Stories of civilians and soldiers killed since Hamas’s onslaught on Israel on October 7, 2023:
Wooden Synagogue in Alanta Renovated
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania
Those We Have Lost
Synagogue Bombing Averted in Sydney
Mark Morri, crime editor for Ausralia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, reported January 29 a plot uncovered by New South Wales Police over a week ago involving a large amount of explosives placed inside a caravan, or van, to be used to bomb a synagogue, presumably in Sydney where the discovery was made.
According to Sky News Australia, the NSW Police, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian ASIO intelligence agency are investigating and several arrests have been made. Morri told Sky News Australia police believe they have arrested low-level operatives in the plot but not the ring leaders. Police also found a list of addresses of Jewish targets including at least one synagogue in the same van with the explosives, according to Sky News Australia and the Daily Telegraph.
NAALE Offers Students Chance to Study in Israel
Younger Community members exclusively again have the opportunity to meet with a representative of the NAALE Elite Academy at the Lithuanian Jewish Community this Sunday.
NAALE is a unique program providing Jewish adolescents the opportunity to receive a scholarship and to study from 3 to 4 years at an institution of higher learning in Israel.
The program was established in 1992 by the Society for Advancement of Education in partnership with The Ministry of Education and the Jewish Agency, as a response to the pressing need for quality education for Jewish youth after the dissolution of the former Soviet Union had left the educational system there in disarray. Initially intended for those repatriating to Israel, it came to include talented Jewish teenagers from around the world, providing them the best high school education and a priceless tool to achieve their future goals. NAALE Elite Academy also helps reestablish firm ties with Jewish roots and friendships which last a lifetime.
Different Israeli schools have NAALE programs which have their own individual features tailored to different styles, interests and religious and secular views.
Project leader of the NAALE directorate Igal Brantman will visit the Lithuanian Jewish Community this week to answer all your questions.
You must register to attend the event by sending an email to viljamas@lzb.lt.
Time: 11:00 A.M., Sunday, February 2
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
Conservative MP Openly Wonders What Israeli Ambassador Must Think of Coalition Government
Lithuanian Conservative/Union of Christian Democrats MP Žygimantas Pavilionis attended a special concert to mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust held in Vilnius Monday night also attended by Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda and the ambassadors from the Netherlands and Israel. The president and the two ambassadors delivered speeches about the meaning of “Never again!” and the Israeli ambassador told the story of her family which included two survivors of Auschwitz, the date of the liberation of which back in 1945 was chosen for commemoration by UNESCO back in 2005. The concert was called Music for Future Generations: Concert for the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust and featured performances by Rafailas Karpis and others.
After the concert, MP Žygimantas Pavilionis posted to his facebook page:
WJC President Lauder Warns Anti-Semitism that Led to Holocaust Still Threatens Global Stability
OSWIECIM, Poland–The virulent anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust is still rampant around the globe today, World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder said against the backdrop of Monday’s solemn commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In a fundamental way, he added, a common thread links what happened at Auschwitz to the recent manifestations of Jew-hatred, including the October 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel: the age-old hatred of Jews. Anti-Semitism “had its willing supporters then, and it has them now,” Lauder, who also serves as chair of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation and who has dedicated decades to preserving the site, said. “It was fed by the indifference of people who thought they were not affected because they were not Jewish.”
Lauder also stressed that anti-Semitic acts undermine the central tenets of civil society. “These attacks are not just targeting Jews,” he said. “They are an attack on Judeo-Christian values, which are the bedrock of Western civilization.”
He delivered his remarks alongside four Auschwitz survivors and Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum.
Full text and video here.
Šiauliai District Jewish Community Marks International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
The Šiauliai District Jewish Community marked the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust proclaimed by UNESCO in 2005 Monday with members and friends attending the remembrance ceremony.
Actors Juozas Bindokas and Monika Šaltytė read translations of texts and poems by Abraham Sutzkever accompanied by Motiejus Dudnikas on accordeon. The composition was called “Prayer Just to Myself” detailing Sutzkever’s life before the Holocaust, being imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto, liberation and the testimony he gave against Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.
Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community Marks International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community marked the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust proclaimed by UNESCO back in 2005 together with teachers and students from the Gegužės Pre-gymnasium and local officials including mayor Artūras Visockas and deputy mayor Justinas Švėgžda Monday.
The commemorative ceremony began at the site of the ghetto gate at the intersection of Trakų and Ežero streets marked by a stele. Participants lit candles and placed stones and wreaths of flowers there. The commemoration then moved on to Righteous Gentiles Square with a moment of silence observed there as well for Lithuanian Righteous Gentiles. This was followed by the screening of a film about the Holocaust at the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community and a meal in remembrance.
Natalja Cheifec’s Discussion Club on Judaism and Vegetarianism
Natalja Cheifec’s #EDUKACIJOS discussion club invites you to a zoom discussion on the place of vegetarianism in Judaism at 5:30 P.M. this Thursday, January 30. She will cite precedents mentioned in the Bible, for example, the hidden meaning of the story of Cain and Abel and their sacrifices, as well as tackling Nazi ideology about subhumans and the more recent controversy surrounding the ad campaign “The Holocaust on your plate.” She will also address a number of points about blessings over food, Judaism’s restrictions on meat consumption, the hierarchy of God’s Creation and others.
To register and receive zoom credentials, click here.
Condolences
Sara Radžiūnienė died January 27. She was born in 1928 and was the oldest member of the Švenčionys Jewish Community. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community extend our deepest condolences to Edvardas, Vladimiras and Silvija.
Kaunas News
The United Kingdom’s newly-appointed ambassador to Lithuania Elizabeth Boyles and embassy staff visited Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas last week and asked him about current events in the Community and Community members’ views on political events in Lithuania and the world. Marija Oniščik guided a tour for the British delegation and Žakas of the history of Jewish Kaunas, and they were joined by the ambassadors of Japan and the Netherlands for a presentation of the new exhibits at the Sugihara House Museum in Kaunas.
Letter to My Grandfather
Photo: Samuel Gochin, in Lithuanian military uniform of 5th Grand Duke Kestutis Doughboys Infantry. Source: Gochin Family Archive
by Grant Gochin
Dear Zayde,
Growing up in South Africa, you implored me to remember. Zachor. I was to remember who we Jews are, and where we came from. You showed me the photos and told me stories. You taught me only love. You asked me to visit our family cemetery in the “old country” and to recite Kaddish for our family. Zayde, I have.
So then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I travelled to the “old country,” specifically, Lithuania. Once there, my first destination was your shtetl. There was nothing Jewish remaining. They destroyed everything. Deliberately. I erected a new gravestone where I could say Kaddish.
The cemeteries were in utter disarray and in shambles. It was glaringly apparent to me that the overgrowth was intentional. No one wanted to remember that Jews had lived in Lithuania.
Sabbath Times
The Sabbath begins at 4:51 P.M. on Friday, January 24, and concludes at 5:43 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 4:23 P.M. and completed before sunset at 4:51 P.M. Sunday is also Australia Day and Monday is the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.
Pistorius Visits Ponar
German defense minister Boris Pistorius visited Ponar Wednesday to pay his respects to victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania. He was accompanied by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky.
Pistorius said despite his tight schedule during his visit to Lithuania, he couldn’t imagine visiting the country without visiting Ponar. Ponar is a mass murder site just outside Vilnius where at least 70,000 Jews were murdered, although the number of dead is sometimes estimated much higher. Ethnic Poles and Soviet POWs were also murdered there in lesser numbers.
“That Mr. Pistorius found the time to honor victims of the Holocaust demonstrates how important it is to remember the scope of tragedy, even eighty years later, which can be caused by incautious political action and manipulation of man’s basest instincts,” Kukliansky commented.
Lithuanian national defense minister Dovile Šakalienė, German ambassador to Lithuania Cornelius Zimmermann and Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein also attended the wreath- and stone-laying ceremony.
Kabbalat Shabbat
Dear Community members,
We invite you to a Kabbalat Shbbat prayer service led by Rabbi Robin Li-Paz from Los Angeles, California, at 6:30 this Friday, January 24, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Registration is required by sending an email to viljamas@lzb.lt. The cost is 20 euros for adults and 10 euros for children. All are welcome.
Screening of Izaokas at Vilna Gaon Museum’s Litvak Museum
The Litvak Culture and Identity Museum will show the film Izaokas for free at 4:00 P.M. on Sunday, January 26. The event includes an introduction by film critic Izolda Keidošiūtė and a discussion between her and actress Severija Janušauskaitė who plays a role in the film.
The film begins with a Lithuanian murdering the Jewish man Izaokas at the garage massacre in Kaunas in 1941. The perpetrator is haunted by visions of the crime and an increasing sense of guilt for years afterwards.
The screening is in honor of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust proclaimed by UNESCO in 2005 on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army in 1945. That anniversary is Monday.
The film is in Lithuanian.
Time: 4:00 P.M., Sunday, January 26
Place: Litvak Museum, Pylimo street no. 4A, Vilnius
Two More Attacks in Sydney
Last Friday Australian Hamas supporters attempted to vandalize the home of Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, in Dover Heights, a suburb of Syndey, Australia. The perpetrators in fact arrived at the Jewish leader’s former home. They pelted the home and garage with neon-pink paint and set two cars parked nearby on fire after being spray=painted with anti=Semitic slurs.
In the early hours of Tuesday, January 21, Hamas activists set a Jewish daycare on fire in the Maruobra neighborhood in southeast Sydney. The daycare center suffered extensive damage. Adjacent walls were spray-painted with the same anti-Semitic slurs as the cars in Dover Heights. The daycare is located next to Maroubra Synagogue on Anzac Parade. Sky News Australia reports there have been 13 major anti-Semitic attacks in the Australian state of New South Wales in the last 16 days alone, including the latest two attacks.
Kaunas Jewish Community Honors January 13 Victims with Concert
The Kaunas Jewish Community hosted a concert last Sunday to remember the victims of January 13, 1991, when Soviet troops stormed the Vilnius television tower, killing and wounding civilians holding vigil there. The list of victims include Titas Masiulis whose family rescued Jews from the Holocaust.
Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas thanked the musicians and the Israeli embassy for making possible the arrival of saxophonist Amit Friedman, who will go on to tour Lithuania with a series of concerts to be announced.
Natalja Cheifec’s Discussion Club: Health and Medicine
Natalja Cheifec’s discussion club meets via internet at 5:30 this Thursday, January 23, with the topic of health and medicine. She will discuss 33 recommendations by Maimonides on how to stay healthy into old age, including the relationship between physical and spiritual health, the place of vegetarianism within the Jewish worldview, and much more information on avoiding illness and maintaining a healthy mind.
To receive zoom credentials, click here.
Šiauliai Jewish Community Marks Holocaust Day with Sutzkever Reading
The Šiauliai Jewish Community will mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust at 6:00 P.M. on January 27 with a reading event called “Prayer to Myself” based on texts by the poet Abraham Sutzkever at the Šiauliai District Jewish Community at Vileišio street no. 24 in Šiauliai.
Klaipėda Jewish Community Hosts Play for Holocaust Day
The Klaipėda Jewish Community’s Shatil Theater is to perform a play called “Man baisus pasaulis, kuriame nėra tavęs” [A World without You Frightens Me] on Sunday, January 26, to mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust on January 27.
The play is about a young Jewish woman called Mirka who escapes a train transport to a death camp and her decision to leaver her new-born son with a female villager who had saved her. The play is in Russian and is based on the original work by Asia Kotliar.
UNESCO declared the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust on January 27 in 2005. January 27 is the day in 1945 when the Red Army liberated Auschwitz.
The play starts at 6:30 P.M. on January 26 at the Palace of Fishermen at the Culture Center in Klaipėda.