Lithuanian Jewish Community

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

Molėtai Marks 80th Anniversary of Holocaust with Commemorative March, New Monument

The Lithuanian city of Molėtai, located about 60 miles north of the capital Vilnius, marked the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust on August 29. On that date in 1941 more than half the population of Molėtai, the local Jewish community, was murdered.

Five years ago a large Jewish commemorative march was held in Molėtai, attracting international attention. Tzvi Kritzer, the organizer of that event, was made an honorary citizen of Molėtai by the local municipality.

This year’s event began with the unveiling of a monument at the site where the town’s four synagogues once stood. The monument is a commemorative plaque affixed to a large field stone in the town center with a silhouette of the former synagogues and inscriptions in several languages saying this is where the synagogues once stood. Saulius Pilinkus, an art historian who was directing this event, called upon Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Molėtai regional administration mayor Saulius Jauneika, screenwriter and cartoonist Ilja Bereznickas and the creator of the plaque, Aurimas Širvys, to help in the unveiling.

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, administration mayor Saulius Jauneika and Molėtai Regional History Museum director Viktorija Kazlienė both said Molėtai is striving to restore historical memory.

2021-09-032021-10-01

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 7:47 P.M. on Friday, September 3, and concludes at 9:00 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2021-09-03

European Day of Jewish Culture Events Program

The Lithuanian Jewish Community again marks the European Day of Jewish Culture with a series of events on Jewish culture and the Litvak legacy to contributions to Lithuanian history and culture.

The theme this year is dialogue.

Please register, space is limited.

2021-09-02

Celebrating 100 Years since the Birth of Olga Aleksandrovna Šteinberg

Photo: Olga Šteinberg with Veronika Vitaitė, from Veronika Vitaitė’s collection

The Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater will mark the milestone 100th anniversary of the birth of pianist, professor and Lithuanian musical giant Olga Aleksandrovna Šteinberg at 6:00 P.M. on September 9 in the main hall there. The event was postponed from April 20 of last year due to health concerns. Her students will perform and share their memories and a film about her life will be shown.

Olga Šteinberg was born in Roston-on-Don on April 20, 1920. Her first teacher was her aunt Sara Kan, a concert pianist, who taught her at home. Her family moved to Odessa where she studied music at the school located inside Piotr Stoliarky’s home. Even then she performed with her future husband Shaya (Alexander) Livont. She began studies at the Odessa Conservatory in 1939 but when the war broke out she was forced to quit classes. She and her mother first fled to Udmurtia where she gained much work experience reading musical notation and working with artists at the Musical Comedy Theater in Izhevsk. Later she matriculated at the Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) Conservatory in 1942 under Heinrich Niehaux. From 1943 to 1947 she studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow under Yakav Zak, matriculating with a recommendation from Livont.

2021-09-01

September 1 Back to School Holiday

Dear children, parents and teachers,

Greetings on the September 1 holiday. We wish you perseverance is seeking the heights of learning while remaining endlessly creative.

No man on earth is truly free. All are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform. A man’s most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe. Question everything, learn something, answer nothing. Whoso neglects learning in his youth loses the past and is dead for the future.

–Euripides

2021-09-01

Condolences

In sadness we report the death of Righteous Gentile Morta Kalendraitė Jakutienė at the age of 97.

2021-08-31

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 8:04 P.M. on Friday, August 27, and concludes at 9:19 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2021-08-27

Vilnius City Council Says Palace of Sports Reconstruction Must Go On

Photo by Saulius Žiūra

In response to a Government decision not to go forward with plans to reconstruct the Palace of Sports in Vilnius, the Vilnius City Council adopted a resolution today [August 25] urging the Government and other state institutions to continue with the reconstruction project to build the Congress Center [convention center] meeting international standards and important to the nation as a whole.

Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius tabled the resolution and said: “It is very important for Vilnius that the central part of the city be vital, and the renovated facility would allow for exploiting the potential of conference tourism. There is a real lack of a conference center in Vilnius. Maybe the Government has a different vision, but I would highly urge to continue the project which the capital, business and all of Lithuania need.”

The city council pointed out the capital has set for itself the goal of building a conference venue in its general plan and other strategic documents which could appear following reconstruction of this protected building with unique architecture.

2021-08-272021-09-10

My Grandfather’s Crimes against Humanity

Photo: Courtesy Silvia Foti

A family memoir gets surprising reactions from Lithuanians, Russians and Jews.

by Silvia Foti, Aug. 25, 2021 6:14 P.M. ET, wsj.com

I grew up the proud granddaughter of a Lithuanian war hero who fought against Communists. My grandfather Jonas Noreika has a school and streets named after him. When my mother on her deathbed in 2000 asked me to write a story about her heroic father, I enthusiastically agreed.

Unfortunately, as I dug deeper I discovered to my horror that my grandfather was also a Holocaust perpetrator involved in murdering at least 8,000 Jews. On my story’s release, Russians wanted to use me, Lithuanians vilified me and Jews embraced me.

My grandfather wrote an order on August 22, 1941, to send thousands of Jews to a ghetto in Žagerė where they were slaughtered. My family story has brought this to the forefront, toppling Lithuania’s image as an innocent bystander in the Holocaust.

2021-08-26

Five Years On Molėtai Marches Again

Five years ago Marius Ivaškevičius wrote of the need to remember the exterminated Jewish community of Molėtai, a town about 60 miles north of Vilnius. His call to mobilize with a march through the town became the second-most popular item ever on this website (the most popular being a reprint of an article about the South African Jewish community which continues to attract hits years later). The march itself was a watershed moment in Lithuanian Holocaust consciousness, drawing ethnic Lithuanians from around the country and the world together with Lithuanian Jews and Jews from South Africa, Uruguay, Great Britain, the USA and other countries. Several thousand people turned up on the town square and listened to the different speeches before marching to the mass murder site across town there.

The march was covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Jerusalem Post and other publications.

The march is to be repeated this year. August 29 is the date all Jews from Molėtai were murdered. On that “Day of Wrath” they were marched under armed guard two kilometers from one of the synagogues to the killing ground.

2021-08-262021-09-03

A Lecture and a Prize

Jon Seligman of the Israeli Antiquities Authority delivered a lecture called “The Great Synagogue of Vilnius: Finds from the Past and a Vision of the Future” in the evening on August 24 in the Jascha Heifetz hall on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky made use of the occasion to present the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History commemorative medallion to Jon Seligman for his work keeping Litvak traditions, learning and the Litvak cultural legacy alive.

2021-08-26

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania