Lithuanian Jewish Community

Courage of Rescuers Lesson to Us All

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda held the annual ceremony at the President’s Office September 14 to award rescuers of Jews from the Holocaust and their descendants the Lithuanian Order of the Life-Saver’s Cross.

“Every September as we mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, we pay respect to memory of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens murdered during World War II. We also honor the rescuers of Jews, those people who dared oppose the occupational regime without regard to the mortal danger this posed to them and their families,” he said at the ceremony.

The Lithuanian president recalled the historical context in which these rescuers operated, with anti-Semitism dripping from the pages of the press, the mass murder of Jews underway. Despite this, they dared hide the condemned Jews and resist the occupational regime.

2021-09-142021-09-14

Pope Francis Expresses Shame over Slovakian Holocaust Victims

Photo: The Pope’s visit to Slovakia and meeting with members of the Jewish community was called historic.

“Here, in this place, the name of God was dishonored,” Pope Francis said at a Holocaust memorial in Bratislava. During World War II Slovakia was governed by a Nazi puppet regime headed by Catholic priest Jozef Tiso.

Pope Francis paid tribute on Monday to the thousands of Slovak Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

The comments came during the pontiff’s official visit to Slovakia against the backdrop of accusations around the Catholic Church’s role in Holocaust atrocities in Slovakia.

What did the pope say?

Speaking at a former Jewish neighborhood in the capital Bratislava, Pope Francis sharply criticized “the frenzy of hatred” in World War II and continuing anti-Semitism.

Full story here.

2021-09-142021-09-14

Lithuanian Makabi Invites Students, Parents, Friends to Fun Run

The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club has been holding so-called fun runs for several years now and the non-competitive jogging events have caught on around the world as well. This year Makabi is holding a charity fun run with entrance fees going to support Makabi activities. The real point, however, is to get together, play together, listen to some music and exert our bodies. This is more important than it might sound in keeping the small Lithuanian Jewish Community together.

Time and place: the run will start at 11:00 A.M. on September 19 at Vingio park in Vilnius, with the starting place next to the stage there.

Participants

All runners from the Lithuanian Jewish Community and people who support the Makabi organization are invited to participate. Each runner may choose whether to run the 1.5 or 3 km course. To participate, you only need to fill out the registration form. Every person participates of their own free will, without any compulsion, and accepts full responsibility for any risk associated with the run (including different health problems). You may register for the fun run in your name only.

Registration

2021-09-14

Holocaust Commemoration in Krakės in Central Lithuania

Krakės, a small town in the Kėdainiai district in central Lithuania, marked the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Holocaust there on September 2. On that date in 1941 about 1,125 Jews from Krakės and the surrounding settlements Gudžiūnai, Pociūnėliai, Baisiogala, Grinkiškis and Dotnuva were murdered at Peštiniukai village near Krakės.

The commemoration included a march with local high school students and the reading of the names of the victims at the mass murder and mas grave site in Peštiniukai village.

2021-09-132021-09-29

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 7:30 P.M. on Friday, September 10, and concludes at 8:41 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2021-09-10

Concerts Celebrate Litvak and Israeli Composers

Vilnius’s St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra has concerts scheduled for September 16 at St. Kortyna’s Church in Vilnius, September 17 at the renovated synagogue in Žiežmariai and September 18 at the Red Synagogue in Joniškis to showcase the music of Litvak and modern Israeli composers and their ties with Lithuania.

More information in Lithuanian available here.

2021-09-10

Šiauliai Jewish Community to Commemorate Holocaust Victims at Vilkiaušis Forest

The Šiauliai Jewish Community has announced a program of Holocaust commemoration events scheduled for Sunday, September 12, beginning with a procession from the parking lot next to the Vilkiaušis Forest.

Program:

11:00 A.M. Meet at the parking lot next to Vilkiaušis Forest. Procession to the Jewish genocide site in the Vilkiaušis Forest. Ceremony to honor the victims.

12:30 P.M. Leave for Žagarė. Commemoration on market square.

2:00 P.M. Procession to Naryškinas Park.

4:00 P.M. Ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Jewish genocide in Lithuania.

4:20 P.M. Leave for Jewish cemetery in Žagarė.

5:00 P.M. Rafailas Karpis and Darius Mažintas’s artistic program “Kaddish for the Dead” at Jaunimo street no. 1 in Žagarė.

2021-09-10

Alytus Marks 80th Anniversary of Onset of Holocaust

Wednesday the city of Alytus south of Vilnius marked the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust with a procession before noon from the Old Town to a mass murder site in the Vidzgirdas Forest.

A commemoration ceremony was held at the memorial at the Holocaust site.

Jewish community members from Kaunas and Vilnius, Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, MPs, local government officials, foreign ambassadors, students from schools in the area and local residents participated.

Following the ceremony the renovated synagogue building on Kauno street was opened as the new home of the Alytus Audio-Visual Arts Center with a concert by Rakija Klezmer Orkestar.

2021-09-10

Concert to Commemorate Holocaust Victims and Vilnius Ghetto Liquidation

I am very glad that Litvak Leopold Godowsky’s sonnets 1 and 2 will reach the wider world. I would like to inform you my concert on September 23 at the Gaveau in Paris will be dedicated to Holocaust victims and to the date September 23, 1943, the date of the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto. Please find the program attached.

Sincerely yours,
Mūza Rubackytė

2021-09-10

Grave Robbers Hit Old Jewish Cemetery in Kaunas

September 9, 2021

Unknown criminals desecrated the old Jewish cemetery on the Radvilėnai highway in Kaunas, exhuming at least three graves in what might have been an attempt steal valuables from the dead.

The Kaunas municipal agency charged with maintaining cemeteries noticed the disturbed graves Thursday morning while clearing tree branches at the site.

The three graves well all adjacent to one another in the southern section of the cemetery near the fence. Maintenance personnel found several pits which seemed to be dug towards the upper body section of the corpses. The pits were about a half meter deep and were partially filled in.

2021-09-102021-11-08

Holocaust Mass Murder Memorial Vandalized

While Lithuanians and Litvaks spent much of June, July, August and now September of this year marking the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust in locations around the country, vandals attacked a Holocaust memorial in the Kretinga region for the second time in two years.

The memorial marks the spot where about 700 local Jews were murdered in 1941. Kretinga alderwoman Sigita Riepšaitė said the monument was first attacked two years ago just four months after it was erected, and that the cost of repairs was roughly half the total cost for the monument to begin with, which was around 900 euros.

Lithuania’s LNK News reported the alderwoman had made a police report regarding the metal plaque attached to a large stone at Kviečiai village in the Girėlė Forest. Riepšaitė said the police were taking the report seriously at least partially because this is a repeat crime.

2021-09-092021-11-18

Rosh Hashanah Greetings

2021-09-092021-09-09

Lithuanian Makabi Competes at Makkabi Deutschland 2021

The German Makkabi Games 2021 took place in Dusseldorf from September 2 to 5 and athletes from the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club took part. Over 600 athletes were there to compete from Germany, Lithuania, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland and other countries.

All six of our Lithuanian makabites earned medals. Danielius Dubrovinas took first prize in rapid chess matches. Our youngest athlete, 12-year-old Danielius Šeras, took first place in matches in the under-14 category and came in at fifth place in the entire fast chess category. Danielius Šeras earned third place in the overall category in the “lightning round.”

Swimmer Virginija Valadkaitė takes home three gold medals in three distance competitions.

2021-09-072021-09-07

Remembering the Mass Murder in Pivonija Forest

The traditional commemoration of Holocaust victims took place on the first Sunday in September in the Pivonija Forest outside Ukmergė (Vilkomir). This is the third-largest mass murder site in Lithuania. Members of the Lithuanian, Kaunas and Ukmergė Jewish Communities took part as did representatives of the International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania, various Tolerance Centers around the country and representatives of the Road of Memory 1941-2021 commemoration project. A large group travelled from Vilnius for the event, including Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yossef Avni-Levy, US ambassador to Lithuania Robert Gilchrist, German embassy cultural attaché Anja Luther, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, members of Lithuanian parliament Viktoras Pranckietis, Juozas Varžgalys and Emanuelis Zingeris and Ukmergė regional administration mayor Rolandas Janickas

2021-09-07

New Jewish Calendar Available

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is happy to announce our annual Jewish calendar has been printed and is ready for distribution. This year’s calendar, for the year 5782, features the communities and people who lived in Lithuania before the Holocaust, with period photography from shtetls across the country. The format this year is smaller and hopefully more convenient and functional but contains the features from past years, including local times for Sabbath, fasts and holidays. It will be made available to the public starting Thursday, September 9, at the Bagel Shop Café.

2021-09-07

2021-09-06

Rosh Hashanah at the Choral Synagogue

Rosh Hashanah at the Choral Synagogue, Pylimo street no. 39, Vilnius

Monday, September 6

7:00 P.M. Mincha/maariv, holiday prayers, kiddush, buffet

Tuesday, September 7

10:00 A.M. Shacharit morning prayer
12:00 noon Blowing of shofar horn, new Jewish calendar for 5782 presented
12:30 P.M. Musaf prayer
2:00 P.M. Mincha
5:00 P.M. Tashlich (prayer by river at Bokšto street no. 19, Vilnius)

6:30 P.M. Rosh Hashanah celebration (Choral Synagogue):

–blowing shofar horn
–distribution of new Jewish calendar for 5782
–holiday treats

8:51 P.M. Maariv prayer

Wednesday, September 8

10:00 A.M. Shacharit morning prayer
12:00 noon Blowing of shofar horn
2:00 P.M. Mincha
6:30 P.M. Blowing of shofar horn

2021-09-06

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania