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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Conflict in the Lithuanian Jewish Community Spreads to the West


Simonas Gurevičius and his group of proponents accuse Faina Kukliansky and her circle of authoritarianism and the desire to remain in power, and allege they sought to protect themselves from the effect of elections in the largest and most influential Vilnius Jewish Community. Photo: J. Stacevičias and V. Balkūnas

Which ethnic minority communities receive the greatest attention in Lithuanian public life, the upper echelons of power and in the corridors of the special services? The Poles and Russians of course, since they are thought capable of become or of already having become the tools of the Kremlin’s “information war” or “hybrid aggression” against Lithuania.

But our heads of state should look to themselves first, because there is no evidence of greater efforts to make integrate more fully these ethnic minorities into Lithuania society, nor of a more sincere dialogue with them.

Even more rarely does a no less and perhaps more important ethnic minority in terms of Lithuania’s international positions end up as the center of attention: Jews. How is Lithuania attempting to heal the wounds of the Holocaust, how is it coming to terms with this unprecedented crime, carried out by Lithuanian hands as well? What relations will there be with the remains of that once prolific community still alive and living in Lithuania today, and how do the Jews themselves feel here?

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On the Radvilėnai Cemetery in Kaunas

Yesterday was a strange day. As if by prior agreement, Jewish residents of Kaunas and Vilnius called to ask the opinion of the largest Jewish religious community in Lithuania, the Vilnius religious community about “a botanical garden being built” in the Radvilėnai Cemetery in Kaunas.

I was caught by surprise and took a look on the all-powerful facebook. Actually, saplings and flowers are being planted in the cemetery, a sprinkler system has been set up and there is even a garbage dumpster on site.

For Jews cemeteries are a place of extraordinary respect and commemoration. This Jewish ethical position has been followed for centuries. This reminded me of the spiritual Holocaust which came in Soviet times, when Jewish, Christian and Orthodox cemeteries were “beautified” and “put to cultural use” as parks with fountains and benches for relaxing and reading Pravda.

Will Kaunas, which today is known for its innovative solutions and beautiful reconstruction, really let this happen? Will the city famous for its cultural traditions remain apathetic in the face of this malicious vandalism? It’s time to answer that question. Since my opinion was asked, I give it here.

The Kaunas city landscape is not a matter for the Jewish religious communities. We the living say: we are responsible for the memory of our dead and martyred brothers and sisters, for their rest and respect. Even a crooked, toppled, broken matseva (headstone) is extremely dear to us.

If someone is bothered by the view onto “unaesthetic Jewish graves” from the window of their home, let them install frosted windows. Or they should demonstrate civic pride, invite friends, invite the Jewish community, grab some brooms and rakes and clean up the cemetery. The unborn children and grandchildren of the victims of the Ninth Fort and the Lietūkis Garage in Kaunas have no opportunity to tend the graves of their relatives, no way to insure their eternal rest. Only we can do that now. Jews and Lithuanians. Citizens of the Republic of Lithuania.

Shmuel (Simas) Levinas, chairman
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community

Golda Vainberg-Tatz Concert

The accomplished pianist Gold Vainber-Tatz is returning to Vilnius and will perform at 6:00 P.M. on August 10 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Her performance is to include works by Bach (Busoni editions), Beethoven, Ravel, Debussy, Chopin and others.

LJC and Israeli Embassy Thank Makabi Athletes

On August 4 the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Israeli embassy to Lithuania held a special thanksgiving event to thank Makabi athletes who competed so well at the Maccabiah Games in Israel from July 4 to 8. The Lithuanian Jewish delegation won six medals at the so-called Jewish Olympics this summer.

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Maceva Summer Camp to Study Kaunas Jewish Cemetery

This year Maceva has been invited to join the international project Oppression and Opposition: Opportunities of Civic movements in Europe’s Past and Present. Lithuania is one country along with three others–Greece, Italy, Hungry–who are hosting a special kind of summer camp this year. From the 6th to the 20th of August, 25 international volunteers from Germany, Austria, Ukraine and Lithuania and including Maceva representatives will be participating in various activities in Kaunas and Vilnius. The main activities of this summer camp will be complete documentation of the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery–who exactly was buried where and when–and the elaboration of all findings.

Maceva’s main partner in the summer camp project is Germany’s Action Reconciliation Service for Peace and this will be the third such summer camp organized by Maceva (www.litvak-cemetery.info) in Lithuania. Results from all four countries participating this year will be presented in Germany this November.

After successful participation last year, students from Vytautas Magnus University will be joining the summer camp again to help preserve the historical cemetery. We have and are receiving significant support from the Kaunas municipality who are paying close attention to the cemetery and doing their best to bring it back to a respectable state.

The Jewish cemetery in the Žaliakalnis district of Kaunas was established in 1861 and closed in 1952. It is listed on the registry of cultural treasures and is protected by the Lithuanian state as a cultural heritage site. Many famous and notable figures are buried there, including politicians, scholars, religious leaders and cultural figures such as the writer Jacques Lipchitz and the vocalist Daniel Dolski. The graves of more historical personalities will likely come to light after successful inventory and documentation this summer.

Besides the work in the cemetery, volunteers will have an opportunity to get to know more about Lithuanian Jewish history and culture. We look forward to meeting people from the Judaica Research Center, the International Center for Litvak Photography and Bella Shirin.

Maceva is an associated member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

Advisory Group for Heritage Issues at the Lithuanian Jewish Community

Advisory Group for Heritage Issues at the Lithuanian Jewish Community

In striving to objectively assess the current situation with the Litvak material cultural heritage, wanting to set priorities in heritage protection as it concerns Jewish cultural sites and striving to come up with professional and effective solutions to urgent issues in Lithuanian Jewish heritage, the Lithuanian Jewish Community announces the formation of an international working group of experts at the LJC. The following have consented to be part of the working group:

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, advisor to the director and senior curator of main exhibits, POLIN Polish Jewish History Museum.

Assumpció Hosta, general secretary The European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ)

Sergey Kanovich, Poet and essayist, founder of NGO “Maceva” and Seduva Jewish Memorial Fund

James E. Young, professor of English, Judaism, Near East studies and professor emeritus, and leading expert on monuments, University of Massachusetts.

Samuel Kassow, doctor of philosophy, head researcher at POLIN Museum specializing in the 19th century and the period between the two world wars, author of Who Will Write Our History?: Emanuel Ringelbaum, the Warsaw Ghetto and the Oyneg Shabes Archive, translated in 14 languages.

Cilly Kugelman, deputy director and program director, Berlin Jewish Museum.

Lyudmila Sholokhova, PhD, director, YIVO archive and library.

Sergey Kravtsov, senior research correspondent, Jewish Art Center, Hebrew University.

Martynas Užpelkis, heritage expert, Lithuanian Jewish Community.

This composition of the working group is not final and more Lithuanian and foreign experts will be invited to join.

International Communications Specialist Appointed Executive Director

At a meeting of the Lithuanian Jewish Community executive board August 3, chairwoman Faina Kukliansky appointed Renaldas Vaisbrodas exectuvie director. The board approved the appointment.

Vaisbrodas, 36, earned a master’s degree in international communications at Vilnius University. He served as foreign policy advisor to Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė and was senior secretary for the Liberal Union party. He began his political career as foreign policy advisor to Guy Verhofstadt, chairman of the European Alliance of Liberals and Democrats faction in the European Parliament.

Vaisbrodas comes from a mixed Jewish and Lithuanian background.

World Marks Roma Holocaust Victims Commemoration Day August 2

August 2 is a tragic date in the history of the Roma. Seventy-three years ago as the night of August 2 turned into the morning of August 3 in 1944, all Roma at the so-called Gypsy family camp at Auscwitz-Birkenau were murdered in the gas chambers there, in total about 3,000 men, women and children. The event is remembered as the Black Night of the Gypsies.

There isn’t much information available about the Roma murdered in Lithuania during the Nazi occupation, but historians say Roma were murdered as Jews were based on race. During the Nazi occupation Roma were classified as useless people, isolated from society and then murdered. Many were shot and poisoned in gas chambers. Roma were also sterilized, used as slave labor and used in medical experiments. It has been calculated one out of three Roma were murdered in Lithuania. About one half million Roma were murdered in total during the Holocaust.

Roma Holocaust Day commemoration is the initiative of the Roma National Congress and the World Romani Congress. Besides inviting the public to commemorate the day, they also hold ceremonies at Auschwitz where they invite youth from around Europe to attend. The Roma Holocaust isn’t widely known and the organizations seek to educate the public in this way.

The Roma Social Center in Lithuania commemorates the Black Night in different ways annually, holding live concerts, drawing contests, screenings of films and so on. This year they invited the public to attend an exhibition on Roma traditions at the Old Town Hall in Vilnius.

A wreath-laying ceremony has been conducted at Ponar outside Vilnius since 2009. There is information conserved in the Lithuanian archives showing Roma were murdered there.

#AtmintisAtsakomybeAteitis

Call for Information

The Lithuanian Jewish Community received a letter from Kaunas with a request for information about former Kaunas resident Piotr Šoichet Haimovič (Pyotr Shokhet Haimovich, Chaimowicz or possibly Ben-Haim now). The request came from people now resident in the man’s former apartment.

“We acquired space at Gedimino street no. 48-5 in Kaunas. Until 1989 Piotr Šoichet Haimovič lived in this apartment, according to the former owner, who bought the apartment when Haimovič and his family left to settle in Israel. His profession was doctor and military officer.

“The building and the apartment are heritage sites, meaning the façade and interior details are protected. We are hoping Piotr Šoichet Haimovič or members of his family have photographs of the building or the apartment interior and can tell us more in order to help us recreate the original interior and provide historicity to the building. We want the building to be entered on the list of European cultural heritage treasures, and the stories of all the residents of the building are very important.”

The authors of the letter were Karolis Banys and Petras Gaidamavičius and they can be reached by telephone at +370 640 23 677 and by email at banys.karolis@gmail.com and gaidamavicius.petras@gmail.com

Keen Interest Surrounds Archaeological Work at Kaunas Mass Murder Sites

The archaeological research being conducted by an international team led by Hartford professor Richard Freund in Kaunas is getting wide coverage in the Lithuanian press. The team studying the Holocaust sites at the Fourth, Seventh and Ninth Forts and the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery in Kaunas has been visited by US embassy staff and is working closing with different departments in the Kaunas city government and the Kaunas Jewish Community. They plan to announce their finds in fall and to present a comprehensive study to Klaipėda University archaeologist Dr. Gintautas Zabiela, who is accompanying the group and whose certification will be required for the discoveries to be recognized officially in Lithuania. Dr. Zabiela promised to present his report to the Kaunas Jewish Community as well.

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas showed the team an area in the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery where an Israeli archaeologist five years ago determined there was a mass grave. This could be the place where the victims of the Lietūkis garage massacre were buried. Residents in the buildings around the cemetery gave testimony they witnessed trucks arriving with corpses who were buried there in late June of 1941.

Many of the team members have Jewish and Litvak roots. Professor Freund is in communication with Avraham Gol, who has roots in Kaunas. Gol’s father Shloma Gol was one of the eleven prisoners who successfully escaped Ponar by digging an escape tunnel and testified at Nuremberg.

More about Gol’s testimony here.

International Roma Holocaust Day Marked in Lithuania

Paminėta Tarptautinė romų Holokausto aukų atminimo diena

Solemn ceremonies marked International Roma Holocaust Day commemorations August 2 in Ponar and at the Old Town Hall in Vilnius. A wreath-laying ceremony was conducted for the victims at the Ponar mass murder site and a new exhibition called Traditions, Customs and History of the Romani of Poland opened at the Old Town Hall.

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Image of Roma and Jews: Brighter or Darker?

Romų ir žydų paveikslas: šviesiau ar tamsiau?
by Ieva Elenbergienė

Few Lithuanian people personally know real Jews or Roma, so their image is painted for us by the most accessible sources of information. This is an interview with Monika Frėjute-Rakauskiene who has researched how ethnic communities are portrayed in the Lithuanian media and on the internet. The interview is about the power of the media to paint their subject in a brighter or darker light.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

The 9th of Av: National Day of Mourning for the Jewish People

The ninth day of the month of Av (August 1 this year) is the saddest holiday of the Jewish year, marking the destruction of the First and Second Temples. No one eats or drinks on this day, nor do they wear leather shoes. The fast begins on the evening of the 8th of Av just before sunset and ends with the appearance of the first star on the evening of the 9th. The 9th of Av is also the one day during the year on which a Jew is not only not obliged to study Torah, but is forbidden from doing so (learning being considered a source of joy).

New Jacques Lipchitz Museum to Open in Druskininkai


photo by Romas Sadauskas-Kvietkevičius, courtesy DELFI

Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum museum specialist Aušra Rožankevičiūtė speaking Tuesday at the exhibition by SPA Vilnius in Druskininkai, Lithuania, called “From Druskininkai to Jerusalem: Moments in the Life and Work of Jacques Lipchitz” announced a new Lipchitz memorial museum could open in the Lithuanian spa town within two years.

Rožankevičiūtė, who hopes to exhibit Lipchitz’s work in Druskininkai, noted the Vilna Gaon Museum had managed to accomplish an ambitious plan last year on the 125th anniversary of Lipchitz’s birth to bring his work to Vilnius.

“Of course the works worth millions can’t be brought to Lipchitz’s hometown Druskininkai because there is no where to show them. Our goal now is to, within two years, although the legal issues involved are moving ahead slowly, open a Jacques Lipchitz memorial museum on Šv. Jokūbo street in Druskininkai,” she said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

American Team Examining Mass Murder Sites in Kaunas

A group of researchers led by Hartford professor Richard Freund are scanning the ground in Kaunas to determine the exact extent of Jewish mass murder sites recorded in testimonies and historical accounts. They are checking the ground around the Fourth, Seventh and Ninth Forts in Kaunas and the Jewish grave site on the Radvilėnai highway. Freund’s team includes specialists from a number of fields.

Litvaks in Love

Professor David Roskies delivered an interesting lecture to a medium-sized audience at the new Judaica Center at the Lithuanian National Library Thursday evening.

“Using the tools of a cultural historian, drawing upon my Litvak identity and turning feminism into a source of knowledge, I think I have successfully cracked the DNA of Jewish collective memory. I know what it is, and I know how it works. Jewish collective memory is organized around saints, sanctuaries and sacred times. In this way, each generation of Jews shape a model life, the model community and the model time. You don’t have to be a Litvak to unlock the DNA of Jewish collective memory, but it certainly helps, because Lite [Lithuania] is where this triple axis, this three-pronged model, emerged in bold relief. The model was so stable that it remained in place even when the world began to change. In Lite things really began to change with the rise of religious revival movement called Hassidism at the end of the 18th century. So long as the hassidim were limited to Podolia and Volhynia which, after all, are located south of the gefilte fish line, and where people spoke a different Yiddish, there wasn’t much to worry about. So there was talk about a new cultural hero named Yisroel Ba’al Shem-Tov, better known as Besht. He was a faith healer, a tzadik or saintly person, a righteous person, who engaged in all manner of non-Litvak behavior. He was an effective preacher and teacher, but he came into conflict with renowned Torah scholars, who were the elite of traditional society. Worse yet, he popularized the study of Kabbalah–Jewish mysticism–, he claimed to have paid periodic visits to Heaven and he encouraged mystical prayer performed with bizarre and ecstatic song and dance at all hours. Then, before you knew it, hassidic prayer houses were beginning to appear in Lite, too. The time had come for the rabbinic establishment to take action,” Rosskies said in a lecture which ranged seamlessly from the drier facts of cultural history to his own personal experiences and thoughts, employing moving Yiddish lullabies to make certain points.

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US Embassy Staff Visit Kaunas Jewish Community

The US embassy to Lithuania paid a visit to the Kaunas Jewish Community. Ted Janis, adviser on policy and economics (on left in photo), and US embassy representative Renata Dromantaitė met KJC chairman Gercas Žakas and asked about daily life in the Community, its activities, relations with the municipality, Jewish cemeteries, projects planned and opportunities for working together more closely. The time allotted for the meeting passed very quickly and there wasn’t time to express many thoughts and address many issues, which will be part of the agenda for a future planned meeting. Embassy staff said they would like to and plan to participate in commemorations of the mass murder of the Jews of Petrašiūnai and the mass murder of intellectuals in the Kaunas ghetto at the Fourth Fort in Kaunas at the end of August.

Darius Udrys Uncovered How Unprepared We Are to Discuss Morality without Outrage


Darius Udrys. Photo by Kiril Čachovskij, DELFI, © 2017

by Andrei Khrapavitski

I have written a short facebook comment in Lithuanian regarding the latest meltdown within the local liberal circles, but this story is worth expanding on. The gist of the matter is that Remigijus Šimašius, the liberal mayor of Vilnius, fired Darius Udrys, the head of Go Vilnius development agency and my former colleague at the European Humanities University.

A formal reason for dismissal was lack of results, but this reason looks very improbable, given the short time both Darius and the agency had worked and could achieve those results. A more probable one is the scandal Darius provoked after posting a facebook comment in which he asked whether it was moral for forest brothers (Lithuanian partisans who waged guerrilla war against Soviet rule during the Soviet occupation during and after World War II) to kill organizers of kolkhozes, collective farms put in place by the Soviets on the occupied lands.

Darius raised a lot of eyebrows by simply asking on what moral grounds it was OK to kill the civilians who were organizing those kolkhozes. A group of conservatives immediately demanded his dismissal and put a lot of pressure on the mayor of the Lithuanian capital to do so. It seems quite likely that the liberal mayor gave in to the demands of the conservative members within the coalition and let Darius go. Apparently you can be fired in 21st-century Lithuania for asking a question about the morality of killing. The liberal mayor found neither the courage to stand for freedom of speech nor to acknowledge the real reason for the dismissal. As mentioned above, Remigijus tried to spin it by claiming that Darius lost his job for not demonstrating results.

Full text in English available here.