The 75th anniversary of the Great Aktion, the day on which almost 10,000 Jews were murdered at the Ninth Fort, was marked in Kaunas on October 30.
In 1941 more than 9,200 Jews in the Kaunas ghetto were murdered at the Ninth Fort, including 4,273 children.
The remembrance ceremony was held at the field at the Ninth Fort where the mass murder was perpetrated.
For most of the year, the Ponar Memorial Complex in the hills south of Vilnius lies empty. Outside of official commemoration ceremonies, few people make it to this somewhat inaccessible mass murder site located to one side of the railroad tracks in a village with few amenities. If you happened to walk through the complex on the dismal and gray first day of November this year, you might have been surprised. The first day of November is All Saints’ Day on the Catholic calendar, traditionally the day when the souls of the departed are honored, and in Lithuania the tradition has merged with older pagan practices to become the holiday of Vėlinės. Lithuanians usually visit the graves of departed relatives and ancestors and solemnly place candles beside their final resting places. Whole hillsides are lit by flickering candles in cemeteries around the country. This year the Ponar mass murder site wasn’t forgotten, either, in yet another sign Lithuanians are embracing the Holocaust and Holocaust victims as their own. In past years candles have been lit at the Polish memorial at Ponar, and occasionally at the Soviet monument there which famously ignores the Holocaust with the non-committal inscription: “To the victims of fascism.” This year all the major Jewish monuments at Ponar also had candles burning in little glass and plastic holders at their base in addition to candles left burning at the Polish, Soviet and Lithuanian commemorative markers.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky
As announced earlier, the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius has been closed for repair work to be carried out, and in the meantime temporary measures have been put in place for the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s congregation of the faithful to pray at the Lithuanian Jewish Community (no special measures are needed by mitnagdim). As Community chairwoman I am surprised that regular repair to the Vilnius synagogue has caused a furor in the global media and on social networks. Entry to Jewish communities around the world entail restrictions, and it is hardly surprising that someone who is constantly disturbing the peace and bothering others is not allowed entry on tyhe grounds that person is intentionally creating conflict situations. The Community’s rabbis have asked that people who disturb religious services not be given entry. The tension caused in recent days by the inappropriate actions of Chabad Lubaviych Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky is not accidental. This rabbi has his own center on Bokšto street in Vilnius and he receives support from different Jewish organizations. We know about them and their intentions to divide the LJC are also known. It goes without saying that a community of a different orientation may receive support, but we have information it is being supported for an ulterior purpose. When to repair the synagogue is our business and our decision. I would ask the world Jewish community to let the Lithuanian Jewish Community live in peace and tranquility and to allow us the right to repair our synagogue when we see fit, not according to what Rabbi Krinsky wants, and if we need help, we’ll ask. The Lithuanian Jewish Community employs two rabbis who are actively involved with the community of believers, among whom there prevails a spirit of peace. A rebirth of Judaism is taking place in Lithuania right now.
The Choral Synagogue at Pylimo street no. 39 in Vilnius is closed until further notice for repairs to the heating system. Prayer services will be held temporarily at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.
This Saturday you are invited to an after-lunch tea and Judaism lesson/discussion with Rabbi Kalev Krelin.
From 2:00 to 2:30 P.M. will be the ABCs of Judaism for Beginners, a half hour of intense learning about the rules of kosher food, an explanation of prayers before different kinds of food and more. It’s important not to be late to this part of the teaching.
From 2:30 to 4:00 P.M. we’ll have a discussion and teaching about business in Judaism. You’re invited to ask questions, learn interesting facts and take one step closer to becoming a real expert on Judaism.
Languages: English and/or Russian, depending on audience.
Registration is not necessary but would be appreciated. It will help us decide which language to use. You can register here:
http://apklausa.lt/f/business-in-judaism-verslas-judaizme-qwvqala/answers/new.fullpage
For more information, contact infolujs@gmail.com
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LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY
October 27, 2016
To: Juozas Mažeika, mayor, Kretinga
Diana Varnaitė, director
Cultural Heritage Department to the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, Vilnius
ON CONSTRUCTION NEXT TO THE OLD JEWISH CEMETERY AND MASS GRAVE IN KRETINGA AND EARTHWORK IN THE COMPLEX OF THAT LOCATION (CULTURAL REGISTRY UNIQUE SITE CODE 34983)
In our letter of August 9 of this year we brought your attention to a series of indications showing that the Old Jewish Cemetery of Kretinga and the Holocaust site located within it are not being protected and maintained adequately. Of special concern is the lack of a complete fence surrounding the cemetery and that the sections of the cemetery along the perimeter not fenced in are not marked in any way. Since these parts of the cemetery lie on the boundaries of private plots of land, there is the threat that economic activities could be carried out within the territory of the cemetery. This problem has been exacerbated, as we have learned from media reports, with the beginning of construction of a complex of individual residential homes right along the border with the cemetery.
Please assess quickly whether this above-mentioned construction does or does not pose a danger to the preservation of the site of the cultural treasure, and whether during construction or later as the buildings are being put to use and in the execution of commercial activities the eternal rest of the dead interred there will not be disturbed, whether access to the cemetery will be degraded and, if there is a foundation for this, whether or not to halt construction work until all necessary measures are taken to protect the cemetery and insure the integrity of the dead and access to the cemetery is insured.
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community
Surveying and infrastructure construction are already going on next to the old Jewish cemetery. A residential and recreational complex is to be built here.
by Viktorija Vaškytė, Pajūrio naujienos
When you see the stakes being driven in and the infrastructure being built in the meadow next to the old Jewish cemetery, residents of Kretinga, Lithuania are concerned that business activity is taking place right next to the place of eternal rest. Chief and senior architect of the Architectural and Territorial Development Department of the Kretinga regional administration Reda Kasnauskė says the regional administration has ordered land surveys of the old Jewish cemetery, so locals have probably seen surveyors measuring the site. She says the territory of the old Jewish cemetery is surrounded by legal plots of land and each one them may be measured and marked.
This is how the residential and recreational complex to be built next to the old Jewish cemetery will look. To the right: the topography of the future neighborhood.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
France’s Jewish umbrella bodies on Thursday rallied opposite the French Foreign Ministry in Paris to protest France’s failure to vote against UNESCO resolutions that ignore Jewish ties to Jerusalem.
CRIF, the political lobby group representing French Jewish communities, and the Consistoire, French Jewry’s organ responsible for religious services, called for joining a protest rally on Thursday at the Quai d’Orsay. The gathering came in reaction to the passing of two resolutions on Jerusalem this month by UNESCO committees.
France was among 26 countries which abstained from voting during the first resolution at the UNESCO Executive Board last week. It refers to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount only by their Arabic-language names. Similar language was used in a decision adopted this Wednesday by the World Heritage Committee, a UNESCO body.
In an article, CRIF President Francis Kalifat, who is also a vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote: “France decided to abstain. But to abstain when the choice is between truth and a lie, between honoring history and the infamy of revisionism is not worthy of France and its values.”
Israeli deputy minister for regional cooperation Ayoub Kara felt the pontiff was sending a direct message to UNESCO.
God promised the Holy Land to the people of Israel, Pope Francis said during a public address at the Vatican in Rome on Wednesday in a speech about migration.
“The people of Israel, who from Egypt, where they were enslaved, walked through the desert for forty years until they reached the land promised by God…” he said.
photo courtesy Milda Jakulytė-Vasil
In line with the expressed wish of the recently deceased Lithuanian philosopher and author Leonidas Donskis, a group will assemble in the Lithuanian town of Butrimonys Sunday, October 23, to say kaddish for the Jewish community murdered there in 1941.
“I would be happy, if while I am still alive, something similar would happen in Butrimonys… I feel a moral obligation to say kaddish there with Jews,” Donskis said in an interview on Delfi TV on July 31, 2016. The interview in Lithuanian is available here.
Kaddish will be performed by Lithuanian Jewish opera soloist Rafailas Karpis.
Time: 3:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., Sunday, October 23, 2016
Location: Jewish mass grave site in Butrimonys, Lithuania
A March 31, 2016 picture shows the remains of the Temple of Bel’s “Cella” in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blown up by Islamic State jihadists. (AFP/Joseph Eid)
by Ilan Ben Zion
UN cultural body’s resolution on Jerusalem akin to jihadist group’s destruction of Palmyra, says Yisrael Hasson
The director of the Israel Antiquities Authority slammed UNESCO on Wednesday for its resolution on Jerusalem holy sites, comparing the UN cultural body to Islamic State jihadists.
Speaking at the opening of the new IAA headquarters in Jerusalem, director Yisrael Hasson said the resolution adopted last week and confirmed on Tuesday put the UN organization in the same league as ISIS jihadists who have destroyed and looted hundreds of archaeological sites in Syria and Iraq to fund their caliphate.
Mendel Deitsch is in serious but stable condition after a violent assault earlier this month.
Ukrainian police arrested four suspects, two of them minors, in connection with the brutal assault of Rabbi Mendel Deitsch in the Ukrainian town of Zhitomir earlier this month.
Deitsch, who serves as Chabad Lubavitch emissary to the former Soviet Union, remains in serious but stable condition at an Israeli hospital after a group robbed and beat him in the early hours of October 7.
According to reports in Ukrainian media, two males and two females from the Carpathian mountain region attacked Deitsch outside Zhitomir’s main train station, a chabad.org press release reported.
World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder has characterized a UNESCO resolution on Jerusalem as “anti-Semitism on steroids.”
The UNESCO resolution appears to deny Christian and Jewish ties to the city. Lithuania voted against.
Israel has frozen ties with the UN agency following the vote.
WJC president Lauder condemned the resolution on Jewish holy sites and called it shameful, but cautioned against taking the Palestinian-initiated resolution too seriously, since there is no argument about Jewish ties to Jewish holy sites in the city.
“What happened today in Paris is anti-Semitism on steroids. It is a total travesty and an insult to the Jewish people to pretend that the holy sites in Jerusalem are only Muslim sites, and to ignore the fact that Temple Mount was already the holiest place of Judaism well before the advent of Islam,” Lauder declared.
Baltic News Service reports Israel has frozen ties with UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, following the adoption of two resolutions on occupied East Jerusalem in the run-up to an important vote next week. In a letter to UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova, Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett accused the organization of ignoring millennia of Jewish ties to the holy city and of supporting terror in this manner. He added the Israeli National UNESCO Commission had been instructed to cut all ties with the international organization.
NGO Monitor, an organization which monitors the activities of anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian NGOs, issued a statement on related activities in the Security Council the day after UNESCO adopted the controversial resolution:
“NGO Monitor’s research has focused on the disproportionate political impact of Israeli NGOs and the role of funding provided by European governments. From this perspective, we note the debate over and political responses to the presentation by the director of B’Tselem [the pro-Palestinian Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories ] at a UN Security Council special session (convened by Egypt, Malaysia, Venezuela, Angola and Senegal) on Friday October 11. In this highly politicized statement, he implored the UN to take ‘decisive international action’ against Israel, and made no mention of Palestinian terror attacks or incitement. This event highlights the ways in which influential NGOs distort reality for ideological objectives and contribute to international political campaigns against Israel, under the façade of human rights, bypassing Israel’s internal democratic processes.”
The LJC and the EJF Mini-Limmud educational conference on Judaism will take place November 25 to 27, 2016, at the Trasalis resort and spa in Trakai near Vilnius, Lithuania. Participants must register between October 19 and 28. For more information contact Žana Skudovičienė, telephone +370 678 81514, email mini.limmud@gmail.com
Sukkah at Bagel Shop Café on central Pylimo street in Vilnius
Sukkot, the Jewish feast of tents which is often translated in English as the feast of tabernacles, begins on the evening of October 16 this year, or Tishrei 15 on the Jewish calendar. A booth is built for Sukkot called a sukkah where for seven days the family has dinner, children play and as much time as possible is spent. That’s how it works in warmer climates, and today there are sukkah houses outside homes across Israel. Many Jews build the shelters in their yards or even on apartment balconies.
Why spend time in temporary shelters? The answer comes from Leviticus (Vaikra) 23:42-43: “Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
It’s traditional to place the four species or arba minim in the tent or booth during the holiday. These are the etrog (a specific kind of citrus fruit), and branches from palm trees, willows and myrtle trees. Leviticus 23:40: “And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.” The branches and fronds are traditionally used to decorate the booths and waved during the holiday.
Jews often take their evening meal in the shelter and recall the flight of their people from Egypt. However you choose to celebrate the holiday, the Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes you and your family a happy Sukkot!
by Andres Spokoiny
We’re more affected by architecture than we might want to believe. The built environment conditions our thoughts and behaviors. Every building sends a message.
Totalitarian regimes know this well; they often have explicit architectural doctrines. Stalinist architecture favored monstrous, colorless buildings, exalting the collective over the individual. Creating monumental structures for Nazi rallies, Albert Speer evoked submission, aligning the crowd toward a single leader, rather than fostering talk among the people.
I have personal experience with totalitarian architecture. Argentinean juntas didn’t build huge buildings (mostly because they embezzled the money allocated for that), but they did renovate many Buenos Aires squares and parks. One of the most emblematic is Plaza Bernardo Houssay, tucked amid University of Buenos Aires buildings. The junta redesigned this space to make it impossible for students to stage demonstrations. The square was filled with irregular steps and levels. A water basin and a new church were built to leave no room for large crowds on the lawn. Beautiful art nouveau benches were replaced by uncomfortable concrete seats, placed so as not to face each other. Ancient jacaranda trees were uprooted, making it unappealing for students like me to fraternize under the baking sun. The traditional Spanish square, which serves as a focal point for diverse people to meet, chat, play dominoes, and philosophize, was no more.
The Jewish people is not particularly known for its architectural exploits. Our most important building in the world is a patched-up, badly eroded wall. Yes, there are great individual Jewish architects, but as a people, words are our forte — not bricks. As we celebrate Sukkot, however, suddenly Jews are forced to become architects. And it’s worth asking: if a building always sends a message, what does the sukkah tell us?
UNESCO, the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, gave preliminary approval to a resolution which denies Judaism’s two most holy religious sites, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, are Jewish in a 24-6 vote Thursday.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the vote stating: “The theater of the absurd continues at the UN.”
“Today UNESCO adopted its second decision this year denying the Jewish people’s connection to the Temple Mount, our holiest site for more than 3,000 years,” he said. “What’s next? A UNESCO decision denying the connection between peanut butter and jelly? Batman and Robin? Rock ‘n’ roll?”
Twenty-six nations abstained from the vote and two were absent.
The six countries who voted in support of Israel were Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United States. The resolution specifies Jerusalem is holy to three religions, but that the Temple Mount is exclusively a Muslim holy site.
Full story here.
On October 7 the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry’s representative in Kiev Ilya Bezrychko reported a Chabad rabbi in the western Ukrainian city of Zhitomir had been beaten severely. No motive for the attack is known.
Rabbi Mendel Deitsch, an emissary in France and Israel, was assaulted at the city’s central train station early Friday morning, October 7. Media reported that the rabbi remained in hospital after undergoing surgery.
NCSEJ pledged to monitor the situation and issue updates about any new developments in connection with the attack.
In the last several days work was completed in a month-long project to photographically document almost 6,000 headstones. “We are grateful to the Vytautas Magnus University community for this good-will contribution to restoring historical heritage in Kaunas. Eight students responded to our call and truly performed a great and significant deed. Each headstone was photographed from several angles so now we have several thousand photographs total. They will be included in a common data base which will serve in continuation of the project to restore the old Jewish cemetery. Additionally, a web page is being set up right now especially for this project where all the students’ work will be on display as well,: Kaunas city council member and project initiator professor Jonas Audėjaitis said.
The decision to inventory and identify the graves at the old Jewish cemetery in the Žaliakalnis neighborhood of Kaunas was made last fall. To do so comprehensively according to methods required, efforts to renovate the graveyard were undertaken first. The municipal enterprise Kapinių priežiūra [Cemetery Maintenance] removed brush and unwanted bushes, cut the grass, fixed up the fence and did other work urgently needing to be done, and the enterprise plans to continue fixing up the cemetery. Now video surveillance cameras have been placed around the perimeter of the location.
At the end of July there was a volunteer clean-up campaign. In order to revive the abandoned space and commemorate it, Kaunas city leaders and several dozen volunteers cleaned headstones and counted more than 5,800 graves. The decision was made not to move monuments knocked over by vandals at the present time.