Lithuanian Jewish Community

Anniversary of Birth of Jewish Artist and Sculptor Antonietta Raphaël-Mafai

by Geršonas Taicas

This year marks 125 years since the birth in Lithuania of the famous artist and sculptor Antonietta Raphaël-Mafai. She was born in what is now the Kaunas neighborhood of Viljampolė, aka Slobodka, although the town didn’t extend that far then, to a large family. According to archival information the family had 12 children, although other sources say 14, but Antonietta was the only girl.

Her father Simon Rafael was a melamed, Hebrew for teacher, and he taught Hebrew and Jewish traditions at a heder, or primary school. Her mother Mariam was a seamstress and tailor. Simon died in 1903 and her mother took the remaining children to live in London in 1905.

2020-12-222021-01-09

Anne Frank Statue in Boise Vandalized with Swastika Stickers

Dozens of local business leaders signed on to a letter to Boise and Idaho’s political leaders decrying recent vandalism at the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial.

An unidentified person or group placed nine stickers on the memorial with a swastika and the words “we are everywhere” sometime between late December 7 and early December 8. The stickers were promptly removed and community members quickly showed up to place flowers, signs saying “love is everywhere” and other materials near the statue of Frank at the center of the memorial.

“This kind of attack has no place in our city and the message behind it has no place in our community. We are saddened, angered, and disgusted by the desecration, defamation and vandalism of the memorial,” the letter said.

Full article here.

2020-12-22

Bagel Shop Newsletter Returns

After a short break, the Bagel Shop Newsletter has returned with a new and much-anticipated end-of-2020 issue. The magazine has shifted to a newsprint folded edition, so the layout is slightly different from earlier issues. We hope you enjoy.

Beigelių krautuvėlė-EN-internet

2020-12-212021-01-11

Condolences

We are sad to report long-time community member Anatolijus Šeštokas passed away December 19. He was born in 1939. Together with the entire Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community we extend our deepest condolences to his widow Lidija.

2020-12-21

Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė Greets Lithuanian Jewish Community

2020-12-21

Sharing Memories of First Hanukkah Light

Today Hanukkah ends and the period in the run-up to the next holidays begins. We wanted to share some memories of the first light lit eight days ago and the light display at LJC headquarters at the former Tarbut Gymnasium in Vilnius.

2020-12-182020-12-18

Internet Conference from Panevėžys: Exalted Women of the Panevėžys Region

2020-12-182020-12-18

Condolences

With deep sadness we report the death on December 16 of Anatolij Iljin, a member of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community. He was born in 1952. We extend our sincere condolences to his wife Nina, his sons and his many loved ones.

2020-12-18

Secrets of Jewish Graves Deep Underground

by Artūras Jančys

Should we restore desecrated Jewish grave markers and set up meditation and commemoration spaces in Jewish cemeteries, or should we leave the dead in peace and leave everything as it was? There is still no one good answer to the these questions.

Several years ago the municipality of Kaunas took resolute steps to include old Jewish cemeteries in the general context of the historical heritage of Kaunas. Students from Vytautas Magnus University were organized and sent to make photographic records, recording almost 6,000 Jewish headstones on film.

Each gravestone was photographed from several different angles resulting in well over 10,000 individual photographs. They will be entered in a general database which will aid in the continuing project to restore Jewish graveyards. The students’ work will also be displayed on a special internet site created for that purpose.

“Traditions are a sacred thing, but even they change, and now there are even female rabbis,” Gercas Žakas, chairman of the Kaunas Jewish Community, said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2020-12-182021-01-08

With One Hand the State Comforts Jews, With the Other It Points Them to the Street

by Vytautas Bruveris, lrytas.lt

The country is marking the end of the ceremoniously declared Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History, while the Lithuanian Jewish Community is looking at its front door and thinking it might have to leave its home. Because disagreements with state institutions are driving the Community from its longtime building in the center of the Lithuanian capital, located near the remains of Jewish Vilna and the city’s working synagogue.

Bailiffs and bricklayers in broad daylight have walled off one of the corridors in the building housing the LJC. This is the grotesque turn of events these days resulting from continuing disagreements between the LJC and the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum along with the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. And even before this there were also episodes which seem rather odd, for example, letters from the museum to the members of the executive board of the LJC with accusations against the latter’s leadership, attempting to put political pressure directly upon the ethnic community/

With the new wall built, the LJC is now deciding on its future course: whether to dive headlong into legal battles, or simply pack its bags and hit the street. So why is all this happening? Because of disputes on how to share the courtyard which both the museum and the LJC, housed in the same building, claim. Instead of trying to act as moderator and as a moderating force, the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture has done the opposite. The neighbors are there next to each other, but separate.

2020-12-182021-01-05

Cheap LEDs Can Disinfect COVID-19, Israeli Scientists Find

Photo: UV disinfection being used to clean a laboratory (LeafenLin via iStock by Getty Images)

Tel Aviv University team behind discovery is working on self-cleaning surfaces, including laptop keyboard that kill germs with ultraviolet light every time lid is closed

by Nathan Jeffay

Israeli researchers have found a way to significantly cut the cost of COVID-19-killing ultraviolet lights, and they are working on LED-embedded surfaces that clean themselves.

“We have discovered that it’s easier than previously imagined to disinfect from corona virus using light, and we are already working on exciting applications for our findings,” Hadas Mamane, head of Tel Aviv University’s Environmental Engineering Program, told the Times of Israel.

As the world struggles to disinfect surfaces and public places, there is growing interest in the use of ultraviolet light, which has long had uses in fighting bacteria and viruses. It is not yet widespread in the corona virus fight, but has been deployed, including in transportation via light-emitting robots.

Mamane’s team has made a breakthrough it hopes will expedite its roll-out, namely finding that the desired effect can be achieved with higher-wavelength, or “less energetic” LEDs than previously believed.

Full story here.

2020-12-172020-12-17

AEPJ Wishes You Hag Hanukkah Sameach

Hag Hanukkah Sameach!

On behalf of all the members of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage, the AEPJ, we would like to send you our deepest wishes for joy, happiness and health on this Hanukkah 5781.

Chanukah Illuminates the Jewish Heritage of the Mediterranean

2020-12-172020-12-21

EJC President calls EU Court of Justice Ruling “Heavy Blow to Jewish Life in Europe”

Thursday, December 17, 2020–European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor has slammed a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which allows member states to require stunning before religious slaughter of animals for meat as a fundamental attack on the basic rights of Jewish religious expression and practice.

The Court was responding to the question on a preliminary ruling by the Belgian regions of Flanders and Wallonia (and, by extension, other European authorities) to make an EU-law based religious slaughter exception meaningless by banning religious slaughter.

“The right to practice our faith and customs, one which we have been assured over many years was granted under European law, has been severely undermined by this decision,” president Kantor said.

2020-12-172020-12-17

Hanukkah Greetings from Israeli President Reuven Rivlin

Happy Chanukah to all of you in Israel and around the world.

At Chanukah, we celebrate the victory of the Maccabees.

We remember the miracles of that time. We come together as a family and we light together the Menorah. We sing together Maoz Tzur (מַעוֹז צוּר). Each verse reminds us of the enemies our people has faced, over our long history, and our strength as a community as a people. I have celebrated many Chanukhas and I remember nearly all of them; I love all of them; but this Chanukah is for sure a little different.

This has been a year with all kinds of challenges we have all been dealing with the corona virus pandemic. We have lost loved ones; our schools, synagogues, and community centers have been closed; and we still face great uncertainty about the future. The virus has forced us to stay apart, although in our hearts we feel closer than ever.

Chanukah shows us that united we stand together, we are strong.

May the lights of Chanuka give us all strength and bring light to all Jewish people, wherever they are.

Happy Chanukah and Shalom from Jerusalem.

2020-12-152020-12-22

Faina Kukliansky on the Death of Irena Veisaitė: Holy People Go During the Holy Days

December 11, BNS–Intellectual, theater expert, literary expert and human rights activist Irena Veisaitė who passed away December 11 was an exceptionally good person and didn’t feel anger despite many tragic life events, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told BNS.

“This is a great loss for us. What can you do, people die and let them rest in peace. They say holy people die during the holy days. She died during Hanukkah,” Kukliansky said.

She remembered Veisaitė as an active community member who taught goodness, forgiveness and understanding through the life she lived and in her daily activities.

“This was a unique person who spent half her life in a Jewish family, lived some portion of her life with a family of non-Jewish rescuers and acquired a very varied experience of life, her mother’s death, the goodness of rescuers, she spent some of her life in occupied Kaunas and was sent to Siberia with her rescuers. And despite all these hardships in life, all these problems and losses, she remained very much a person of goodwill. Not just that she was moral and wished everyone well, you’ll almost never hear an ill word about her. Life did not make her angry,” Kukliansky recalled.

2020-12-142020-12-30

EJC Welcomes Establishment of Full Ties between Israel and Morocco

Brussels, December 11, 2020–The European Jewish Congress has welcomed and lauded the reestablishment of full diplomatic ties and warm relations between the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco.

“This is an important day, especially given the long ties between Morocco and the Jewish people,” Dr. Moshe Kantor, president of the EJC, said. “Morocco has always been very proud of its Jewish heritage and community and this is a natural step. This historic occasion may prove to be an extremely important development in future relations between Muslim and Jewish communities of Moroccan descent in Europe and around the world.”

“We would like to congratulate president Donald Trump, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and king Mohammed VI on this bold move. We hope all the nations of the region will join hands in tolerance and reconciliation and join the circle of peace which is ever expanding.”

Morocco became the fourth Arab state to normalize ties with Israel in recent months following the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.

2020-12-11

Condolences

Irena Veisaitė passed away December 11 in hospital following a struggle with respiratory infection. She was born in 1928 in Kaunas. Our deepest condolences to her friends and loved ones.

2020-12-112020-12-11

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania