Lithuanian Jewish Community

Klaidas Navickas Paper Cutout Exhibition

Klaido Navicko karpinių paroda

An event to open an exhibition of Klaidas Navickas’s paper cutout works will be held at the LJC on the third floor at 6:00 P.M. on November 17.

Klaidas Navickas was born in Raseiniai, Lithuania, on November 30, 1962. He currently lives in Grigiškės and is an attorney and public servant. He began cutting paper into art in 1988. He has been a member of the Union of Lithuanian Folk Artists since 1991. In 2005 he was recognized as a working artist and in 2009 as a master of traditional arts and crafts. He has held personal exhibits of his paper cutouts at Expo 2005 in Japan; Linz, Austria; Expo 2010 in China; Gdansk and Warsaw; Philadelphia; Mogilev Podolsky, Ukraine; Moscow and St. Petersburg and Minsk. He has done over ten exhibitions of his work in Lithuania. A permanent exhibit has been on display in his workshop in Vilnius since 2003. He has published two catalogs of his cutouts.

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2016-11-082016-11-21

New Holocaust Memorial at Seventh Fort in Kaunas

Kaune atidengtas ženklas Holokausto aukoms

Kauno.diena.lt

A new Holocaust memorial was unveiled a the Seventh Fort in Kaunas. About 3,000 people were murdered at the Seventh Fort in July, 1941. Human remains were discovered at the largely abandoned site several years ago. The remains were turned over to the Kaunas municipality but have now been reburied at the mass grave site.

The Star of David stone monument appears to be springing up from the earth. It was made by Alfonsas Vaura. The sculpture is accompanied by three lights which come on at night. The project was financed by the Kaunas municipality.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-11-07

Long Awaited Changes Come to Sugihara House

Sugihara House

Long-awaited renovation work has finally begun at the museum set up at the house and office of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara in Kaunas, Lithuania. So far renovation is going on inside the house. The façade also requires repair, but there are reports there are problems in financing all the repairs needed at this point in time.

The second floor of Sugihara House is currently being refurbished and all exhibits have been placed on the ground floor temporarily. The ground floor houses the diplomat’s office. When the second floor is finished, there will be more exhibit space drawing even more visitors from Japan, Lithuania and around the world fascinated by this man who rescued so many Jews from the Holocaust.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-11-072016-11-18

Beata Nicholson and Rafailas Karpis Talk about Jewish Lithuania

B. Nicholson ir R. Karpis atskleis, kokia yra žydiškoji Lietuva

“Empty, boarded up, gone, pulled up the roots,” these are the words opera soloist Rafailas Karpis used to describe extant Jewish synagogues in Lithuania following a trip he made through northern Lithuania with Beata Nicholson, a noted Lithuanian journalist and television personality who produces a cooking show called “Keliauk ir ragauk. Lietuva” [Travel and Taste: Lithuania]. Karpis said the wooden synagogues of Lithuania used as store houses or sports gyms during the Soviet era are still being used as such in many locations. But not at the synagogue complex in Joniškis, rebuilt at the initiative of the local communities, where Beata and Rafailas will spend most of their time during the upcoming episode.

Full article in Lithuanian here.

2016-11-072016-11-18

Charges of Inciting Hatred on Facebook to Go to Trial

The accusation the Klaipėda resident known only by the initials V. L. engaged in incitement to hatred based on ethnicity, sexual preference, group affiliation and personal convictions or beliefs on his facebook page will be the subject of a trial. The Klaipėda District Prosecutor’s Office has completed an investigation into the local man’s alleged posting of a translation from a Russian text intended to promote Jewish stereotypes and has passed the case on to the court. He allegedly posted two comments to his own post in which he insulted Jews, homosexuals and Lithuanian politicians.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-11-07

Alytus Synagogue under Renovation

Tvarkoma XIX a. siekianti Alytaus sinagoga

Currently the roof and internal support skeleton of the synagogue located at Kauno street no. 9 in Alytus are being repaired. When repairs are complete a lightning rod is to be installed as well.

“We’re so glad to have the opportunity to renovate this brick-and-mortar synagogue still standing from the end of the 19th century, testifying to the high cultural and economic achievement of the Alytus community. Let’s not forget the synagogue after it was rebuilt in the early 20th century following a fire became one of the dominant features on the Alytus skyline. Its rich interior decoration also survives, including authentic multicolor decorations in the main prayer hall. The most important task now is to stabilize the building, to fix up the roof which had holes. After emergency repairs are made, water will no longer erode the bricks and mortar and the synagogue will be safe, and later more work will be done,” Cultural Heritage Department director Diana Varnaitė said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-11-072016-11-18

Forty Holocaust Perps to Be Named

info from BNS

Birutė Burauskaitė, director of the controversial state-sponsored Center for the Study of the Resistance and Genocide of Residents of Lithuania, says the names of about 40 Holocaust perpetrators will be released in a book to appear at the end of this year.

She said Arkadijus Vinokuras collected all the material for the book, including testimonies from relatives of Holocaust perps, and that she would write a review of it together with the Center’s Research Department director Arūnas Bubnys and several other of what she called the Center’s experts.

The book will only include people convicted in or determined by a court to have participated in the Holocaust and the names will be provided in a special list of surnames at the end of the book, she said. This is of the more than 2,000 names the Center was asked to release last year.

2016-11-07

Happy 70th!

Happy birthday, Davidas Kocas!

Happy 70th birthday to Davidas Kocas! On November 6 he’ll turn 70.

Davidas is an important part of the team and as a member of the executive board of the Vilnius Religious Community he monitors Jewish cemeteries and organizes clean-up activities. A hearty HAPPY BIRTHDAY from the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community!

We wish you great health and that everything you undertake would be successful! That the people you love would be happy! That your home would always be open to friends! That you would never lack strength! That you will always be happy in all things!

Mazl tov!

2016-11-07

Book about Kupiškis Jewish Community

Author Aušra Jonušytė with Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon. Photo: Rasa Pakalkienė (LŽ)

Most of the Jewish communities in Lithuanian towns and villages were annihilated during World War II. The town of Kupiškis was no different. People of this ethnicity were murdered, but not removed from memory. This is demonstrated in the book “Kupiškio žydų bendruomenė. Praeities ir dabarties sąsajos” [The Kupiškis Jewish Community: Connections between Past and Present] presented at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library. The event by the Vilnius Jewish Public Library and the Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum launched the book by Aušra Jonušytė. She told the audience she considered with how to combine regional history work and student-teacher activities, and how to present the material in a way appropriate for children when she compiled the book.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-11-07

Global Momentum Builds for Holocaust Restitution

The World Jewish Restitution Organization sent the following letter addressed to Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky:

Dear Faina,

We are writing to update you on two very positive news developments in our efforts to build global support for Holocaust restitution.

European Parliament

For the first time in history, the president of the European Parliament declared strong support for Holocaust restitution and related issues affecting survivors, following WJRO efforts in the European Union.

President Martin Schulz in a letter to the chair of the European Alliance for Holocaust Survivors (EAHS) fully endorsed the return of property and possessions unjustly taken from Jewish communities and victims during the Holocaust.

2016-11-072016-11-18

It’s His Secret

yona
by Yona Bartal

Shimon Peres insisted everyone hold a dialogue with tomorrow, to stare at the future in its eyes. he spoke of values, of morals. now, we must continue in his vision.

Today, a whole month after his passing, I look back on twenty-one years of non-stop round-the-clock work in Israel and the world in which I followed him, attempting to achieve his big steps and dive into his global ideas. I try to take my sack of immense personal feelings, tie them up with a big bow and for a minute to place them on a shelf. I sit myself in front of a historical mirror and try an explain to myself the phenomenon named Shimon Peres – from an up-close and intense acquaintance. I look at the huge pile of condolence letters from across the globe, I still feel the warm embrace of Clinton, Obama, president of France, French philosopher Bernard Henry Levi, the young Trudeau from Canada and numerous other leaders that came, stood silently and wept on Peres’s passing with us.

2016-11-072016-11-18

Great Aktion Remembered in Kaunas

The 75th anniversary of the Great Aktion, the day on which almost 10,000 Jews were murdered at the Ninth Fort, was marked in Kaunas on October 30.

In 1941 more than 9,200 Jews in the Kaunas ghetto were murdered at the Ninth Fort, including 4,273 children.

The remembrance ceremony was held at the field at the Ninth Fort where the mass murder was perpetrated.

2016-11-022016-11-08

75th Anniversary of Mass Murder of Jews of Veisiejai on November 3

Lapkričio 3d. – Veisiejų žydų bendruomenės sunaikinimo 75-osios metinės
The Jews of Veisiejai and Lazdijai were shot in Kaktiškės

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky lost twenty-nine relatives during the mass murders, and only her grandfather and his children survived because of help by rescuers. There are several members of the LJC who are descendants of Jews from Veisiejai, Lithuania, who survived the Holocaust, including: F. Kukliansky, A. Levinsonas, I. Bereznickis, Junona Bereznicky , V. Sideraitė and the sisters R. and L. Ofčinskaitė.

kaktiskes Monument to Holocaust victims in Kaktiškės

Saulius Kuklianskis. the pharmacist in Veisiejai, his wife the doctor Zinaida and their three children Moshe, Ana and Samuelis were living in Alytus when the war began in Lithuania. After the Nazis occupied the country, the family soon lost the young, cared, loving and beloved mother of three Zinaida Kuklianskienė, but the pharmacist and his children survived. The dramatic path to rescue for the family included fleeing occupied Lithuania, living in the Grodno ghetto for a year and a half, flight from Grodno and return to Lithuania, a road filled with danger and the continual fight for survival. After they returned to Lithuania in February, 1943, Saulius, Moshe, Ana and Samuelis hid for a year and half in the forests around Druskininai with the help of residents of the villages of Sventijanskas, Gerdašiai, Vainiūnai, Macevičiai and Bugieda.

2016-11-02

Happy Birthday, Maša Grodnikienė!

Happy birthday, Maša!

Lithuanian Jewish Community deputy chairwoman Maša Grodnikienė is celebrating her 70th birthday! Maša is the initiator and intellectual force behind many of the cultural events held by the Community and has been deputy chairwoman for over 20 years now. Thanks to her the first World Litvak Congress was held in Vilnius in 2001, marking a turning point within the Community and the renaissance of Litvak culture in Lithuania. Maša has contributed so very much to fostering Litvak culture within the Community and in the world.

On the occasion of her birthday, the Community has nothing but the most heart-felt words to say to Maša. We congratulate her on her birthday and wish her the best health, joy at home with her grandchildren, many more creative initiatives in the Jewish Community, a great mood and many more warm moments in life. Happy birthday!

Mazl tov!

2016-11-022016-11-09

Holocaust Victims Remembered on All Saints’ Day

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For most of the year, the Ponar Memorial Complex in the hills south of Vilnius lies empty. Outside of official commemoration ceremonies, few people make it to this somewhat inaccessible mass murder site located to one side of the railroad tracks in a village with few amenities. If you happened to walk through the complex on the dismal and gray first day of November this year, you might have been surprised. The first day of November is All Saints’ Day on the Catholic calendar, traditionally the day when the souls of the departed are honored, and in Lithuania the tradition has merged with older pagan practices to become the holiday of Vėlinės. Lithuanians usually visit the graves of departed relatives and ancestors and solemnly place candles beside their final resting places. Whole hillsides are lit by flickering candles in cemeteries around the country. This year the Ponar mass murder site wasn’t forgotten, either, in yet another sign Lithuanians are embracing the Holocaust and Holocaust victims as their own. In past years candles have been lit at the Polish memorial at Ponar, and occasionally at the Soviet monument there which famously ignores the Holocaust with the non-committal inscription: “To the victims of fascism.” This year all the major Jewish monuments at Ponar also had candles burning in little glass and plastic holders at their base in addition to candles left burning at the Polish, Soviet and Lithuanian commemorative markers.

2016-11-02

Why Does Rabbi Krinsky Seek to Divide the Lithuanian Jewish Community and Our Believers?

LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky

As announced earlier, the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius has been closed for repair work to be carried out, and in the meantime temporary measures have been put in place for the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s congregation of the faithful to pray at the Lithuanian Jewish Community (no special measures are needed by mitnagdim). As Community chairwoman I am surprised that regular repair to the Vilnius synagogue has caused a furor in the global media and on social networks. Entry to Jewish communities around the world entail restrictions, and it is hardly surprising that someone who is constantly disturbing the peace and bothering others is not allowed entry on tyhe grounds that person is intentionally creating conflict situations. The Community’s rabbis have asked that people who disturb religious services not be given entry. The tension caused in recent days by the inappropriate actions of Chabad Lubaviych Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky is not accidental. This rabbi has his own center on Bokšto street in Vilnius and he receives support from different Jewish organizations. We know about them and their intentions to divide the LJC are also known. It goes without saying that a community of a different orientation may receive support, but we have information it is being supported for an ulterior purpose. When to repair the synagogue is our business and our decision. I would ask the world Jewish community to let the Lithuanian Jewish Community live in peace and tranquility and to allow us the right to repair our synagogue when we see fit, not according to what Rabbi Krinsky wants, and if we need help, we’ll ask. The Lithuanian Jewish Community employs two rabbis who are actively involved with the community of believers, among whom there prevails a spirit of peace. A rebirth of Judaism is taking place in Lithuania right now.

2016-11-022016-11-21

Condolences

Efimas Štarkman, a member of the Vilnius Jewish Community, passed away on October 30. He was born March 12, 1938. Our sincere condolences to his family during this time of grief.

2016-10-31

Choral Synagogue Closed for Repairs

The Choral Synagogue at Pylimo street no. 39 in Vilnius is closed until further notice for repairs to the heating system. Prayer services will be held temporarily at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.

2016-10-312016-11-09

Rabbi Kalev Krelin Invites Public to Teaching on Kosher Rules and Business in Judaism

This Saturday you are invited to an after-lunch tea and Judaism lesson/discussion with Rabbi Kalev Krelin.

From 2:00 to 2:30 P.M. will be the ABCs of Judaism for Beginners, a half hour of intense learning about the rules of kosher food, an explanation of prayers before different kinds of food and more. It’s important not to be late to this part of the teaching.

From 2:30 to 4:00 P.M. we’ll have a discussion and teaching about business in Judaism. You’re invited to ask questions, learn interesting facts and take one step closer to becoming a real expert on Judaism.

Languages: English and/or Russian, depending on audience.

Registration is not necessary but would be appreciated. It will help us decide which language to use. You can register here:

http://apklausa.lt/f/business-in-judaism-verslas-judaizme-qwvqala/answers/new.fullpage

For more information, contact infolujs@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/events/1248023268604192/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/296000767119214/

2016-10-282016-11-02

On Construction Planned Next to the Old Jewish Cemetery in Kretinga

LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY

October 27, 2016

To: Juozas Mažeika, mayor, Kretinga

Diana Varnaitė, director
Cultural Heritage Department to the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, Vilnius

ON CONSTRUCTION NEXT TO THE OLD JEWISH CEMETERY AND MASS GRAVE IN KRETINGA AND EARTHWORK IN THE COMPLEX OF THAT LOCATION (CULTURAL REGISTRY UNIQUE SITE CODE 34983)

In our letter of August 9 of this year we brought your attention to a series of indications showing that the Old Jewish Cemetery of Kretinga and the Holocaust site located within it are not being protected and maintained adequately. Of special concern is the lack of a complete fence surrounding the cemetery and that the sections of the cemetery along the perimeter not fenced in are not marked in any way. Since these parts of the cemetery lie on the boundaries of private plots of land, there is the threat that economic activities could be carried out within the territory of the cemetery. This problem has been exacerbated, as we have learned from media reports, with the beginning of construction of a complex of individual residential homes right along the border with the cemetery.

Please assess quickly whether this above-mentioned construction does or does not pose a danger to the preservation of the site of the cultural treasure, and whether during construction or later as the buildings are being put to use and in the execution of commercial activities the eternal rest of the dead interred there will not be disturbed, whether access to the cemetery will be degraded and, if there is a foundation for this, whether or not to halt construction work until all necessary measures are taken to protect the cemetery and insure the integrity of the dead and access to the cemetery is insured.

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

2016-10-272016-11-09

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania