Wooden Synagogue in Alanta Renovated
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LJC, International Comminission and Olga Lengyel Institute Holding Holocaust Seminars for Teachers
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LJC Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky Speaks at Commemoration of Grosse
Aktion in Kaunas
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Šiauliai Opens Righteous Gentile Square at the Intersection of Vilniaus and Ežero Streets at Former Ghetto Gates
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"Symphony from Jerusalem of the North” Mark Day of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide in Presidential Courtyard
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The renovated synagogue in Žiežmariai will become a new cultural center. The first synagogue in appeared sometime between 1690 and 1696. In the 19th century there three synagogues. Not surprising, since the majority of the population were Jewish. This synagogue which has survived and has now been renovated stands in the southern part of town between Vilniaus and Žalgirio streets, with the Strėva river flowing from southeastward from there.
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The Lithuanian Post Office has issued a stamp commemorating 300 years since the birth of the Vilna Gaon
The Lithuanian Post Office has issued a stamp commemorating 300 years since the birth of the Vilna Gaon
with a face value of 0.81 euros, enough to mail letters abroad.
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Lithuania Marks 300th Anniversary of Birth of Vilna Gaon, 2020 Named Year of the Gaon and Litvak History.
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Most important events at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in 2018
Most important events at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in 2018
Revival of Jewish Scouting in Lithuania: The first new Litvak scouting camping trip with children from Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Panevėžys and Molėtai took place August 24 to 26.
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Jewish newspapers and advertisements from Vilnius in the period between the two world wars. Jews and other minorities were given equal rights in the reconstituted Lithuanian state. Yiddish thrived with many newspapers and books published in the language.
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No, Mr. Kasčiūnas, Jews Did Not Create the Corona Virus

No, Mr. Kasčiūnas, Jews Did Not Create the Corona Virus

by Arkadijus Vinokuras

I’m having a dark laugh, Homeland Union/Lithuanian Christian Democrats member of parliament Laurynas Kasčiūnas did not, thank God, accuse Jews for the corona virus. But he did accuse the Lithuanian Jewish Community of financially supporting “that liar” Rūta Vanagaitė’s book “How Did It Happen.”

You might ask what my fake headline has in common with MP Kasčiūnas’s accusation against the LJC. Well both ideas are false and allow for manipulating the truth.

See, the main figure in the book isn’t Rūta Vanagaitė, but Dr. Christoph Dieckmann, one of the best known European historians and an expert on the Holocaust in Lithuania. Or is it this fact which frightens Kasčiūnas? It’s one thing to criticize a “dilettante of history” (as Rūta Vanagaitė’s critics claim) and quite another to criticize a member of the International Commission for Assessing the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, convened and supported by the president of Lithuania.

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Infected Number Jumps to 1,656 since Monday in Israel

Infected Number Jumps to 1,656 since Monday in Israel

More than 71,000 Israelis are under quarantine compared to almost 75,000 Israelis reported under quarantine on Monday. In total more than 135,000 people have spent time in isolation. Monday morning it was reported more people are emerging from isolation than entering. The number of cases grew because of increased diagnosis, with 3,743 people tested over 24 hours. Monday morning it was reported 3,230 had been tested over the previous 24 hours. On Tuesday the total number of infected jumped to 1,656. Virus statistics are usually updated twice daily, in the morning and evening, and on Tuesday morning 214 infections were reported over the previous 12 hours.

LJC Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky Makes Special Plea to All Members

LJC Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky Makes Special Plea to All Members

Dear members,

We are living through a time of quarantine and every day we hear how the number of infected is growing, and we hear calls not to leave the house and to preserve our health. Despite the warnings, we are finding out not all LJC members understand the rules must be followed.

Our dear members, I beg you, do not go to the store if you don’t have to. Don’t leave the house, especially if you are elderly and in the main risk group. The LJC’s Social Center is taking care of you daily, our home-care workers are visiting clients and bringing food to homes. Masks have been ordered and all clients will be supplied with them. Passover is coming and matzo will be provided traditionally as a gift to all seniors. Some have already received theirs, others will receive matzo before seder. Please, protect yourself and your family, and be healthy.

Plan for Commemorating Vilnius Great Synagogue Becomes Clearer

Plan for Commemorating Vilnius Great Synagogue Becomes Clearer


by Roberta Tracevičiūtė for 15min.lt

The Vilnius city municipality reports agreement has been reached wit the Lithuanian Jewish Community on how best to commemorate the site of the former Great Synagogue in Vilnius’s historical Jewish quarter.

The plan according to the city is to set up a memorial square or park with an open-air exhibition and no permanent construction of any kind. According to the city, the undeveloped other side of Jewish Street will host a playground and athletics field [which it does now--LZB].

Discussion on how to commemorate the site has gone on for years. Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius said earlier the synagogue site will be commemorated in 2023 when Vilnius celebrates its 700th birthday.

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Matzo Will Be Available from March 25 to April 3 at Bagel Shop Café

Matzo Will Be Available from March 25 to April 3 at Bagel Shop Café

The Lithuanian Jewish Community has set up a safe way to get matzo for Passover via the Bagel Shop Café. Payment will be by bank card exclusively. The cost for a 1-kilogram box is 5 euros, and for a 454-gram bag of matzo flour the price is 3 euros. Pick-ups can be made between the hours of 10:30 A.M. to 2:30 P.M. from March 25 to April 4, presumably excluding the Sabbath. Please call 8 685 06 900 for more information.

Work at the LJC under Quarantine

Work at the LJC under Quarantine

The epidemiological situation appears to have normalized somewhat, so here’s what the Lithuanian Jewish Community is doing at headquarters in Vilnius. All Social Center programs are operating at full speed except for programs aimed at getting clients out of the house and socializing.

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ORT Celebrates Birthday

ORT Celebrates Birthday

by Ruth Reches, acting principal, Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium

On March 18 the ORT, an extremely important global Jewish cultural organization, celebrated its birthday. Happy birthday!

ORT is the acronym for Общество ремесленного и земледельческого трудаm, the association of crafts, trades and agriculture founded 140 years ago in 1880. ORT’s goal was to provide Jews work skills and information. In its first decades schools started by the ORT organization graduated tens of thousands of Jews who went on to work as tailors, farmers, mechanics, glass-blowers, furniture makers and similar.

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Happy Birthday to LJC Members

Happy Birthday to LJC Members

Multiple happy-birthdays to Lithuanian Jewish Community members Svetlana Aronova, Eti Tsens and Riva Spits!

On March 20 long-time LJC volunteer Svetlana celebrates a milestone birthday, Eti Tsens celebrates her birthday the same day and Riva hers. We wish all of them good health, much happiness and love! Mazl tov! May you live to 120!

Happy Birthday to Švenčionys Jewish Community Chairman Moisejus Šapiro

Happy Birthday to Švenčionys Jewish Community Chairman Moisejus Šapiro

Dear Moshe, we are so very pleased to celebrate your birthday together again. We wish you much happiness, good health and energy as you undertake the serious work of leading the Švenčionys Jewish Community. Mazl tov! May you live to 120!

Chairman Šapiro has done much work engaging local residents in remembering and commemorating the names of Jews murdered in the Holocaust there, recording the names for future generations.

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LJC Social Center Caring for Elderly

LJC Social Center Caring for Elderly

All LJC Social Center clients are at risk for the viral epidemic not just because of age but also because of illness. The media have reported the mortality rate for the ill and elderly continues to grow.

Doctor Ela Gurina is a member of the LJC Social Center Commission and the chairwoman of the committee for advising Holocaust survivors. She wants to remind walk-in care staff of the Social Center how to act during the epidemic.

What work are LJC Social Center employees engaged in currently?

Employees have to take care of their clients as well as possible. To isolate them from the environment so they don’t enter public spaces. They can only walk around in places where there aren’t other people and not to engage in conversation with people they encounter. When they get home they must wash their hands for at least two minutes with soap and water, and use a special disinfectant which destroys viruses. The Community is supplying the necessary disinfectant.

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Matzo from Jerusalem Reaches LJC

Matzo from Jerusalem Reaches LJC

A shipment of matzo has reached the Lithuanian Jewish Community. This year as the country labors under health quarantine we will be delivering matzo to members in a safe manner, which we will announce soon. Stay tuned for more information.


Waiting for Passover to begin…

Happy Birthday to Gercas Borveinas

Happy Birthday to Gercas Borveinas

Happy 85th birthday to doctor Gercas Borveinas. The Lithuanian Jewish Community knows him as the long-time heart surgeon at the Antaklanis University Hospital in Vilnius who is always attentive and respectful towards patients. Borveinas was the first to use cardiac echoscopy in Lithuania and has been awarded the January 13 medal.

We wish the doctor much energy, health and happiness! Mazl tov! May you live to 120.

Condolences

Our deepest condolences to EJC executive director Raya Kalenkovoa on the death of her beloved mother Sophie Berchader, who died at home surrounded by her loving family.

Shin Bet Joins Fight against Corona

Shin Bet Joins Fight against Corona

The internal Israeli security service Shin Bet announced Tuesday they were given authority to collect information on citizens as part of the general fight against the spread of the novel corona virus and said they would take up this assignment “immediately.”

A press release said Shin Bet was authorized to use the latest technology to aid the state in stopping the spread of the virus. Now police will be able to collect information about carriers of the virus and the location of people under quarantine using mobile telephone technology without a court order. Shin Bet will also be able to trace the location of those infected for 14 days prior to positive diagnoses “to determine their routes and the people with whom they had contact,” a leaked copy of the authorization document allegedly said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Condolences

Levas Markmanas has passed away. He was born in 1948. Our deepest condolences to Eduardas Pogosovas on the loss of his beloved father.

The Naked Truth: The Text “Hallelujah to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union” Judged Worthy of Doctorate in Independent Lithuania

The Naked Truth: The Text “Hallelujah to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union” Judged Worthy of Doctorate in Independent Lithuania

by professor Pinchos Fridberg, PhD habil.

Standard Foreword

The text of this article exists in three languages, Lithuanian, English and Russian. None of them has managed to get published in the better-known pages of the democratic Lithuanian press.

If an interested reader asks, “Why not?” I would tell him:

I guess it’s forbidden to publish “the Naked Truth!”

Of course he probably needs an “airbag,” i.e., the word “allegedly” should be added!

Probably if I wrote “the ALLEGED Naked Truth” there would be problem in publishing it.

On February 20 I sent the Lithuanian version of my article to the Lithuanian president, and I called and asked he be made aware of it. They promised me my request would be passed on to the Chancellery and an advisor to the president.

The story described is not the first, a similar thing happened with my article “The Jew Whom Ramanauskas-Vanagas Rescued, WHo Probably Wasn’t a Jew” (in Russian here).

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Condolences

Leonid Štarkman passed away on March 15. He was born in 1937. Our deepest condolences go to his daughter Svetlana.

Roman Abramovich to Plant 25,000 Trees in Israel in Memory of Litvaks

Roman Abramovich to Plant 25,000 Trees in Israel in Memory of Litvaks

The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael) held a ceremony to set aside a memorial site and begin planting a forest in memory of the Lithuanian Jewish community, the Russian-language website www.vesty.co.il reported on March 11. The plan is to plant 25,000 trees as part of a KKL environmental protection project for afforestation in southern Israel. Famous Russian-Israeli businessman and philanthropist Roman Abramovich is providing major financing for the project.

Abramovich’s great-grandparents were Litvaks from the Kovna guberniya in the Russian Empire. In spring of 1941–a year after Lithuania was made part of the Soviet Union–the affluent Abramovich family was exiled to Siberia.

Roman’s grandfather was born in Eržvilkas and his grandmother Toiba Berkover was born in Jurbarkas. His grandfather Nakhman died in a camp in Krasnoyarsk in 1942 and his grandmother raised their three sons on her own, Aaron Arkady being Roman’s father.

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