Lithuanian Jewish Community

Vytautas Mikuličius, Journalist and Son of Righteous Gentiles, Has Died

With deep sadness we note the passing of journalist Vytautas Mikuličius who with his parents Petras and Ona rescued Julija Remigolskytė-Flier, now a Canadian violinist, during World War II.

Petras and Ona lived with their three children at Minkovskių street no. 110 in Kaunas. Jews from the Kaunas ghetto were used as forced labor near their home, including Klara Gelman. During the winter of 1942-1943 Klara asked Ona and Petras to save her two-year-old daughter Julija. Petras and Ona took her in and raised her as their won. The little girl quickly learned to speak Lithuanian, and her foster parents told the neighbors she was the daughter of Ona’s dead sister.

From Vytautas Mikuličius’s recollections:

Our family had many friends and acquaintances. Our mother was very involved with the women in the area especially. Russians, Jews, Poles… When the Nazis put their regime in place, mother didn’t drop her girl friends, but visits became brief and secret.

2016-03-16

Fighting Anti-Semitism Demands Unity, Parliamentarians Say

BERLIN (JTA)–Jewish communities must not be left to fend for themselves against anti-Semitism, Jewish leaders and politicians said at the third major interparliamentary conference on anti-Semitism.

“We all have to do our part,” Michael O’Flaherty, director of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, said at the opening of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism, which brought together more than 100 parliamentarians from nearly 40 countries, as well as a plethora of non-governmental organizations.

On the table are the challenges of Internet hate, community relations and anti-Semitism in sport, as well as legal, parliamentary and governmental responses to anti-Semitism. Best practices for combating anti-Semitism will be discussed at the three-day conference, which started Sunday.

2016-03-16

Canadian Jews Demand Deportation of Ukrainian Member of Nazi Death Squad

Jewish groups are calling on Canada to strip citizenship from a 92-year-old man who was once a member of a Nazi death squad.

In a letter to Citizenship Minister John McCallum, the groups say it is time to conclude a 20-year battle to deport Helmut Oberlander.

“As has been clearly established, Mr. Oberlander was a member of one of the most savage Nazi killing units, responsible for the murder of more than 90,000 Jewish men, women, and children during the Holocaust,” states the March 9 letter. “He is here illegally, was associated with a horrific and murderous enterprise for which he has neither demonstrated nor expressed any remorse, and he ought to have his Canadian citizenship revoked immediately,” it adds.

Born in Ukraine, Oberlander immigrated to Canada in 1954 and became a citizen in 1960. Ottawa began trying to strip him of his citizenship in 1995, prompting a protracted court battle.

2016-03-15

Argentine Director Returns to Jewish Roots with “The Tenth Man”

In his new movie, filmmaker Daniel Burman explores the Buenos Aires of his youth and the people who live there
by Igal Avidan

BERLIN–Usher, who heads a Jewish welfare foundation in Buenos Aires, is an unlikely movie star. But the middle-aged Argentinean Jew, whose real name is Oscar Barilka, is the central figure in Jewish-Argentinian director Daniel Burman’s new feature film, “El Rey del Once” (The Tenth Man).

Usher, playing himself, is almost always off-camera, but he is often heard as he works to bring his son Ariel (played by actor Alan Sabbagh) back to his roots.

“Usher is a real tzadik [righteous person] who doesn’t even know he is one,” says award-winning writer-director Burman, who won the Grand Jury Prize in 2004 for his film “El Abrazo Partido” (Lost Embrace), a comedy-drama about the grandson of Polish Holocaust refugees.

2016-03-15

Condolences

The Lithuanian Jewish Community express our deepest condolences to the people of Turkey following the March 13 attack on central Ankara. Terrorism is a threat the Lithuanian Jewish Community understands well and remains a great challenge to 21st century society. We condemn the perpetrators of this vicious kind of crime who hold hostage the lives and safety of many civilians.

2016-03-15

Israeli Ambassador Praises Kaunas’s Concern for Jewish Heritage

Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon met with Kaunas mayor Visvaldas Matijošaitis and other city council members last week. Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas attended the meeting as well. The ambassador praised cooperation with the city of Kaunas in culture and business. Kaunas businesspeople involved in the food sector were invited to meet investors from Israel in Vilnius at the beginning of April, and the mayor was invited to attend a meeting of European city mayors in Jerusalem.

2016-03-15

Jewish Students Deliver Donations to Developmentally Disabled Infant Center

Representatives of the Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium visited the Vilnius Developmentally Disabled Infant Center March 8 and were warmly received by director Viktorija Grežėnienė. The students delivered donations and visited some of the small wards of the center. The donations included a sofa-bed, musical mobiles and educational games which the students purchased with funds raised by a food and crafts fair held on the Tu b’Shvat holiday. Students made their own dishes and snacks as well as art works and sold them to other students during the fair.

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2016-03-15

How We Celebrated March 11

The Lithuanian Jewish Community took part in a holiday parade in Vilnius together with other celebrants. Snapshots from that event available here.

BNS–March 11 Lithuania celebrated 26 years of independence. Conferences, ceremonies and exhibits were held in different cities. A special session of parliament was held to mark the historical separation from the Soviet Union, after which a ceremony to raise the flags of the three Baltic states was held outside on Independence Square, followed by a procession to Cathedral Square.

2016-03-15

Rain and Low Turnout at Annual Vilnius Neo-Nazi March

The parade of nationalists and neo-Nazis which has marred Lithuanian independence day celebrations for 7 years in a row went forward this March 11 as well.

Despite attempts by organizers to make the event acceptable and mainstream by calling it “traditional” and “patriotic” and to play down the swastikas and calls for the death of ethnic minorities prominent in earlier years, this year’s march was smaller than last year’s.

From 200 to 300 people, according to estimates by outsiders, gathered at the statue on Cathedral Square at around 4:00 P.M. on March 11, the more important of Lithuania’s two independence days which marks the date in 1990 when the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet parliament declared independence from the Soviet Union. The square was the final point by another march earlier in the day dedicated to celebrating Lithuanian independence and tolerance, which travelled the same route but in the opposite direction, from Independence Square outside the Lithuanian parliament to Cathedral Square. A large trailer painted military colors behind the gathering at the statue for the 4 o’clock march was outfitted with an oven and volunteers dressed as Lithuanian soldiers were still passing out free hot food to children as a variety of Lithuanian ultranationalists, neo-Nazis, biker gang members and various followers milled about waiting for the march.

2016-03-12

Israelis Like Trump’s Style

Donald Trump’s Quick-to-Offend Style Wins Israeli Admirers–Despite Questions
by Naomi Zeveloff

As Donald Trump’s campaign surges to front-runner status on shock value in America, his bombast is familiar to a certain type of Israeli.

“He’s a no-bullshitter,” said Doron Mizrachi, owner of a South Tel Aviv restaurant that sells bourekas, or Middle Eastern puff pastries. Mizrachi concedes that customers in this left-wing neighborhood sometimes bristle at his unabashedly right-wing politics: “I’m like Donald Trump,” he explained. “I say the facts.”

Trump’s bluster may, in fact, often obscure his shifting and hard-to-pin-down stances on many issues, like whether he welcomed or disavowed the support of Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. But this dedication to perceived “straight talk” is embedded in mainstream Israeli Jewish culture.

There is even a name for it. Israelis pride themselves on speaking dugri. Adopted into Hebrew from Arabic, the term means to speak bluntly, even if it comes at the expense of the listener’s feelings. (In Arabic the word connotes truthfulness.)

2016-03-10

Major American Jewish Leader Changes His Mind about Israel

An Amazing Turn for a Major Leader of the American Jewish Mainstream: David Gordis Rethinking Israel

David Gordis has served as vice president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles (now American Jewish University). He also served as executive vice president of the American Jewish Committee and was the founding director of the Foundation for Masorti Judaism in Israel. He founded and directed the Wilstein Institute for Jewish Policy Studies which became the National Center for Jewish Policy Studies.

David Gordis is president emeritus of Hebrew College where he served as president and professor of Rabbinics for fifteen years. He is currently visiting senior scholar at the University at Albany of the State University of New York. Here is the article he submitted to Tikkun. We publish it with the same sadness that Gordis expresses at the end of this article, because many of us at Tikkun magazine shared the same hopes he expresses below for an Israel that would make Jews proud by becoming an embodiment of what is best in Jewish tradition, history, and ethics, rather than a manifestation of all the psychological and spiritual damage that has been done to our people, which now acts as an oppressor to the Palestinian people. For those of us who continue to love Judaism and the wisdom of our Jewish culture and traditions, pointing out Israel’s current distortions gives us no pleasure, but only saddens us deeply.
–Rabbi Michael Lerner

Reflections on Israel 2016
David M. Gordis

While reading Ethan Bronner’s review of a new biography of Abba Eban, I was reminded of a time when in a rare moment I had the better of a verbal encounter with Eban. It happened about thirty years ago at a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which brought together leaders of American Jewish organizations, sometimes to hear from a visiting dignitary, in this case Eban, Israel’s eloquent voice for many years. I was attending as Executive Vice President of the American Jewish Committee. Eban had a sharp wit as well as a sharp tongue. He began his remarks with a mildly cynical remark: “I’m pleased, as always, to meet with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, though I wonder where the presidents of minor American Jewish organizations might be.” I piped up from the audience: “They are busy meeting with minor Israeli government officials.” A mild amused reaction followed and Eban proceeded with his remarks.

2016-03-10

Pew Poll: 48% of Israeli Jews Want Arabs Out

Palestinian women passing an Israeli police checkpoint in Jerusalem, October 8, 2015.
photo: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

TEL AVIV (JTA)–Nearly half of Jewish Israelis want to expel Arabs from the country.

That’s one of several findings from a new survey of Israeli attitudes on religion, politics and Jewish identity conducted by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center.

Coming just three years after Pew’s much-discussed study of Jewish-Americans, the Israel study depicts a country divided by religion and ethnicity, where Jews of opposing religious outlooks rarely associate and marriages that cross the Jewish-Arab divide almost never happen.

Israel is 81% Jewish and 19% non-Jewish, according to the survey. Among the Jews, half are secular. The other half is divided among traditional (29%), religious Zionists (13%) and haredi Orthodox (9%).

The study, released Tuesday morning, is based on 5,600 interviews with Israelis conducted between October, 2014 and May, 2015. It has a margin of error of 2.9% on questions asked of Jews and 5.6% for those asked of Muslims. Many of the findings confirm commonly held views about Israel, but here are six that might surprise you.

1. Nearly half of Jewish Israelis want Israel to be Arab-free.

2016-03-09

A Lightning Boldt of German Support for Israel

by Orit Arfa/JNS.org

Andreas Boldt can’t help but effuse praise and love for Israel almost any chance he gets–even with his kids. In some of his Facebook posts, the 37-year-old has his blonde-haired children (ages 5-13) passionately singing “Adon Olam” and “Hatikvah.” Documenting a recent trip to Israel, he took particular pride in his meeting with IDF major general Doron Almog (retired), the first commando to land on the Entebbe runway in the famous 1976 hostage-rescue mission. With his bright blue eyes, carefully trimmed beard, and fit build, he sometimes models on facebook with the Israeli and German flags.

A casual observer might think he has some sort of irrational or religious obsession with Israel, but sitting down with Boldt over coffee at Kaffehaus Einstein in Berlin, ahead of his February trip–his sixth to the Jewish state–Boldt said his support for Israel is dictated entirely by reason and ethics.

“People ask me: Why do I support Israel this way? Why do I put in so much effort, time, and money into Israel? There is no people, no state on the planet that has so many enemies, that’s fighting so much in this life, like the Jewish people and the state of Israel,” he told JNS.org.

For Boldt, supporting Israel is the only rational, humanitarian choice for a thinking, freedom-loving person. Germany’s “historical responsibility” to address its Holocaust past has nothing to do with Boldt’s support, nor should it, he said.

“I refuse to think about historical responsibility as a German,” said Boldt. “I know the history, and I think that every human being is responsible to help their fellow human beings.”

Full story here.

2016-03-09

On 100th Anniversary BMW Expresses Regret for Using Slave Labor to Supply Nazi Arms

by Shiryn Ghermezian

German car manufacturer Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) expressed regret on Monday for using forced labor to help supply weapons components to the Nazis during WWII, the UK’s Daily Mail reported.

Under the National Socialist regime in the 1930s and ’40s, BMW operated exclusively as a supplier to the German arms industry, the company said in a statement. As demand for its aero engines increased, BMW recruited forced laborers, convicts and prisoners from concentration camps to assist in manufacturing them.

2016-03-09

EJC Expresses Deep Concern about Growth of Neo-Nazi Parties in Europe

Dear Friends,

Please find below EJC’s statement following Slovakia’s elections where the neo-Nazi party Our Slovakia gained 14 parliamentary seats, entering the National Council for the first time.

Thank you and kind regards,
The EJC team

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EJC Expresses Deep Concern about Growth of Neo-Nazi Parties in Europe after Our Slovakia Makes Gains in Parliamentary Elections

(Brussels, Monday, March 7, 2016)–European Jewish Congress president Dr. Moshe Kantor has expressed alarm and concern after the latest neo-Nazi party made gains in a European national parliamentary election. A neo-Nazi party named Our Slovakia has gained 14 parliamentary seats in Slovakia’s elections, entering the National Council for the first time. The far-right extremists scored 8 percent in an election that failed to produce a majority result.

2016-03-09

World Jewish Congress Meets in Buenos Aires March 15-17

World Jewish Congress to meet in Buenos Aires March 15-17; Argentine president Macri to address delegates

International Jewish leaders to convene in Argentina to discuss unresolved terror attacks

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky to attend plenary session

NEW YORK/BUENOS AIRES–More than 400 Jewish community leaders from around the world are expected to gather in Buenos Aires next week, as the World Jewish Congress (WJC) holds a special session of its Plenary Assembly, the organization’s highest decision-making body. Argentina’s [resident Mauricio Macri will deliver a keynote speech at the opening event of the assembly, and Paraguay’s president Horacio Cartés will be awarded the Latin American Jewish Congress’ Shalom Prize for his support for Israel.

WJC President Ronald S. Lauder said ahead of the Plenary Assembly meeting: “This will perhaps be the largest gathering of international Jewish leaders in Latin America in recent decades. We look forward to fruitful discussions and to a show of solidarity with the Jewish community of Argentina, the largest and most vibrant in Latin America.

2016-03-09

Rina Zak: “Markas Petuchauskas: Theater in the Shadow of Death”

Publisher, translator and editor Rina Zak [Zhak, Žak, Рина Жак], one of the iconic figures in Russian-speaking Israel, is also well known outside of the biggest linguistic community in the country. Rina also engages in educational activities, in the everyday activities of the Geographical Society of Israel and in the periodical press, writing in Isrageo magazine, as well as on facebook, where she posts little-known passages from Jewish and Israeli history. Rina Zak was born in Kaunas and was graduated from the Journalism Faculty of Vilnius University.

We are pleased to offer for your consideration a passage by Rina Zak:

Markas Petuchauskas: Theater in the Shadow of Death

In 2015 he published a book of memoirs of his time as a young prisoner of the Vilnius ghetto called “Price of Concord.”

Strange as it might seem to some, the ghetto was a venue for musical performances and festivals, literary competitions and art exhibitions. There clinics and hospitals, schools and kindergartens, a youth club and a café. There were plans for a museum, a publishing operation… but these ideas were not destined to happen. The Vilnius ghetto lasted only two years, and its population of about 40 thousand people was almost completely exterminated.

2016-03-09

Come Join the March 11 Holiday Procession

Lithuania is celebrating 26 years of the restoration of independence this year. We’re inviting members and friends of the Lithuanian Jewish Community to assemble at Independence Square in front of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library at 11:45 A.M. on March 11 to watch the ceremonial raising of the flags of the three Baltic states and to join the holiday procession from there to Cathedral Square. Together, let’s create a tolerant Lithuania free from stereotypes and hate!

2016-03-09

Congratulations to the Young Swimmers of the Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium!

The boys’ swim team of the Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium took first place in intermural competition in Vilnius. This is a first in the history of the school! Now we’ll go on to the Lithuanian intermural competitions in Kėdainiai.

Congratulations to the boys and to their trainer, Ela Pavinskienė!

2016-03-09

Serious Work Planned at Old Jewish Cemetery in Žaliakalnis District of Kaunas

A working group for refurbishing the old Jewish cemetery in Žaliakalnis neighborhood of Kaunas met March 3. Under an agreement with the municipal administration, experts from the public agency Registrų centras [Registry Center] performed a survey and inventory of the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery. All gravestones were counted (5,808) and every grave was assigned a number and its exact location determined. This work took about 2 months and cost 8,000 euros. It was financed by the city of Kaunas. The work performed so far will allow the next steps to be taken: to photograph each grave, to read and translate headstone inscriptions, to identify the graves (to determine the identity of the people buried) and to create a virtual database. After that’s done, drafting and implementing a technical plan for refurbishing the cemetery will be possible. So far there is no funding for these tasks, so the plan is to approach different foundations, and the idea of recruiting volunteers for grave identification is also being considered.

The municipality is preparing a territorial planning document (designating the plot of land) for the cemetery and is planning to set up surveillance cameras at cemeteries this spring. The cemetery is always mowed and maintained.

2016-03-09

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania