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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Ukrainian President Calls on Israel to Take a Stand on Conflict with Russia


Poroshenko shakes hands with Knesset chairman Yuli Edelstein while Israeli president Reuven Rivlin claps during special session held December 23, 2015. Photo courtesy of Hadas Parush/Flash 90

“Russia supplied systems to Syria that can change the balance of power in the region,” Poroshenko warns in speech to Knesset

Israel should take a side in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said in his address to the Israeli parliament the Knesset Wednesday.

“When evil wins in one place, it will try to continue to another,” Poroshenko warned. “We need to act in coöperation and Israeli politicians should make their stance towards Ukraine very clear.”

Poroshenko said that over the last 21 months, 9,000 Ukrainians were victims of “Russian-funded terror,” and warned that the 17,000 Jews on the Crimean Peninsula may find themselves in danger.

“The occupiers have started encouraging anti-Semitism,” he said.

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How Hassidic Jews in the Diaspora Observe Christmas

The origins of Nittel Nakht customs are murky, and even the name itself is a matter of some debate.

NEW YORK–Christmas is a day like any other in most Hassidic neighborhoods in New York: children go to school, shops are open and tinsel and holly are nowhere to be seen.

But Christmas Eve occupies a special place on the Hasidic calendar as a kind of “silent night,” when beit midrash study halls fall silent.

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Europe and Migration: Five Challenges

Writing in Huffington Post and the Times of Israel, David Harris of the American Jewish Congress discusses five challenges Europe faces as a result of new immigrants.

Europe and Migration: Five Challenges
by David Harris
December 14, 2015

As Europe seeks to absorb a massive wave of newcomers, the challenges are becoming strikingly apparent.

First, with no advance planning, European countries have had to move quickly to address the immediate issues of shelter and other urgent needs, all the more so as winter arrives and options like tents for housing become unfeasible.

The task is formidable. More than one million new arrivals have come to Germany, the preferred destination, in 2015 alone. Each individual, as I know from my own experience working with refugees from behind the Iron Curtain, is a world unto his or her own, often with medical or psychological issues, concerns for family members left behind, anxiety about the uncertainty of what lies ahead, and a ton of questions about a new and totally unfamiliar country.

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Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum greetings

Dear Friends and Partners of the Museum,

Wishing you a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year we’re taking this opportunity to thank you for your support, for following our news and for participating in our events during the whole year around!!

Sincerely,

Team of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum

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Steering Committee for Social Center Activities Formed

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky has issued a directive to establish the Steering Committee of Stakeholders for Social Committee Activities. The task of the committee is make and implement essential decisions on Social Center activities, including the need for specific actions, structure of the center, its budget, new programs and other matters.

The committee is constituted of the following community leaders: Faina Kukliansky; deputy chairwoman Maša Grodnik; the doctors Ella Gurina (a member of the LJC executive board) and Arkadijus Goldinas; Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas; Šiauliai Jewish Community chairman Josifas Buršteinas; ghetto organization representatives Rozeta Ramonienė and Gita Grinmanienė; and JDC representatives Baltic Region director Moni Beniosev and Baltic States Welfare director Marina Astanovskaja. Simas Levinas and Michailas Segal represent the LJC Social Center on the committee. The meeting was exemplary with Žakas, Grodnikienė, Beniosev and the doctors Gurina and Goldinas sharing interesting ideas.

Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky summed up the meeting and promised to consider the committee’s proposals in drawing up the LJC budget for 2016. Meetings are planned every quarter.

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Holocaust Information Exempted from EU Data Protection Measure

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and the World Jewish Restitution Organization have both issued statements hailing a decision by the EU to exempt Holocaust materials from a draft regulation on data protection called the General Data Protection Regulation.

IHRA reports that although the law won’t be considered until next year, “after two years of research and analysis, IHRA had determined definitively that researchers and research organizations were already being denied access to Holocaust-related materials on the premise that the GDPR would not permit the use of these materials.”

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When Czesław Miłosz Met Chiune Sugihara, Sort of

by Geoff Vasil

Czesław Miłosz is sometimes called Lithuania’s Nobel Prize winner, although he never claimed to be Lithuanian. Neither did he call himself Polish exactly. His “national identity” was as complex as that of his uncle, Oskar Miłosz, the “French symbolist poet” who was the son of a father from a noble family from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and a Jewish mother.

Czesław Miłosz was born in the village of Šeteniai (Szetejnie) just outside Kėdainiai on June 30, 1911, a period when Lithuania was firmly inside the Russian Empire. He moved to Vilnius and attended the Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium, then studied law at Stefan Batory University (Vilnius University), visiting his uncle Oskar in Paris in 1931. Oskar Miłosz ran in exalted literary circles including some very famous names from the period. This might have influenced the younger Miłosz in helping found the Polish literary circle Żagary in Vilnius that same year. After being graduated from the law faculty he went back to Paris for a year, and then worked at Radio Wilno when he returned to Vilnius.

He spent the period right up to World War II in Vilnius before removing himself to Warsaw, where he helped rescue Jews and was eventually recognized as a Righteous Gentile as well as later becoming a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He describes the period when Lithuania and Vilnius hung in geopolitical limbo in a chapter in his 1959 autobiography, Rodzinna Europa, published in English as Native Realm in 1968, called “Peace Boundary,” the name then used by both sides to describe the Molotov-Ribbentrop line under the peace agreed by Hitler and Stalin.

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Condolences

We mourn the loss of Yevgeniya Korotkina, a member of the Jewish Community and Social Center. Our deepest condolences to her family and friends.

May 13, 1927—December 18, 2015

Our Condolences

We are saddened to report the death of Lithuanian Jewish Community member Leonid Feldman of Vilnius. He passed away December 20. He was born on July 29, 1933. Our condolences to his loved ones.

Ten Most Memorable Moments in Human Rights

A message from the Human Rights Monitoring Institute in Lithuania:

Dear readers,

Our warm holiday wishes to you for the upcoming holidays. We wish you deep relaxation, a rest from worry and work, good time spent with your family and time to reflect on the last year and thing about what you expect from the new year.

Thank you for being with us, for taking an interest in human rights, for supporting us and inspiring us to ever new work. We invite you to remember the most interesting moments in the field of human rights in Lithuania, Europe and the world in 2015. See here.

The eighth human rights review covering the year 2013-2014 has been published and presented to the President’s Office and Parliament. You may read it on our website in English:

http://pasidomek.lt./en/

Israel and Turkey Discuss Normalization of Relations

Israel and Turkey have reached an understanding on the need to normalize relations which broke down after the 2010 Israeli raid on a Turkish vessel sailing to the Gaza Strip, an Israeli official reported Thursday. The memorandum was prepared during a secret meeting in Switzerland and calls upon Israel to pay compensation to the families of victims of the raid, return Israeli diplomats to their posts and begin talks on natural gas exports to Turkey, the anonymous official said. In exchange Turkey would drop all cases against Israel for the actions against the vessel and would ban Salah Aruri, an important Hamas figure, from traveling to and operating in Turkey. Israel has blamed Turkey of allowing Aruri to plan attacks from Turkish territory. The unnamed Israeli official said the Israeli delegation to the secret talks included future Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisor on relations with Turkey Joseph Ciechanover. The Turkish delegation reportedly was led by deputy foreign minister Feridun Sinirlioglu.

BNS

Israeli Officials Praise Reports Terrorist Samir Kuntar Killed in Syria

Israel released Kuntar in 2008 as part of a prisoner swap with the Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah group.

Israeli officials praised the reported killing of Lebanese militant leader Samir Kuntar, who was responsible for murdering the Haran family in 1979 as part of a PLO operation and who later joined Hezbollah following his release from Israeli prison.

Reports that Kuntar was killed emerged Sunday morning after Syrian government loyalists on social media claimed that a number of rockets hit a building in the Damascus district of Jaramana.

Full story here.

Thank You!

Now that the Mini Limmud 2015 educational conference on Judaism has ended, I would like to thank with all my heart all the supporters, speakers, partners and colleagues for their priceless help and good advice in preparing the conference.

A huge “thank you” goes out to:

The European Jewish Fund
The Goodwill Fund
The Lithuanian Jewish Community

Faina Kukliansky, Maša Grodnikienė, Simas Levinas, Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon, Feliksas Puzemskis, Gercas Žakas, Josif Burštein, Junona Berznitski, Irina and Arkadijus Goldinas, Lara Lempertienė, Julija Lipšic, Artūras Navickas, Monika Antanaitytė, Lauras Sabonis, Michail Segal, Irina Frišman, Genė Nachumovienė, Rašelė Šeraitė, Diana Paškovaitė, Irina Slucker, Emanuelis Ryklys, Elina Nolan, Uri Zer, Regina Pats, Markas Babot, Rabbi Kalev Krelin, Rabbi Efraim Prijampolski, Devora Prijampolski, Anna Keinan, Saulius Šaltenis,Giedrius Jokūbauskas, Kama Ginkas, Anna Avidan, Galina and Sergejus Libenštein, Jurijus Tabak, Daumantas Todesas, Eugenijus Bunka, Ala Segal, Ruth Reches, Adelina Nalivaikaitė, Alina Azukaitis, Samuelis Garas, Valdis Liakas, Valentinas Solomiak, Pavel Guliakov and the entire team of wonderful Lithuanian Jewish Community youth counselors, the West Express company and Avital Maizel, Nira Koltun, Gdalij Reches, Daina Vrubliauskienė, the Conti Hotel and Semionas Ceitlinas, the Rishon Restaurant and Aleksandras Arončikas, Grimo Akademija and Eglė Pališkienė, Margarita Gurevičienė, the Vilnius Grand Resort Hotel and Ekskomisarų Biuras.

Žana Skudovičienė, Mini Limmud coordinator

Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium Principal Awarded St. Christopher Statue

Jakobas apdovanotas
December 17 is the day the annual ceremony to award the Lithuanian capital city’s highest honor, statues of the city’s patron saint St. Christopher, take place at the Old Town Hall. This year 10 Vilnius residents were awarded for contributions to art, education, environmental protection, health care, science and other fields. Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius presented the awards. Aligirdas Kaušpėdas, architect, honorary citizen of Vilnius and member of the awards committee, began the ceremony saying a total of 55 nominations had been received and it took three sittings of the committee to choose the winners.

“The committee studied carefully each candidate and discussions went on until there was consensus. We try to include many fields, but we don’t award the prize where there are not really worthy candidates,” Kaušpėdas explained.

Award winners this year included photographer Algimantas Kunčius, composer and musician Kipras Mašanauskas, Vilnius Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium principal Miša Jakobas, Lithuanian Association of Prisoners’ Care Milda Bliumenzonienė, environmental protection specialist Pranas Baltrėnas, architect Gintaras Čaikauskas, cardiologist Pranas Šerpytis, academic Virginijus Šikšnys, businessperson Robertas Dargis and New Idea Chamber Orchestra NIKO artistic director Gediminas Gelgotas.

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Joel Elkes Dead at 101

Joel Elkes, whose father was Dr. Elkhanan Elkes, the reluctant chairman of the Kaunas ghetto Ältestenrat, or council of elders, died at the age of 101 on October 30 in Sarasota, Florida. Joel Elkes made major contributions to modern psychiatry. His wife Sally Lucke Elkes reported the cause of death was kidney failure.

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Dr. Joel Elkes helped shape
treatment for schizophrenia.
Photo: New York Times

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Lithuanian Jewish Student Union Celebrates Hanukkah

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Lithuanian Jewish Community Student Union director Amit Belaitė furnished the following information and responses from facebook.

This year we began celebrating Hanukkah at the Vilnius Choral Synagogue. Then we went to Roshon, the only kosher restaurant in Vilnius. It was great to see several dozen happy faces and that Rabbi Samuel Daniel Izakson joined our group. Before we began to eat dinner, we lit menorahs. Michaelis Frišmanas, who recently started his own beautiful family, led the getting-acquainted game in which we all shared our hopes and dreams. Hanukkah is inconceivable without playing the dreidel game. We decided to play in an unusual way, a true competition! Five players made it to the finalists’ table and the winners were Michaelis Frišmanas’s wife Gintarė and Rachmilas Garberis. The restaurant surprised us with a fantastic dessert: small kosher doughnuts in the shape of a dreidel! We would like to thank the staff of the Rishon restaurant very much, and especially Aleksandras Arončikas, for performing a Hanukkah miracle and helping us hold the celebration. We would also like to thank Lithuanian Jewish Community program coordinator Julija Lipšic, and the LJC for financial support. Now we know for sure that miracles really do happen during Hanukkah!

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Opening of Exhibition of Litvak Art Accompanied by Music Performed by Levickis

SveikasIzraeli_parodos kuratorė V.Gradinskaitė

The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum unveiled a new art exhibit December 16 called “Shalom Israel! Litvak Artists.” The show includes 37 works by 24 Litvak artists from the museum’s collections, the Lewben Art Foundation, the Lithuanian Exiles Art Fund, the attorney’s office Valiunas Ellex and other private collections. One of the more surprising items at the opening was a musical presentation by Martynas Levickis, accordion player and one of Lithuania’s most famous virtuosos. Levickis performed works by Paganini, Rossini and Vivaldi.

Deputy museum director Dr. Kamilė Rupeikaitė welcomed guests to the event and Valiunas Ellex director Rolandas Valiūnas, Lewben Art Foundation director Indrė Tubinienė and Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris spoke. Zingeris said Litvak artists kept putting Lithuania on the map even when the country was occupied and acted as Lithuanian ambassadors to the world. He said their Lithuanian origins were indicated next to their works at the most famous galleries everywhere.

Art history expert and curator Dr. Vilma Gradinskaitė presented the idea behind the exhibit and pointed out that almost all of the works on exhibit were being shown publicly for the first time. Two contemporary artists, R. Savickas and A. Jacovskytė, even created works especially for this exhibition. Dr. Gradinskaitė said: “Some of the paintings and graphics works, drawing and medals executed in various styles reveal a dual process in the development of Jewish art and demonstrate how Litvak artists shaped Israeli art, as well as how Israel’s natural environment and local folk-art traditions affected the artistic expression of Litvak artists, including scenery, manner of painting, color palette and mood.”

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