Augustinas Savickas, a Lithuanian painter, researcher in fine arts and professor, was born on 12 May 1919 in Copenhagen, Denmark. His father Jurgis Savickis was a Lithuanian writer and diplomat and his mother Ida Trakiner – a medical practitioner born in St Petersburg, in a Jewish family.
Two popular Israeli films are to be screened at the annual Kino pavasaris [Spring Film] festival from August 6-13: the comedy Zero Motivation (2014) directed by Talya Lavie and the drama Dancing Arabs, aka A Borrowed Identity (2014), directed by Eran Riklis.
Dangerous Paperclips
Zero Motivation director Talya Lavie has been watching war films were the main focus is on fighting since childhood. After she was graduated from the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in 2005, the idea occurred to her to make a film about the other side of war, the administrative apparatus, whose most dangerous weapon is the paperclip. What came forth is a comedy portraying mainly female officers at desks, but one that cuts deep to the heart of the country’s problems. Beyond the office jobs of the female conscripts in the Human Resources Office at a remote desert base there is a war going on in which people are dying, throwing in sharp contrast the rivalries and intrigues among the young girls which seem petty in comparison. By showing the consequences of the Israeli war machine against the background of a comedy, these consequences also seem all the more disturbing.
In total 2,340 athletes from 38 countries competed in 19 different sports. The twenty-six members of Lithuania’s Makabi team delegation competed in five sports in the young, adult and veterans groups. The young athletes did extremely well. Swimmer Jekaterina Gamper took three bronze medals for various strokes and distances and another two medals as well: a gold and a silver in one-on-one swim-offs with swimmers from other countries. Swimmer Artiomas Perepelica is taking home two bronze medals in singles competitions and another silver in a one-on-one swim-off. Young table-tennis player Vanessa Ražinskytė won two silvers, one individually and another together with an English table-tennis player. In total Lithuania’s young Mabaki team members take home 10 medals.
Among the adults the most successful was our swimmer Andrej Fadejev who earned 8 medals, 3 of them golden; badminton player Alanas Plavinas with 2 gold medals (1 individually, 1 as a pair with an Estonian player) and the swimmer Ela Pavinskienė who hauls home with her 3 bronzes.
The U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad has thanked the mayor of Šiauliai, Lithuania, for the city’s decision to shelve plans to exhume human remains discovered during highway construction.
Lesley Weiss, chairperson of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, noted in her letter to mayor Artūras Visockas that Jewish religious law bans exhumations of human remains. “Exhumation would have been a violation of human dignity. Thank you that you took timely and resolute action to ensure that did not happen. … We hold in high esteem your leadership and understanding of this important issue of human rights and values,” she continued.
The chairperson of this government commission, appointed by U.S. president Barack Obama in 2011, said the U.S. is concerned and involved with Jewish heritage protection abroad.
“We are a nation of immigrants, including Lithuanian Jewish émigrés and their offspring, so the US cares about the protection of sites located in foreign countries which are connected with the heritage of our citizens,” Weiss wrote.
The program, as currently implemented, violates various agreements between the Jewish Agency and the government, Sharansky wrote in a Thursday letter to the premier that was obtained by The Jerusalem Post.
“Any and all meaningful dialogue with the organized Jewish community, as represented by the Jewish Federations of North America, Keren Hayesod, the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel, has been eliminated. Rather, this undertaking has transformed simply into a funding framework for programs to be conducted by a single government ministry,” Sharansky alleged, referring to increasing control of the government undertaking by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry headed by Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett.
Lithuania’s interior ministry denied claims by the country’s chief rabbi that he was threatened with deportation over his objection to construction atop a Jewish cemetery.
Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, an Israeli citizen who divides his time between that country and Lithuania, told JTA Thursday that he was detained at Vilnius airport’s passport control while leaving the country a day earlier. He said a border police officer informed him he would not be allowed to return for overstaying his visa.
“They changed their minds when I threatened to turn this into an international scandal,” Burshtein said. He added the border police officer told him he had been flagged in her computer system, and advised him to “sort out the problem with the person who ordered the flag,” Burshtein said.
Recently there has appeared in the world press an article and information that a rabbi has been deported from Lithuania and that this event is connected with plans by the Government to construct new buildings in the old Jewish cemetery in Shnipishok (Piramont) in Vilnius. The Lithuania Jewish Community denies these rumors.
According to LJC chair Faina Kukliansky, no one has deported Rabbi Chaim Buršein from Lithuania.
“He lives in Israel, not Lithuania. After purchasing a ticket Chaim Buršein left Lithuania for Israel for his own reasons. We have no information that his departure was connected in any way with the Congress Center project which the Government plans to implement to both refurbish and commemorate the territory of the Jewish cemetery in Snipishnok. This project has the blessings of members of the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe and all of the Lithuanian Government’s actions concerning this project are coordinated with it. No construction at all is taking place and the project is still under consideration. Rabbi Chaim Buršein is not a citizen of Lithuania and it is possible he does not have permanent residence in Lithuania. His family lives in Israel and therefore it is natural that the head of a family of many children spends the majority of his time there, with the performance of the duties of Rabbi in Lithuania taking second place and being somewhat sporadic.
As in earlier years, this year’s crop of Yiddish summer course students were invited to celebrate Sabbath at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. The event scheduled for the Friday of July 31 was joined by the Union of Lithuanian Jewish Students and became a potluck rather than a hosted dinner.
A Lithuanian girl named Aistė served as greeter and hostess, directing people with dishes, tupperware and bottles of wine to the tables in front of the stage in the White Hall on the third floor of the Community building. Aistė said she was taking the summer course even though she had no Jewish heritage at all in her family, but is simply fascinated with the language and culture of Yiddish. There was some confusion as to the scheduled start of the evening, either 8:30 P.M. or 9, but in the end that lent to the informality of the evening.
The traditional Sabbath blessing was given by VYI summer course teacher professor Abraham Lichtenbaum from Argentina with program head professor Dov-Ber Kerler lending assistance, after which the traditional challa bread was broken and passed around.
The Great Synagogue in Vilnius, Lithuania was demolished by Russian troops just 55 years ago, but a local researcher from Duquesne University is already working on preserving its legacy.
Despite the synagogue’s relatively recent destruction, it is nonetheless the subject of an archeological project headed by a worldwide team of experts, including Philip Reeder, dean and professor of the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Duquesne.
Archaeological work undertaken to preserve or reconstruct history does not necessarily have to focus on ancient structures dating back thousands or even hundreds of years, according to Reeder. Rather, he said, archaeology is about “uncovering any history that is potentially lost, even if it 55 years old.”
You are invited to attend a concert by klezmer musicians to take place at 5:30 P.M., Thursday, August 6.
Klezmer Klangen is a group performing traditional Jewish klezmer music and songs in Yiddish inspired by the ineffable beauty of Jewish ethnic music. Professional musicians who make a living from their musical performances and teaching activities make up the band, a group united by more than just music: in real life they’re a family:
Dainius the father on clarinet;
Rasa the mother, vocals, contrabass, piano;
Saulė, daughter, violin, vocals;
Ramunė, daughter, violin, vocals;
Dovydas, son, vocals, percussion;
Jovita, aunt, accordion, vocals
PRESS RELEASE
August 4, 2015
The Lithuanian Jewish Community for the first time in our country’s history is holding an “en plein air” outdoor painting and arts workshop called “Litvak Artists: The L’école de Paris Period” from August 10 to 14. The goal of the workshop is to remember the rich legacy of Litvak artists and their contributions to art history and to fortify and celebrate the memory of this unique cultural heritage in the consciousness of Lithuanian Jews and the broader Lithuanian society.
“The heritage of Litvak artists is a unique phenomenon in the context of Lithuanian as well as global art history. The Litvak artists include people such as Arbit Blat, Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Lasar Segall and Jacques Lipchitz. It is exactly the desire to share the rich history of the Litvak artistic legacy and to gather art-lovers and the like-minded together which have given stimulus to undertaking this educational project,” Junona Berznitski, the initiator and coordinator of this educational plein air event, said.
Congressional Democrats are increasingly confident that they will have the one-third votes in either chamber to defend a presidential veto against any legislative bid to overturn the Iran nuclear deal.
“More and more of them (House Democrats) have confirmed to me that they will be there to sustain the veto,” Pelosi told reporters, according to Reuters.
Republicans in the House and Senate are expected to push through a “resolution disapproval,” effectively keeping the US out of the nuclear deal negotiated with Iran by a US-led group of six world powers.
But President Barack Obama has promised to veto such a bill, forcing Congress to produce a two-thirds majority in both houses to override the veto.
File photo: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, December 5, 2014 (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
The swimming competition at the European Maccabi Games in Berlin has ended in which Lithuanian Makabi swimmers made a very good showing. The competition took place in an open swimming pool. Conditions for the athletes were quite complicated because of the low air temperature, varying from 11 degrees in the morning to 18 during the day. The Lithuanian team withstood all the challenges and came away with 16 medals. Each of the four members of Lithuanian Makabi competed in from 4 to 8 swimming styles over the length of the pool. Andrej Fadajev reaped a heavy harvest taking 3 gold and 5 silver medals. Veteran swimmer Ela Pavinskienė won three bronze, as did the young Ekaterina Gampe, while young Artiom Perepelica took two bronze. The home team won another three medals in one-on-one swim-offs with swimmers from other countries, Ekaterina Gamper taking a gold medal and Artiom Perepelica a silver.
Badminton player Alanas Plavinas won two European championship gold medals, one by himself and the other together with Estonian badminton player Semion Bremer.
The Lithuanian Makabi football team faced a tougher course. The team includes Gercas Žakas as coach, Matvejus Fišmanas as head of the team and Arturas Sobolis as team captain. Within the division the Lithuanian Makabi team won against the Netherlands 6:3, against Turkey 7:3 and tied with Spain’s Macabbeans at 3:3, to take first place within the division. There are a total of 15 teams competing, divided into 4 subgroups. Lithuanian Makabi are to face the powerful Israeli team Sunday, August 2, in the semichampionship.
Dubbing Iran “the world’s leading exponent of anti-Jewish racism,” a former professor of comparative literature and Yiddish at Harvard decried the nuclear deal with Iran touted by President Barack Obama, saying it would fuel “racism on a global scale.”
“Iran’s frank genocidal ambition dwarfs [Nazi Germany]. Whereas Adolf Hitler and Reinhard Heydrich had to plot the ‘Final Solution’ in secrecy, using euphemisms for their intended annihilation of the Jews of Europe, Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweets that Israel ‘has no cure but to be annihilated,’” wrote Ruth R. Wisse.
She wrote that until Iran has a nuclear bomb — though the nuclear deal aims to curb Iran’s ability to do just that — it will continue to commit violence against the Jewish state through Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Lebanese Hezbollah and other regional proxies.
Wisse charged Obama with acting out a double standard on racism; Obama “leaped to the defense” of Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. and Trayvon Martin, but apparently ignores “the world’s most widespread and ideologically driven racism” by forging a deal with the “fanatical anti-Jewish regime in Tehran, despite what he calls Iran’s ‘bad behavior.’”
She argued that Obama’s environment has long been tainted with anti-Jewish beliefs, whether growing up in Indonesia or worshiping in Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which apparently practices an “animus against Jews and Israel.”
Wisse concluded that “Americans intent on stopping Iran are not against the president but in favor of the hope he once embodied for an end to racism.”
“It is very important to me to get out of Vilnius and see other parts of Lithuania, to get to known them and at the same time to represent Jewish culture,” Israeli ambassador to Lithaunia Amir Maimon is quoted as saying on the Šiauliai municipality’s website.
Maimon with Šiauliai Jewish Community chair Josif Burštein met mayor Artūras Visockas, deputy mayor Stasys Tumėnas, administration director Eduardas Bivainis and deputy administration directors Martynas Šiurkus and Giedrė Mendoza-Herrera at city hall. City leaders showed the ambassador around Šiauliai’s Free Economic Zone and the adjacent area where human remains from the Holocaust era were recently uncovered during construction work. Jewish and Lithuanian leaders quickly reached an understanding earlier that the remains would not be touched or exhumed since they are most like Jewish Holocaust victims and Jewish law forbids moving buried bodies.
Dr. Elena Keidošiūtė who successfully defended her doctoral thesis on Catholic missionary activities among Jews and trends in conversions by Jews in Lithuania has been awarded a Prins Foundation post-doctoral fellowship for 10 months at the Center for Jewish History in New York City. She will be a visiting scholar at New York University concurrently.
According to the Vilnius University webpage, Dr. Keidošiūtė said she felt the fellowship would serve not only to deepen by also assess anew as well as contextualize her research. “I will develop further the research begun during doctoral studies on conversions by Lithuanian Jews to Catholicism in the Russian Empire, interwar Lithuania and the Vilnius region, but more importantly I will have an opportunity to make use of the source materials conserved in the archive of the YIVO, the Jewish research institute. I hope to take part in the discussion with the center and university colleagues as well as researchers visiting these institutions,” she said.
In an open letter to the editor of the newspaper and website Lietuvos Žinios [Lithuanian News] published July 27, the Union of Freedom Fighters of Lithuania called upon Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašis and director of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and the Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania Teresė Birutė Burauskaitė to allow a memorial plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika, also known by his post-war partisan appellation as General Vėtra, to remain in place upon the wall of the library of the Academy of Sciences building in Vilnius. The call was made seemingly as a result of a recent editorial by Lithuanian veteran of journalism and opinion-maker Rimvydas Valatka in which he recounted Noreika’s Holocaust crimes and deconstructed his image as national hero on multiple fronts. Here is the text of the open letter by the Noreika supporters:
Read the whole letter there: Scan854-signed
The Lithuanian Jewish Community mourns the loss of one of the founders of the WIZO women’s organization and active community member Fenia Zibuc (January 3, 1921-July 28, 2015).
Our deepest condolences to her surviving son Izaok Zibuc, daughter Marina Vildžiūnienė, her grandchildren and all her other relatives and those who loved her.
