“Visiting the Lost Shtetl will be a history lesson which will allow national and international visitors to learn about the lost Litvak shtetl history and culture,” he said.

“Lifestyle, customs, religion, social, professional, and family life of Šeduva Jews will serve a center point of the Museum exhibition,” he said. Visitors to museum will learn “the tragedy of Šeduva Jewish history which in the early days of World War II ended in three pits near the shtetl.”

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About Sheryl Sandberg’s Parents, the Sandberg Family

A few days ago we learned the great-grandmother of the world-famous woman Sheryl Sandberg lived in Vilnius. After looking into Sheryl’s family history, it turned out her parents were active participants in the battle for the right of Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union.

Sheryl Sandberg was born in Washington, D. C., in 1969 and was the eldest of three children. Her parents were English teacher Adele Einhorn and famous ophthalmologist Joel Sandberg. In 1970 there were active in fighting for the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. In 1975 the married couple were arrested in Kishniev, the capital of Soviet Moldova where they had to come to meet with those who wanted to leave the Soviet Union, and both were expelled from the country.

Not many people remember the anti-Zionist booklets the Soviet Union published in the millions of copies, condemning “foreign emissaries” sent by the West into the USSR, who actually sought to make contact with Jews in their struggle for their human rights, to provide moral support and aid to them. The Israeli press has written of Joel Sandberg who helped Soviet Jews from 1970 to 1980. The well-known ophthalmologist Joel Sandberg of Miami is one of a number of activists in the American Jewish community who fought the battle for the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate.

Sandberg Joel

An attempt to protest by a group of 16 refuseniks (otkazniki) in Leningrad by hijacking a plane in 1970 was a major event at the time. The ringleaders were sentenced to death, but following protests from the international community, the Soviets reduced it to long terms of imprisonment. This encouraged American Jews to support more strongly Jews living in the Soviet Union. In an interview Joel Sandberg, recalling those times, said the main goal of the Americans was to help those protesting against the emigration ban and those wishing to exit the USSR. Out of the thousands refuseniks in Kiev in 1979, only 70 people were granted exit visas a year later, while requests by 3,000 more were rejected.

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Lithuanian State Auditors Find Compensation for Jewish Property Used Appropriately

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Vilnius, February 9, BNS–The Lithuanian State Auditor has no complaints on the use of compensation for Jewish religious communal property this year, although they found irregularities last year.

The State Auditor’s Office reported finding no violations in the 2016 audit of the use of such funds.

The year prior to that auditors said the foundation dispensing the funds had used some monies from the state allocated under the Lithuanian law on goodwill compensation for pre-Holocaust Jewish real estate had been used in the 2012-2015 period for matters not defined in the law, namely, to pay for administrative expnses of the disbursing foundation. In 2016 the Lithuanian parliament amended the law to allow for the Goodwill Foundation to pay its own administrative costs.

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Some Features of the Jewish Calendar

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Aušra Požėraitė

by Dr. Aušra Pažeraitė

The Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael in the Midrash details a discussion by Talmudic sages regarding a line from the Bo portion of the readings for the last Sabbath (Exodus 12:2): “This month shall be for you…” Rabbi Ishmael says: Moses showed the new moon to Israel and said to them: In this way shall you see and fix the new moon for the generations. Rabbi Akiva says: This is one of the three things that were difficult for Moses to understand and all of which God pointed out to him with His finger. And thus you say: “And these are they which are unclean for you” (Leviticus 11:29). And thus: “And this is the work of the candelabrum” (Numbers 8:4). Some say it was also difficult for Moses to understand ritual slaughter, it being written: “Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually.” (Exodus 29:38).

Modern scholar of Jewish philosophy David Boyarin says this midrash is one of many examples which plainly, almost spelling it out, show how St. Augustine was correct in saying Jews read Holy Scripture “erotically” [erotically charged by ocular desire]. But here “eros” doesn’t mean imprisonment to the material or carnal for its own sake. It is, rather, a certain method or way to understand the life of the spirit, the religious life, based on what is here and now, on the concrete physical world. Rav Moshe Rosenstein of Kelm (Kelmė) in his explanation of the way in which the wisdom of the world differ from the wisdom of the Talmudic sages gave as an example a small bird which once flew through a window into a home and couldn’t not find the path to fly back out because by nature it sought the way on high, whereas in this case it only needed to look downward. In this way the worldly-wise can exalt their wisdom so much that that which is “low,” the simple truths which aid in finding the answers, may be hidden (Basics of Knowledge, I, 24).

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An Exhibit Leading to Love and Understanding between People and Nations

by Galina Romanova

On January 31 the cozy hall of the Nalšia Museum was packed to the gills for the ceremonial opening of an exhibit of interest to the whole world, and especially Catholics called “Pope Francis’s Visit to Israel.” Israeli embassy deputy chief of mission Efrat Hochstetler, Švenčionys regional administration head Rimantas Klipčius, regional administration council members, other public figures and locals from the town and region of Švenčionys attended the opening.

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Israeli embassy press attaché Liana Jagniatinskytė recalled how the embassy came up with the idea of this exhibit and “released it into the wild,” sending the exhibit to small towns and larger cities throughout Lithuania.

Klipčius said he was glad friendship between Israel and the Švenčionys region keeps growing, thanking Israeli ambassador and frequent guest to the region Amir Maimon. The director of the regional administration spoke about the Pope’s trip to Israel and recalled Pope John Paul II’s visit to Lithuania just as the country broke free from the Soviet Union. He finished his optimistic speech with a nice gesture, presenting flowers and souvenirs to Hochstetler, who was in the region for the first time.

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Lecture Series

Basia Nikiforova gives the lecture “Zygmunt Bauman: Life and Legacy” at 12 noon, Sunday, February 12 in the conference hall of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius.

Jared Kushner, Trump Aide and Son-in-Law, Has Litvak Roots

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Jared Kushner is the son-in-law and chief adviser to US president Donald Trump. His roots are in traditional Litvak lands, the areas where Jews lived in the mediaeval Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His grandmother Reichel Rae Berkowitz-Kushner hailed from Novogrudok, known in Lithuanian as Naugardukas, south of Grodno (Gardinas) in Belarus. She was imprisoned in the famous ghetto there where prisoners dug an escape tunnel and fled to the Jewish partisans in the forests.

Born on February 27, 1923, Rae Kushner was the second-oldest of four children in Novogrudok, then part of Poland and spelled Nowogródek.

The city had a thriving Jewish population, comprising just over half of the town’s 12,000 inhabitants. In the summer of 1941, the Nazis invaded Poland at the start of Operation Barbarossa. Though rumors of mass killings had reached Novogrudok by that point, few Jews actually believed that the Germans would carry out such atrocities. Following several massacres, the remaining Jewish population was forced into a ghetto. Rae lived in the city’s courthouse with her family and nearly approximately 600 other Jews. Rae’s mother and older sister were killed in a subsequent massacre on May 7, 1943. Before long, Rae, her father and younger sister were among only 300 Jews left. These remaining Jews managed to dig and escape through a 600-foot tunnel during the nights, using special-made tools in the workshops and hiding the dirt in the walls of buildings. When completed, the 600-foot tunnel was only large enough for one person to crawl through. Upon emerging from it, the escapees were met with gunfire, darkness and disorientation. Consequently, only 170 survived out of the 250 that escaped. Rae’s brother was among the fallen, having lost his glasses during the crawl through the tunnel. Rae and her surviving family spent ten days hiding in the woods, eventually making their way to the home of an acquaintance. The woman fed them and allowed them to sleep in her stable with the cows for one week–a risk that carried the penalty of a violent death. Shortly thereafter, the Bielski partisans took in the escapees from Novogrudok–including Rae and her family.

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Letter from Šilalė Affirms Respect for Jewish Cemetery

The Lithuanian Jewish Community has received a letter following publication of an interview with the sole survivor of the Holocaust in Šilalė, Lithuania, Ruvin Zeligman, who spoke about the disrespect shown the memory of the 1,500 Jews murdered there and the lack of care shown the Jewish cemetery and mass murder site.

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We received a letter from Jurgita Viršilienė, senior specialist of the Education, Culture and Sports Department of the Šilalė regional administration, and from the alderman of Šilalė, denying the facts about which Zeligman spoke.

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Sole Jewish Survivor of Holocaust in Šilalė Says Old Jewish Cemetery Cattle Pasture Now

Until World War II, the majority of the residents of the western Lithuanian town of Šilalė were Jews. The brick synagogue was built sometime around 1910 to 1914 at what is now the corner of V. Kudirkos street and Maironio street. There is a hardware store there now. The old Jewish cemetery is now pasture for livestock, with just the Holocaust mass murder site next to it fenced off.

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Lithuanian Jewish Community member Ruvin Zeligman is the sole survivor of approximately 1,500 Šilalė Jews murdered in the Holocaust. He was 10 when World War II began in Lithuania in 1941.

Although he hasn’t lived in Šilalė for many years now, when he speaks he still falls into the western Lithuanian dialect. His wife also comes from the region and they speak in dialect at home.

Zeligman remembers the great fire which ravaged the town in 1939, burning down his family home and the entire street, taking a terrible toll on the town’s mainly wooden buildings.

How do you remember Šilalė when you lived there with your parents and family?

At that time about 60% of Šilalė’s population was Jewish. My father was a religious figure: the cantor, mohel [performer of circumcision], a religious teacher and a reznik [a man educated in the rules of kosher slaughter]. My father graduated from the famous Telz yeshiva. He was a respected man and he helped the local residents of Šilalė with his knowledge of medicine, healing the sick. There were four of us children in the family. Mother took care of the home and the children. We lived well, back then each of us, the four children, had a golden goblet at home and mother used to bring out a silver candleholder for holidays.

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Zeligman lights candles for the murdered Jews of Šilalė at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius

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Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration in Šešuoliai

Holokausto aukų minėjimo diena Šešuoliuose

On January 27 Stanislovas Budraitis, the chairman of the community of villages of the Šešuoliai aldermanship, organized and held an observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Šešuoliai administration building hosted an exhibit of photographs called Jews Are Our Neighbors and an exhibit of the book Lietuvos žydai [Jews of Lithuania]. Šešuoliai alderwoman Jolanta Lukšienė gave a welcome speech to those who gathered for the event.

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Stanislovas Budraitis, an historian, gave a presentation called “The Contribution of Jewish Culture to the History of Lithuania,” Želva Gymnasium Museum director Zita Kriaučiūnienė gave a report called “Jewish Life in Želva,” Molėtai Regional History Museum director Viktorija Kazlienė read her “Memories of Jews of the Molėtai Region,” Sketches of the Almanac editor Vytautas Česnaitis read “Jews of Ukmergė in the Pages of the Almanac” and Anita Albužienė, a member of the Ukmergė Jewish Community, recalled tragic events and shared them with those present.

A menorah with candles was lit at the former Jewish house of prayer and participants vitisted four mass murder sites 2 kilometers from Šešuoliai on the way to Želva. Members of the Ukmergė Jewish Community and the Gutman family, now resident in Vilnius but originally from Šešuoliai, participated in the commemoration.

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Meeting with Dr. Antony Polonsky

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LJC members and members of the public attended a meeting with professor Antony Polonsky, whose book on Jewish history in Lithuania, Poland and Russia has been translated to Lithuania. Professor Šarūnas Liekis moderated the discussion.

The Brandeis professor is one of the most authoritative scholars of Eastern European Jewish history. His new book Jews in Poland and Russia provides an exhaustive view of the historical, political and cultural evolution of Jewish communities in these countries. Litvaks haven’t been left out, of course, and form a major part of the book.

In the 18th century the Polish-Lithuanian Jewish community was the largest in the world. The author elected not to look at Jewish history through the prisms of conflict and suffering, but instead to seek out the different principles by which the communities organized Jewish life and life with other communities.

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Memorial to Lithuanian Jewish Holocaust Victims to Be Unveiled in Karl Jäger’s Home Town

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January 27 has been marked as an official day to commemorate Nazi victims since 1996. On this occasion the film “Karl Jäger und Wir – die langen Schatten des Holocaust in Litauen” [Karl Jäger and Us: The Long Shadow of the Holocaust in Lithuania], a multi-generational project, is to be screened in Waldkirch, Germany. A monument commemorating the Jews murdered in Lithuanian and Holocaust victims from 1941 and 1942 is also to be unveiled there on January 29.

The City of Waldkirch, the “Waldkirch in the Nazi Period” workshop and the Catholic pastoral care unit in Waldkirch are to unveil the new memorial on January 29. The public is invited to attend the unveiling.

The “Waldkirch in the Nazi Period” workshop initiated the idea for the memorial in October of 2011 and it was approved by city council in 2015. It will be located by the Church of St. Margarethen and the Elztal Museum. The opening begins at 6:00 P.M. at the museum and will feature Mike Schweizer accompanied on saxophone.

The second part of the event is scheduled to take place in the church and will feature Katharina Müther, who is renowned for Yiddish, Sephardic, Sinti and Roma songs from Eastern Europe. German MP Gernot Erler, who served as state minister in the foreign ministry from 2005 to 2009, will deliver a speech, as will historian Dr. Wolfram Wette and pastor Heinz Vogel, with possible discussion and reflection afterwards.

The film “Karl Jäger und Wir – die langen Schatten des Holocaust in Litauen” is to be screened at the church at 8:00 P.M. The film is the fruit of a multigenerational project by Black Dog eV.

Representatives of the Lithuanian Jewish Community plan to attend the commemoration which has caused some surprise in Lithuania. It’s important to note Karl Jäger lived in Waldkirch as a young man, although he was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Jäger, an SS colonel, was the main force behind the Holocaust in Lithuania. His report, known in Holocaust studies as the Jäger Report, is a detailed account of Nazi mass murder operations against Jews in Lithuania, listing mass murders by date and location and breaking down the number of victims in the categories of males, females and sometimes children.

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After the war Jäger evaded capture by the Allies using a false identity. He worked as a farm hand until his report was discovered in March of 1959. Jäger committed suicide in Hohenasperg prison near Stuttgart in the German state of Baden-Württemberg awaiting trial in June of 1959. The Soviet Union only released the Jäger Report to West Germany investigators in 1963 during the trial of Hans Globke in East Germany.

The Jäger Report is one of the primary documents witnessing to the scope of the Holocaust in Lithuania. The Jäger Report details the murder of 47,326 men, 55,556 woem and 34,464 children in Lithuania, for a total of 137,346 Lithuanian Jews murdered in the first months of the Nazi occupation of Lithuania in the summer and fall of 1941.

Full story in German here.