Dear Friends,
Please click on the links below for the highlights of the ceremony as well as the speeches delivered during the International Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony which was held at the European Parliament in Brussels on January 27, 2016.
Kind regards,
The EJC team
A man has gone who dreamt of Grand Lithuania. Grand not in size, but in thought, imagination and creativity. A man has gone who himself worked for such a Lithuania for decades. Professor Saulius Sondeckis is gone.
The period between the encouraging words of Herbert von Karajan to the young musicians Saulius Sondeckis conducted to the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra which put Lithuania on the world map included the entire epoch of Lithuania’s cultural renaissance. Many of the foreign maestros who came to Lithuania sought out professor Sondeckis because he was sort of a symbol of the talent of our country. A void has appeared in the national culture now without the professor, although it is being filled by hundreds of Saulius Sondeciskis’s students.
And a man has left us for whom everything mattered in Lithuania. Raised by his father and standing firmly upon Lithuanian Social Democratic roots, he invited us all not to look away from the individual, and he was deeply concerned with the continuation of social democratic thinking in Lithuania.
In saying goodbye to the Maestro, I express my sincere condolences to his family, his students and his friends, and to the entire cultural community of Lithuania. Our work for Lithuania and culture will be the implementation of his dreams.
Algirdas Butkevičius
Prime minister of Lithuania
Chairman of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party
by Daiva Zimblienė, lrytas.lt
A new book called “Ukmergės žydų bendruomenės istorija” [History of the Jewish Community of Ukmergė] is being passed around from hand to hand in Ukmergė. The almost 500-page book published in Lithuanian and English contains many important historical dates, interesting facts, documents and quotations about the Jews who lived in Ukmergė.
“I am not an artist, only a collector of historical facts. For about 15 years I carefully selected and accumulated different facts about the history of the city and district of Ukmergė. One computer folder began to grow quickly with material about the Ukmergė Jewish community. And that makes sense, because Jews were for several centuries the largest ethnic community in Ukmergė, you could say the dominant one,” author Julius Zareckas, deputy director of the Culture and Public Relations Department of the Ukmergė Ukmergė regional administration, said.
He said the new book is the second book of the same title which first appeared in 2008, with additional material and much more solid research.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Dear friends and colleagues,
The World Jewish Congress has made enormous leaps with its social media profiles since I joined the WJC three years ago, becoming an important and ever-present fixture on the digital platforms viewed and used by people of all ages, all over the world.
Thanks to our growing and expanding presence on widely used platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+, the WJC is maintaining its relevance in far reaches of the world for Jews and non-Jews alike: we are considered an important and well-respected source of news about Jewish communities and their activities everywhere; people turn to us for in-depth analyses and commentaries on a range of issues including anti-Semitism, Holocaust remembrance, Israel advocacy, Jewish traditions and Judaism in general.
The World Jewish Congress’ Facebook pages–available in four languages–are among the most popular of all Jewish organizations and have more posts and engagements with users than any other Jewish organization.
Call for proposals: Call for proposals on projects in the area of integration
Deadline for submission of applications: February 29, 2016 (12:00 noon CET)
>>More information on the call
The Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius, Lithuania is a non-profit organization expanding its activities and seeks partners under the call for proposals aimed at funding transnational projects to foster integration of third country nationals in the member-states of the European Union.
We would like to share our experience in the field of integration initiatives for female migrants and active cooperation with various actors on the national level.
Our best practices under this call meet the priority described below:
Priority 1: to foster the integration of migrant women.
Outcome 1.1: to share knowledge and experiences of actions to support migrant women, in particular beneficiaries of
On behalf of David Harris and AJC delegation I would like to once again thank the Lithuanian (Litvak) Jewish Community and you personally for your help and hospitality during our visit to Vilnius last month.
I wanted to let you know that AJC is exploring the possibly of establishing an office in Warsaw that would serve as a regional hub for our work in the Baltic states as well. We envision this center as a means to advance AJC’s geopolitical priorities in this increasingly important part of the world. Our presence would, we believe, help complement our cherished cooperation with the Lithuanian Jewish Community, and we would hope to be even more available to support your own efforts as you deem appropriate. Our main priority areas, consistent with AJC’s global mission, would be: EU relations, trans-Atlantic ties, regional security issues, and the ongoing instability in the Middle East. We believe this office could serve as a first step towards deepening our ties and advancing our shared interests.
We would welcome any thoughts or suggestions on the topic, and shall look forward to our ongoing partnership and friendship.
With best regards,
Sam Kliger
by Michael Ordman
Scientists at Tel Aviv University and Rabin Medical Center have discovered they can detect lung cancer early in smokers by performing a CAT scan at the time they are admitted as pneumonia patients. Often the pneumonia is caused by young cancer cells blocking airways.
According to the American Journal of Medicine, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality in the US, associated with a 5-year survival of 17%.
The most important risk factor for lung cancer is smoking, which causes approximately 85% of all lung cancer cases. Only 15% of patients are diagnosed at an early stage.
Vilnius, February 7, BNS–The Lithuanian Jewish Community says commemoration of Righteous Gentiles is missing in Lithuania, and so far the Vilnius administration isn’t considering any specific ideas to do so.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky hailed an initiative by activists to erect a statue in Israel to rescuers of Jews, but thinks such commemoration needs to begin in Vilnius.
“But why does it need to be built in Israel instead of Lithuania? Is there no need to honor rescuers in Lithuania? I don’t know, maybe it wouldn’t be over the top if such a statue appeared in Israel. I think there are people who left Lithuania who survived, and if someone was left alive, it was thanks to the rescuers. I don’t think people would object to that. But perhaps first we should set things in order in Lithuania,” Kukliansky told BNS.
The New Year for Trees (Tu B’Shvat) has arrived. Now is the best time to plant fruit trees in Israel!
Join the First Massive Planting of Fruit Trees in 2 Years!
Since last year was Shmita, the Sabbatical Year, Israeli farmers did not plant, in fulfillment of the biblical command to allow the Land to rest in the seventh year.
STARTING RIGHT NOW, OVER 20 KINDS OF FRUIT TREES WILL BE PLANTED.
Apples, Apricots, Almonds, Dates, Figs, Pears, Plums, Pomegranates and so much more!
In the Bible, God promises to bless those who properly observe the laws of planting in Israel:
“I will ordain My blessing for you…” (Leviticus 25:21)
Full promotion here.
Following the publication in Lithuania of a groundbreaking book on local complicity during the Holocaust, a state museum on genocide said it would publish a list of 1,000 suspected perpetrators.
Terese Birute Burauskaite, who heads the Vilnius-based Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, said her institution would “this year try to publish a book” containing “over 1,000 Lithuanian residents who are connected to the Holocaust,” the news website Delfi.lt reported Tuesday.
Full story here.
Bagel shop, Vilnius, 1910, by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky.
A new kosher café in Vilnius, Lithuania, had its grand opening Thursday with an overflow crowd spilling into the street.
The Bagel Shop café is housed on the first floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, which some visitors still refer to as the Kahilla, in a mostly neglected and empty cafeteria hall.
Guests and LJC staff began filtering in well before the scheduled 3 P.M. start and four cheerful women behind the counter began placing bagel sandwiches cut into quarters on plates on the café’s six small tables.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky addressed the small packed room and said the Bagel Shop Café is an important part of the Bagel Shop tolerance program the LJC has been carrying out for the last year or so with funding from Norway and the EEA Grants program. She said the project was supposed to end earlier but had been continued into the next year.
Dear Friends,
We are happy to share with you a positive update regarding the European Parliament Working Group on Anti-Semitism (WGAS), of which EJC is both the secretariat and advisor.
The WGAS has been approached by the European Parliament Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup (ARDI) in order to become their sole interlocutor on anti-Semitism.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the elite chess and checkers club Rositsan and Maccabi
invite you
to a chess tournament to celebrate
February 16,
Lithuanian Independence Day.
The tournament is to take place at 11:00 A.M. on February 14 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.
Tournament director: FIDE master Boris Rositsan
For more information and to register, contact: info@metbor.lt, telephone +3706 5543556
Dear Rabbi K. Krenlin,
I send the lines of this letter in the desire to bless you upon your having begun work as rabbi in Lithuania.
Lithuania is a historic location famous for Torah studies and the influence of that activity is significant in the Jewish world even now.
The Holocaust destroyed the major portion of the community, but thanks to G_d the community exists, and so the story of the Jews in Lithuania has not ended.
I understand the challenges which await you. You must solve them honorably.
May G_d help you.
I would gladly, as much as I am able, help with spreading the Light of the Torah.
Sincerely,
Rabbi David Lau,
Chief Rabbi, Israel
Saulius Sondeckis, conductor, orchestra leader and professor, died February 3 at the age of 88.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community expresses condolences to his surviving family, his wife Silvija and three sons Saulius, Paulius and Vytautas, as well as all the other members of his family.
Sondeckis was a great friend of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. During his last visit in May of 2015 the hall was full to overflowing during a screening of a film about him by his son Saulius. At that time the maestro thanked his parents for inspiring him to embark upon his musical career, saying stories about their good works circulated by word of mouth: the charity work of his mother, a teacher, helping poor students, and the rescue of Jews by his father, Jackus, the burgermeister of Šiauliai. Jackus Sondeckis was recognized as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem. Lithuanian music experts recognize Saulius Sondeckis as a Lithuanian artist of the highest order. Just a year ago he was performing fully on stage despite his age. Over 50 years of work professor Sondeckis conducted more than 3,000 concerts in almost every European country, in the USA, Japan, Cuba, South Korea, Canada and Taiwan.
Vilnius, February 2, BNS–Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky thinks a list of Holocaust perpetrators held by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania should be handed over to prosecutors for possible action.
Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania director Teresė Birutė Burauskaitė said she doubts such an investigation could take place and believes it is up to the Lithuanian Government and not the Center to address prosecutors.
“I would be satisfied” with the release of the list, Kukliansky said, “but would that affect the families of these people, would it violate their rights if guilt hasn’t been established? I would give the list to the prosecution, [these] crimes don’t have a statute of limitations, let them investigate. That needed to happen a long time ago. I think people need to know the names of the murderers as well as the rescuers. But the list may only be published when the guilt of these people has been proven. It should as provided for in law,” she added.
by Sergejus Kanovičius
“Šeduva? Oi, oi, oi. What’s your name? Sergejus? Oi, great, come, I’m waiting. When will you arrive? Tomorrow. Really? Šeduva? Come. Oi…”
That’s how I rang into her life last spring. Neither I nor she knew what to expect from our unexpected meeting. I have knocked at the chambers of people’s memories knowing for some the trip back into the past will be pleasant, while for others it will perhaps not be such a joyful return to memories stashed away in the most remote drawers,
I found Frida’s house easily enough, after all it wasn’t very long ago, just two decades ago, that I lived almost right there. She opened the door for me, so fragile, so small, always smiling. After listening to my short introduction about how some strange people were concerned with recording her life and those of her neighbors, their deaths and the disappearance of their home town, she sighed and looking somewhere far off in the distance, as if at the Milky Way of memory, said:
“How long have I waited for you. How very long. All my life.”
Oksana Navickienė, a member of the Panevėžys Jewish Community, has received a diploma from the Yad Vashem Memorial Authority and Museum in Jerusalem for completing a course at the International School for Holocaust Studies there. We hope she is able to apply her new knowledge to teaching the Holocaust to primary and secondary students throughout Aukštaitija. Congratulations, Oksana!
The Bagel Shop, a new kosher food café, opens its doors February 4. The café will prepare kosher food and different traditional sweets according to the rules of Judaism. The Bagel Shop’s main draw will be freshly-baked bagels and bagel sandwiches. Adhering to the strictest rules, the bagels will be made under the supervision of a rabbi versed in kosher food rules.
Bagels are a traditional European Jewish food product often referred to as a “baronka” in Lithuania in the past, and when cooked may be cut in half and made into a sandwich. The book Joy of Yiddish furnishes one version of the origin of the bagel, according to which the recipe for bagels was created in Cracow at the beginning of the 17th century, and that bagels were given then as gifts to women giving birth. The bagel was supposed to symbolize the “wheel of life” because of its roundness. The bagel’s popularity quickly grew and spread to other countries where Jews speaking Yiddish lived, and was quickly adopted in America, where today about five million bagels are baked daily!
For just over a half year now the Vilnius Jewish community hasn’t had an official rabbi.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Lithuanian Jewish Religious Community announced a public tender to find a new rabbi and received responses from over thirty honored rabbis from the USA, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Belarus, Latvia, Russia and elsewhere.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Lithuanian Jewish Religious Community are grateful for the response by all the rabbis, and for the concern and respect shown Lithuanian Jewish believers and their venerable past.
