Lithuanian Jewish Community

Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium Principal Ruth Reches Greets Teachers, Students and Parents for New School Year

This school year is a challenge for all of us. I have been asking myself why I as the new principal am always facing unexpected obstacles which have to be overcome. But this is more of a rhetorical question, because I feel new challenges are interesting. They aren’t frightening because I see I have not been left on my own to overcome them. ALL school staff are working to insure the school year begins smoothly.

The members of our collective stay at school into the late evening, come to work on Saturday and solve work questions by telephone and on vacation, and late into the night without being asked. Just because they care. I feel very strong support with this team in place and I know we will all lead the school forward together no matter how the situation changes.

Thinking about the public tension the corona virus has caused, the lack of clarity on how the education process will take place if there is a second wave of the virus which might cost lives, I remember the book by the renowned thinker, humanitarian and psychotherapist Viktor Frankl describing his experiences during the Holocaust. Frankl was a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna in Austria as well as a practitioner and world-class thinker. In describing his experiences, he also pointed to significant things which helped him survive.

2020-09-012020-09-10

AJC Tells Lithuanian Government: This Hypocrisy Must End

by Vytautas Bruveris

Back to the drawing board: Lithuania again has become the target of a wave of international criticism because of the country’s relationship with the Holocaust. This time, because of the appointment of publicist and public activist Vidmantas Valiušaitis to the leadership of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania [Genocide Center].

The country’s Jewish community as well as an influential international organization, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), reacted sharply to this announcement. Leaders at the AJC even called the Lithuanian Government’s actions in the area of Litvak history and Holocaust commemoration hypocritical.

At the same time the Genocide Center is getting an ever darker reputation in the international area, that of an ideological right-wing nationalist bunker rather than an authoritative and academically objective institution.

2020-08-312020-09-08

The Metamorphoses of Adas Jakubauskas

by professor Pinchos Fridberg, Vilnius

Is ethnicity important in Lithuania today? Here’s why I ask.

In Place of a Foreword

I follow almost all material in the Lithuanian media on the topic of the Holocaust in Lithuania. I make copies of the most interesting, and to avoid misquotes I save it. I have over ten thousand such items saved.

Below I present some “unique” screen captures which would have remained in my archive alone if the Lithuanian Jewish Community hadn’t published the following article:

Lithuanian Jewish Community Concerned by Vidmantas Valiušaitis’s Appointment as Senior Advisor of Genocide Center

2020-08-272020-08-27

Valiušaitis’s Appointment Worries Historians and Jewish Community

Photo: honoring victims of Soviet-era occupation, genocide and repression. Photo courtesy J. Stacevičius/LRT.

by Modesta Gaučaitė, LRT.lt

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and historians are raising questions about Vidmantas Valiušaitis’s new appointment as an advisor at the Center for the Study of the Resistance and Genocide of Residents of Lithuania [Genocide Center]. Valiušaitis says he won’t try to vindicate himself because he says his work speaks for itself.

New Genocide Center director Adas Jakubauskas took over two months ago and began assembling his team. Besides a deputy director, Jakubauskas also appointed two advisors, one them being Vidmantas Valiušaitis, a long-time journalist, publicist, author of books, for several years the director of the Laisvoji Banga radio station and who in 2017 began working as a methodologist and researcher at the Documentary Heritage Research Department of the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library.

His new appointment has caused dissatisfaction on the part of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and has raised questions for historians.

2020-08-272020-08-27

WJC President Laments UN Security Council Failure to Extend Arms Embargo on Iran

NEW YORK–World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder lamented the lack of support by members of the United Nations Security Council for renewal of sanctions on Iran.

In support of recent attempts by the United States to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran and after a resolution to extend an arms embargo on Iran did not pass in the UN Security Council on August 14, 2020, Lauder said:

“I am surprised and disappointed that members of the United Nations Security Council, including Germany, the United Kingdom and France, are willing to enable the sale of weapons to a regime that declares as its aim the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. On October 18, Iran will once again be free to acquire arms, as the embargo that has been in place for over 10 years will come to an end. The many countries that Iran has terrorized, destabilized, and threatened, and the hundreds of Jewish communities worldwide who fear attacks by Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah, will be ever more vulnerable.

“Moreover, the UN Security Council is unwilling to reimpose sanctions on Iran despite numerous recorded violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. What is happening now is what we feared would happen: Iran is closer to having more weapons than it was before the deal, and it continues its deadly accrual of weapons, support of terrorism, and destabilization efforts across the Middle East, while the UN Security Council stands by a deal that Iran itself has ceased to adhere to. This is a failure of the international community in its quest for peace and security. I call on the UN Security Council to take immediate action to ensure Iran is unable to acquire conventional weapons.”

About the World Jewish Congress

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) is the international organization representing Jewish communities in 100 countries to governments, parliaments and international organizations.

2020-08-26

Simnas Celebrates Title of Tiny Capital of Lithuanian Culture for 2020

On August 23 the largest event so far this year took place in Simnas, Lithuania: the Simnas church celebrated its 500th anniversary and the town of Simnas celebrated its recognition as the Tiny Capital of Lithuanian Culture for 2020.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and Catholic cardinal Sigitas Tamkevičiusattended events there, which included a book launch, consecration of a new cross at the church, Catholic Mass, a performance by opera singer Rasa Juzukonytė and a performance by the Lithuanian Ground Forces orchestra. A procession left the church for the town square where the formal opening ceremony of the event took place only then. There followed vocal and instrumental concerts and a fair featuring religious items, folk art and crafts.

A synagogue in Simnas has been restored and renovated. It was built in 1905. There was a school on the second floor and the prayer hall was arranged so worshipers prayed facing in the direction of Jerusalem. A Soviet palace of culture operated there after World War II, followed by an athletics hall. Consideration is on-going on how to utilize the synagogue space.

2020-08-252020-08-31

Bid for Righteous Gentile Monument Announced

A public tender has been announced for a conceptual sculptural and architectural project to erect a monument to Lithuanian residents who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

The Vilnius city municipality and the Lithuanian Culture Ministry said the project is to be guided by principles of historical justice for honoring, commemorating and recalling at a national and international level Lithuanian residents who saved Jews during the Nazi occupation, for creating a respectful and socially effective solution in continuance of traditions of respecting the Jewish people, for representing appropriately the content and foundation of the site commemorating Righteous Gentiles, and for contributing to the education of the general public regarding history and the world.

Criteria for judging projects submitted include context, social efficacy, aesthetics, the quality of the space created, cost and financial soundness. The site selected for the monument is on Ona Šimaitė street near Maironis street in Vilnius where a commemorative stele stands announcing this as the location for a future monument to Righteous Gentiles, those who rescued Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

2020-08-252020-09-03

Field Trip to Alytus and Merkinė

Over a weekend in mid-August the Kaunas Jewish Community sponsored a field trip for its members to the town of Merkinė and the city of Alytus, the capital of the Lithuanian ethnographic region of Dzūkija in the southeast quarter of Lithuania.

Teacher and friend of the Community Meilė Platūkienė provided the travellers a tour of Alytus, including sites witnessing to the once-large Jewish community there. They took in the balconies of the former Singer family home there, entrance lions there, former movie theaters in the city and on Beiralas hill the restored synagogue and cemetery (the headstones have long since disappeared and the cemetery plot is only marked with an information stand). The tour also visited what is, sadly, a feature of every Lithuanian city, town and village: a Jewish mass murder site in the surrounding forest.

Travelling on to Merkinė, Merkinė Regional History Museum director Mindaugas Černiauskas provided a guided tour of the small but interesting museum collection and the history of the town, which included members of royal families and the once-large Jewish community there. A visit to the local manor estate featured a meeting with celebrity chef Vytaras Radzevičius who operates an eatery there and who entertained the travellers with his cooking, wit and energy.

2020-08-24

Lithuanian Jewish Community Concerned by Vidmantas Valiušaitis’s Appointment as Senior Advisor of Genocide Center

According to the official website of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuanian (Genocide Center), the person occupying the post of senior advisor to the general director of the Genocide Center performs the following functions:

“…provides consultation on the physical and spiritual genocide of residents of Lithuania carried out by the occupational regimes between 1939 and 1990 as well as resistance to these regimes, and issues surrounding the processes of resistance to and the policies carried out by the occupational regime in the Vilnius district between 1920 and 1938, and consults on issues involving the direction of the Genocide Center’s research and programs regarding the genocide of residents of Lithuania and their resistance to the occupational regimes from 1939 to 1990” (source: http://genocid.lt/UserFiles/File/Pareiginiai/Direkcija/Vidmantas_Valiusaitis.pdf).

We would like to point out that in several recent publications Vidmantas Valiušaitis intentionally distorted the facts and publicized these falsehoods concerning the anti-Semitic activities of the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Lithuanian Provisional Government of 1941. Moreover, Vidmantas Valiušaitis basically denied the conclusions arrived at by the International Commission for Assessing the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Regimes in Lithuania regarding the clearly anti-Semitic views and actions of these organizations and their leadership directed against the Jews of Lithuania.

2020-08-212020-09-09

Condolences

Naum Dvorkin passed away August 17. He was born in 1940. Our deepest condolences to his wife Jelena and son Eduardas.

2020-08-18

Congratulations to Kaunas Jewish Community Chairman Gercas Žakas on Unanimous Re-Election

On July 29 the Kaunas Jewish Community held their reporting and elections conference. Despite summer vacations and renewed fears of the corona virus, a large contingent of members of the Kaunas Jewish Community turned out to express their will. Many who weren’t able to come authorized family members or friends to vote for them. Gercas Žakas gave a positive assessment of his activity to date in the post of chairman and was re-elected unanimously with just under 200 votes.

2020-08-122020-08-25

Tomas Venclova: Conscience is Greater Than Independence

by Gabija Strumylaitė, 15min.lt

After spending forty years in exile, the professor returned to Vilnius in 2018; here he actively participates in Lithuanian cultural life and courageously expresses his opinion on topics important to the country and the world. The website 15min.lt spoke with Tomas Venclova about the meaning of independence, principles of liberalism, historical memory, ethnic minorities and other issues.

This year has also been named the Year of the Vilna Gaon and of Litvak History. What do you think, do Lithuanians understand and appreciate sufficiently the Jewish legacy? What should we be doing to honor these people? Do we need, for example, to rebuild the Great Synagogue, or establish a modern museum of Jewish history?

In this regard I think we are doing better compared to the situation over ten years ago, never mind earlier periods. I’m not just thinking about Jewish affairs, but those of other ethnic minorities as well: Poles, Russians, Belarussians, Karaïtes, Tartars.

There is a large amount of latent distrust of minorities in Lithuania overall. I will mention another minority about which there has been a lot of concern lately: the Roma. The great majority of the Lithuanian public are prejudiced against them, and this is senseless and unnecessary, and needs to be corrected.

2020-08-11

Lauder on Leadership: You Have to Stand Up and Fight Every Single Day

If ever there were a Jewish leader who puts his money where his mouth is, it is Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress and arguably the de facto leader of the Jewish world.

Thanks to him, thousands upon thousands of Jewish children in central and eastern Europe have received an education; the fight against continued and renewed antisemitism remains front and centre of the Jewish world’s priorities; enormous amounts of art, once looted by the Nazis, have been returned to many heirs of Jewish victims of the Holocaust; and funding has been put in place for both maintenance of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, and the proposed memorial to the dead at Babi Yar, the site of the notorious 1941 massacre of almost 34,000 Jews in Ukraine.

And yet, as Lauder, in his trademark New York growl, tells it, it could all have been so different. “What would have happened to me,” he wonders, “if I had not gone to Vienna?”

Full interview here.

2020-08-07

Dutch Government Halts Funds to Terror-Linked NGO

As a direct result of NGO Monitor research, the Dutch government froze €8 million in funding over three years to the Palestinian NGO Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC). The Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Development announced an external investigation into UAWC’s ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group responsible for terror attacks since the 1960s.

Our research shows that since 2013, UAWC has received nearly $20 million from the Netherlands. During the past year, NGO Monitor researched and published its findings in a detailed report, briefed officials, and wrote a number of open letters to Dutch officials on this issue. The evidence we provided led to a number of parliamentary questions that triggered the announcement. This follows significant developments with the EU, including BADIL’s refusal to sign an EU contract with an anti-terror clause.

NGO Monitor welcomes the Dutch decision and urges officials to implement strict guidelines to prevent future misuse of public money. NGO Monitor, in partnership with groups such as UKLFI and CIDI, will continue to hold governments accountable for their NGO funding.

Read our research cited in the Jerusalem Post.

2020-08-072020-08-07

Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club Invites Members to Mini-Maccabiah

Dear members of the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club,

We will hold a mini-Maccabiah to commemorate the Year of the Vilna Gaon and the 30th anniversary of Lithuanian Makabi between 11:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. on Sunday, August 30, at the Tauras School of Athletics located at Žygio street no. 46 in Vilnius. Your local teams are invited to participate in the following competitions:

1. Indoor soccer (7 players plus trainer)
2. Basketball (5 players and a trainer)
3. Volleyball (8 players plus trainer)
4. Ping-pong (men’s, women’s)
5. Badminton (men’s, women’s)
6. Swimming (men’s, women’s)
7. Chess (men’s, women’s)

Our school has good soccer players and we encourage children who play soccer or who are interested in it to register as soon as possible. Our gymnasium’s soccer team might get new uniforms as well. Makabi is preparing a surprise here.

Rules and regulations will be determined when the exact number of teams and players becomes clear. Please contact tautvilija@gamail.com or call 865746071 to register and for more information.

Also, the Makabi Club is holding our annual fun-run starting in Vingio park in Vilnius on Saturday, September 5, so stay tuned for the exact schedule for that.

2020-08-07

WJC Applauds Facebook Banning M’Bala for Anti-Semitism

NEW YORK–The World Jewish Congress (WJC) welcomes Facebook’s decision to ban Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, a French extreme political activist notorious for spreading anti-Semitic hate speech, Holocaust denial and violent ideology. Facebook informed the WJC of its decision to ban Dieudonné from Facebook and Instagram. Dieudonné has been condemned by French courts on several occasions and again recently for negationist and ant-Semitic statements. Previously YouTube removed a channel linked to Dieudonné.

WJC president Ronald S. Lauder said, “The World Jewish Congress has been on the forefront of urging social media platforms to exercise their authority to block those who disseminate anti-Semitic hate, including Dieudonné. Dieudonné has been using social media to do harm for far too long. Freedom of expression by no means gives anyone the right to incite hatred and anti-Semitism, online or anywhere else.

“While we welcome Facebook’s actions, Dieudonné is just one notorious case among many others. Countless others continue to spread hate and antisemitism on social media platforms. The World Jewish Congress urges Facebook and other platforms to prioritize banning those who spew dangerous anti-Semitic rhetoric. Our safety and future is dependent upon social media companies taking this hate seriously.”

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About the World Jewish Congress

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) is the international organization representing Jewish communities in 100 countries to governments, parliaments and international organizations.

2020-08-072020-08-07

Evening of Poetry and Music with Sergei Kanovich and Boris Kizner

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to a attend an evening of poetry and music with writer Sergei Kanovich and violinist Boris Kizner at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius. Sergei Kanovich will read passages from his poems and prose and Boris Kizner will perform works from his repertoire on violin. It begins at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, August 11, at the Choral Synagogue located at Pylimo street no. 39 in Vilnius. Entry is free to the public and no RSVP is required. Visitors will be required to wear face masks and the event will be filmed.

2020-08-052020-08-05

LJC Member Leonidas Melnikas Interviewed

The Catholic newspaper and website Bernardinai has published an interview with long-time Lithuanian Jewish Community member and pinaist professor Leonidas Melnikas as part of a series of articles and interview about ethnic minorities in Lithuania partially financed by Lithuania’s Department of Ethnic Minorities.

“In childhood when we used to visit homes as guests and we didn’t find a piano in a home, that was strange to me, how people could live without a musical instrument. In general at the time the profession of musician was highly esteemed, and musicians were a bit freer than people in other professions. If you’re playing Bach, Mozart and Beethoven all the time, no one can complain about your politics, only about your music.

“From the very first grade I attended the Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis School of Art in Vilnius. It was my parents’ joy I did music, and their encouragement helped me overcome the initial barriers, but later some inertia came up, it came up in the 8th grade which was competitive, and they had to chose who stayed and who would pursue something else. I stayed. There weren’t many people in my class, we graduated, it seems, eleven of us, so the relationship between student and teacher was very familiar and friendly, there was a lot of attention. We studied a somewhat different curriculum than they did at other schools, we studied musical things from the first grade and they kept increasing, and in the 10th grade we completed general education disciplines–chemistry, physics, mathematics–and in the 11th grade we only had social and humanitarian topics left, and music of course.”

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2020-08-052020-08-05

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania

Lithuanian Jewish Community Statement on Genocide Center’s Newest Report on Kazys Škirpa

Ambassadors Ask Lithuanian PM for Police Response to Growing Anti-Semitism

New Publication of Shur’s Entries: A Chronicle of the Vilna Ghetto, 1941-1944

A Physicist of Whom Lithuania Can Be Proud

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania

Lithuanian Jewish Community Statement on Genocide Center’s Newest Report on Kazys Škirpa

Ambassadors Ask Lithuanian PM for Police Response to Growing Anti-Semitism

New Publication of Shur’s Entries: A Chronicle of the Vilna Ghetto, 1941-1944

A Physicist of Whom Lithuania Can Be Proud

Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium Principal Ruth Reches Greets Teachers, Students and Parents for New School Year

AJC Tells Lithuanian Government: This Hypocrisy Must End

The Metamorphoses of Adas Jakubauskas

Valiušaitis’s Appointment Worries Historians and Jewish Community

WJC President Laments UN Security Council Failure to Extend Arms Embargo on Iran

Simnas Celebrates Title of Tiny Capital of Lithuanian Culture for 2020

Bid for Righteous Gentile Monument Announced

Field Trip to Alytus and Merkinė

Lithuanian Jewish Community Concerned by Vidmantas Valiušaitis’s Appointment as Senior Advisor of Genocide Center

Condolences

Congratulations to Kaunas Jewish Community Chairman Gercas Žakas on Unanimous Re-Election

Tomas Venclova: Conscience is Greater Than Independence

Lauder on Leadership: You Have to Stand Up and Fight Every Single Day

Dutch Government Halts Funds to Terror-Linked NGO

Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club Invites Members to Mini-Maccabiah

WJC Applauds Facebook Banning M’Bala for Anti-Semitism

Evening of Poetry and Music with Sergei Kanovich and Boris Kizner

LJC Member Leonidas Melnikas Interviewed