Lithuanian Jewish Community

Kaunas Jewish Community Head: One of the Worst Mass Murders Anywhere

Seventy-four years ago the territory of the Lietūkis Garage of the Lithuanian Agricultural Cooperative in Kaunas became the venue for one of the worst mass murders of Jews in Lithuania and Europe, Kaunas Jewish Community leader Gercas Žakas said Friday at a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the massacre.

“I believe that this pogrom at the Lietūkis Garage was one of the most brutal, not just in Kaunas, not just in Lithuania, but throughout Europe. The sort of brutalities which took place here are difficult to
comprehend,” Žakas said.

2015-07-02

The June 2015 Memorial for the Lietūkis Garage Massacre in Kaunas, Lithuania

by Julius Norwilla

To mark the 74th anniversary of one of the iconic events of the Lithuanian Holocaust, the infamous Lietūkis Garage Massacre of 27 June 1941, the Kaunas Jewish Community organized the annual memorial event on the site, last Friday 26 June 2015. The massacre, carried out by local Lithuanian “patriots” wearing the white armbands of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) butchered dozens of Jewish passers-by at a garage on Kaunas’s Vytautas Avenue, using a variety of execution methods, including clubbing to death with crowbars, and particularly, forcing water from high-pressure hoses into bodily orifices of the victims until they burst. A growing crowd, including women holding up their young children to get the best views, cheered them on.

The memorial event was held in the courtyard between streets entered by Miško Street 1 in Kaunas at 4:30 P.M. on Friday, June 26, 2015. The ambassador and staff of the recently established Embassy of the State of Israel came from Vilnius for the event.

2015-07-02

Israel Gives New Life Direction to Photographer Milda Rūkaitė

She was happy about winning the highest score in the photography contest and was already leaving through the door satisfied when she heard she won not a single category but took all categories as Best New Talent in the competition held in Jerusalem. Milda Rūkaitė achieved this success back in 2009 but still happily recalls and savors the victory, Stilius [Style] magazine of the Lithuanian newspaper Lietuvos rytas reports.

Winning the contest allowed her to fulfill one of her dreams: to photograph Shimon Peres, when he was still the president of Israel. … Milda didn’t go looking for it, but one job came to her: the mayor of the
city of Arad, Tali Ploskov, approached the Lithuanian woman to become his personal photographer. …

Interest in Jewish Heritage Conservation in Joniškis

On June 22 Gediminas Čepulis, the mayor of Joniškis, Lithuania, received a party of guests: founder of the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund Sergėjus Kanovičius, fund director Jonas H. Dovydaitis and a group of Jews from abroad who all came to see how the Jewish heritage is being protected in Joniškis and the surrounding region, and to learn about the land where their ancestors lived.

Guests were given a tour to the Red and the White Synagogues and Joniškis Museum of History and Culture museum specialist Darius Vičas provided a brief overview of the history of the Jews in the local area. He said more than 2,200 Jews lived there before World War I. He also spoke about work to restore the two synagogues and expressed pride in the work already done to restore the Red Synagogue.

More information available in Lithuanian HERE

2015-07-02

Chagall Exhibit Opens in Vilnius

On the afternoon of June 25 the Lithuanian Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema opened a new exhibit of works by Marc Chagall called “Waiting for a Miracle.” The three series of lithographs by the artist will be on display until the end of July.

The series include 13 color lithographs from the Arabian Nights series (1948), 16 color lithographs from the Daphnis and Chloë series (1956-1961) and 16 color lithographs from different stages in Chagall’s artistic career.
More information in Lithuanian There

2015-07-02

Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund Donates Ambulance to Town

During the Šeduva town holiday on June 27 the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund, which is implementing the “Lost Shtetl” project, donated a fully-equipped four-wheel drive Ford Transit ambulance to the municipality’s First Aid Medical Dispensary. The Fund also donated the latest equipment, including electronic scales for weighing newborns, blood analysis equipment and computer equipment, to the Šeduva walk-in clinic. The value of the donations to the dispensary and clinic totaled just under 150,000 euros.

More information available in Lithuanian HERE

2015-07-02

Israeli Embassy Supporting Blind Athletes and European Blind Football Championship in Lithuania

After a meeting in June by representatives of the Israeli embassy to Lithuania and the Lithuanian Federation of Athletics Sports, the embassy undertook to support the largest disabled sports event in the nation’s history, the IBSA European Goalball (blind football) Championship, to be held July 8 to 11 in Kaunas.

“I have always been impressed by people who despite difficulties strive for the highest goals. Since the beginning of my work in Lithuania I have observed actively current events in the country and have striven for specific goals through my actions. Having communicated with representatives of the Lithuanian Federation of Blind Athletics and having learned about their extremely high achievements, achieved despite all sorts of obstacles and lack of funding, I realized we were on the same path. I believe in the inexhaustible powers and potentials of the human being, but I also understand that sometimes help, whether it be moral support or a financial contribution, is necessary,” Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon said.

2015-06-30

Israeli Army to Open Cyber Warfare School for Combat Officers

The Israel Defense Forces plans to open a cyber school to introduce combat officers to cybersecurity and cyber-warfare, Israel’s NRG reported on Sunday.

The school will enroll 1,400 soldiers at the level of company commander, along with personnel from the IDF’s Inter-Ground Forces Command and Staff College, members of the brigade and battalion commanders course, as well as telecommunications personnel.

The institution is expected to begin operations in January, 2016.

Curriculums at the school will seek to familiarize this broad variety of military personnel with the world of cyber-warfare and to the wide campaign within the military to advance in this field.

“We want to raise the understanding about the threat of cyber-warfare against the means of warfare which these commanders control,” Col. Nitzan Amer, the commander of the training base of the IDF’s Telecommunications Division, said.

His division is responsible for establishing the new center, which will be hosted at the Gidonim camp in central Israel.

2015-06-30

PRESS RELEASE

The Goodwill Fund will hold a conference on June 30 concerning the work of the fund. The conference will include on its agenda organizational questions connected with the governance and effective functioning of the Goodwill Fund. Goodwill Fund directors LJC chair Faina Kukliansky and director of International Jewish Affairs for the American Jewish Committee Rabbi Andrew Baker (USA) will deliver reports at the conference. The board of directors of the Goodwill Fund state in the report of Goodwill Fund activities that strategy will continue to be honed and internal control mechanisms strengthened. The Goodwill Fund is successfully implementing the following international projects: The Bagel Shop (campaign to encourage tolerance and fight anti-Semitism), the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) in Europe’s project to preserve Jewish heritage and the third successful project with the YIVO Jewish research institute to preserve the past.

The public enterprise Goodwill Fund for Distributing Compensation for Real Estate Property of Jewish Religious Organizations was established at the end of 2011 after the Law on the Goodwill Compensation of Real Estate Property of Jewish Religious Organizations drafted on the initiative of the Lithuanian Government was passed into law. The fund was established by the Lithuanian Jewish Heritage Fund (Lietuvos žydų paveldo fondas) with the cooperation of the LJC and the World Jewish Restitution Organization. Under the law adopted, the state budget will pay out compensation of 128 million litas (3,450,000 euros) annually until 2023 to be used for financing Lithuanian Jewish religious, cultural, health, sport, educational and academic projects in Lithuania.

2015-06-29

Journalists invited to press conference

The Goodwill Fund will hold a press conference at 4:00 P.M. on June 30, 2015 regarding the work of the fund. Goodwill Fund directors, LJC chair Faina Kukliansky and director of International Jewish Affairs for the American Jewish Committee Rabbi Andrew Baker (USA) will deliver reports at the press conference.

The conference will be held at the Amberton Hotel located at L. Stuokos-Gucevičiaus street No. 1 in Vilnius. The public enterprise the Goodwill Fund for Distributing Compensation for Real Estate Property of Jewish Religious Organizations was established at the end of 2011 after the Law on the Goodwill Compensation of Real Estate Property of Jewish Religious Organizations drafted on the initiative of the Lithuanian Government was passed into law.

The fund was established by the Lithuanian Jewish Heritage Fund (Lietuvos žydų paveldo fondas) with the cooperation of the LJC and the World Jewish Restitution Organization. Under the law adopted, the state budget will pay out compensation of 128 million litas (3,450,000 euros) annually until 2023 to be used for financing Lithuanian Jewish religious, cultural, health, sport, educational and academic projects in Lithuania.

2015-06-29

Europe’s Jews decry ‘beast’ of anti-Semitism overtaking continent

European Jewry is all in the same boat, and that boat is slowly but surely sinking. That, at least, was the impression from a roundtable conversation Tuesday at the Jerusalem Press Club with leaders from 25 of the continent’s Jewish communities.

During the hour and a half lunch in a picturesque hall overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City, even those leaders who claimed their countries are without anti-Semitism today were pessimistic about the future of Europe. The obliviousness to a looming Nazi regime pervasive in 1930s Jewish communities was referenced, as were the increased Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) efforts that have taken over Scandinavia and elsewhere.

The 30-odd leaders were assembled under the banner “A Time for Action” for the fifthIsraeli Jewish Congress (Hakhel) Gathering and Solidarity Mission to Israel of senior European Jewish leaders. The IJC was founded as a conduit for Diaspora-Israel dialogue in 2011 by Russian businessman Vladimir Sloutsker, a former senator in the Russian Federation Senate.

2015-06-27

Former Top British Commander Warns UN Gaza War Report Will Embolden Terrorists and Cause More Bloodshed

A former commander of British forces in Afghanistan warned on Thursday that the recent U.N. report on the 2014 Gaza war was likely to embolden terrorists and cause violence.

“It pains me greatly to see words and actions from the United Nations that can only provoke further violence and loss of life. The United Nations Human Rights Council report on last summer’s conflict in Gaza … will do just that,” wrote Col. Richard Kemp in an op-ed for the New York Times.

2015-06-26

Jewish Culture Days in Zagare on September 9-11

Dear all,

Please read, follow updates and leave your messages, suggestions, requirements concerning Jewish Culture Days in Zagare on September 9-11 on the special site:

http://zagare-jewish-culture-days.weebly.com/

Also, press Like and follow the news and related things on the event‘s Facebook account –THERE

And THERE

2015-06-26

Commemoration of Lietūkis Garage Massacre

The Kaunas Jewish Community will hold a ceremony to commemorate the Lietūkis Garage massacre

at the monument dedicated to the victims located at Miško street No. 1 in Kaunas

at 4:30 P.M. on Friday, June 26, 2015.

The Israeli ambassador and embassy staff plan to attend.

You’re invited as well.

2015-06-26

UNESCO Plans to List Sugihara on Memory of the World Registry

The United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization UNESCO plans to list Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara who saved Jews in Lithuania during World War II on its Memory of the World Registry. The Japanese embassy to Lithuania told Baltic News Service: “Last week the
city of Yaotsu [birthplace of Chiune Sugihara] filed an application to the Japanese National UNESCO Commission for the latter to present a list of people whom Sugihara granted visas in order to rescue refugees on philanthropic and humanitarian grounds, and to include this on the UNESCO Memory of the World Registry.” Japan is expecting a decision from UNESCO in September. Japanese diplomats said if the answer is positive, then Sugihara’s actions should appear on the registry in 2017.

Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, saved around 6,000 Lithuanian Jews during World War II by issuing them Japanese visas, allowing escape through the Soviet Union. In 1985 the Japanese diplomat was recognized as a Righteous Gentile by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Agency in Israel. The UNESCO Memory of the World Registry is a list of documents, manuscripts, audio, video and other material of universal value to humanity.
BNS

2015-06-26

You’re Invited to a Concert

6:30 P.M., July 5, 2015
The women’s choir Naama from Israel will perform a free concert
for the Lithuanian Jewish Community and friends.

The concert will take place in the Jascha Heifetz Hall on the third floor
of the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street No. 4, Vilnius.

You’re invited!

2015-06-26

Press Release

2015-06-26

Dancing on Jewish graves in Vilna

Lithuania today is a truly democratic state. We are all free to express our opinions, and that is what I wish to do here today, without in any way detracting from my complete loyalty to our state.

According to local press reports, the new convention center for Vilniusis slated to be built, at a cost totaling around $25 million, on the site of the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. The earliest known graves were from 1487, but some think that the site goes back to the early 1320s when Gediminas (Gedymin) founded Vilna and, tradition goes, when he invited people from many backgrounds, including Jews, to settle his new city. I hope to live to celebrate the 700^thanniversary of Vilna’s founding in a few years.

After the war, the Soviets destroyed the visible (above-ground) part of the cemetery, removing all the gravestones. (They continue to turn up all over the city in a variety of uses, including as coating for the country’s power grid and as walls of schools.) The Soviets built a sports stadium on the site. It is that (now derelict) structure that would be converted to the new convention center at a total cost of $25 million.

>>Related updates

2015-06-25

Commemoration of Lietūkis Garage Massacre

The Kaunas Jewish Community is planning to hold an event to commemorate the Lietūkis Garage mass murder at the monument commemorating these victims located at Miško street No. 1 in Kaunas at 4:30 P.M. on Friday, June 26, 2015. The ambassador and staff of the embassy of Israel to Lithuania plan to attend the event. You are invited to come as well.

2015-06-22

You’re invited to attend an “en plein air” outdoor painting session

Litvak Artists: the L’école de Paris period

For the first time in its institutional existence the Lithuanian Jewish Community is planning to hold an educational “en plein air” outdoor painting workshop called “Litvak Artists: the L’école de Paris period.” The workshop will serve as a forum for remembering the rich legacy of Litvak painters and their contributions to art history. It is to include members and friends of the community with an interest in art. Besides painting, the workshop will also feature drawing and ceramics.

“The Lithuanian Jewish Community includes many people with an interest in art. That gave rise to the idea of bringing all of them together and to bring in professional artists as well, to create a special creative atmosphere, to remember famous Litvak painters and to share our rich artistic history,” Junona Berznitski, the initiator and coordinator of the educational workshop, said.

The “en plein air” workshop is to take place at the Ilanka farm (http://www.ilankossodyba.lt) in Šaukšteliškiai village in the Luokesa rural district in the Molėtai region of Lithuania, surrounded by nature and far from the dust and daily routine of the city.

2015-06-22

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania