Lithuanian Jewish Community

Keepsakes of Old Jewish Vilna (16)

Dovid Katz’s new article (in Yiddish) on the differing Jewish names for the city Vilnius, and the cultural origin and background of each, has just appeared in connection with an old bookbinder’s ‘spine stuffing card’ made from title pages containing all three Jewish traditional names. The article points out that Vilna Jewish books started using a fourth name for the city in the final pre-Holocaust years.

The article, whose Yiddish title translates “Vilno, Vilne, Vilna — the three together in a Vilna bookbinder’s hands: three (factually four) names for the city used by its own Jewish residents”
is at:

Keepsakes of Old Jewish Vilna (16)

2015-03-19

National Israel TV presents

2015-03-19

An “Inner” View of the Neo-March on Vilnius, 2015

by Geoff Vasil

Afunny thing happened on the way to the neo-Nazi march. I saw a man walking towards me, and thought I knew him. Apparently he thought the same thing, and we both said hello in Lithuanian as we passed one another. As I pondered how we might know each other, it came to me: I had seen him at an earlier neo-Nazi march, probably the one in Kaunas a month earlier. He thought I was a fellow marcher, apparently, or at least not an enemy to the cause.

But what is their cause? What does staking out a Lithuanian place in history, or taking pride in a mythical genetic complement, or taking pride in a language to which they have made zero contributions actually mean?

I was in a bit of a hurry. The reason was, besides leaving the house a little late, I wasn’t sure exactly when the march was supposed to start. In Kaunas the Lithuanian news portal Delfi.lt (a trans-Baltic phenomenon with URLs made with TLDs for Latvia and Estonia as well) had either been a victim or perpetrator/purveyor of disinformation (and is there a difference?) and had misdirected both the fascist youth and their would-be opposition to attend a march there on February 15th instead of the usual February 16th, the pre-World War II day of Lithuanian independence which, paradoxically, was called and is called the Day of the Restoration of Lithuania, a reference to the mediaeval Grand Duchy thereof rather than to the pre-World War II state of the same name made into a Soviet republic in 1940 and then again in 1945. Is the third time a charm?

2015-03-19

Botched TV exit polls earn vote of no confidence

Pollsters try to explain why they got the election result wrong, say many voters refused to participate

Having heard the results of the exit polls for Tuesday’s elections, Israelis went to bed thinking that the Likud and Zionist Union were neck and neck. Two TV exit polls (on Channels 1 and 10) showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union, the country’s two largest parties, tied at 27 Knesset seats each. The third (on Channel 2) showed the Likud leading the Zionist Union by one seat, 28-27

2015-03-18

New Traveling Exhibit Unveiled at Tolerance Center

by Geoff Vasil

Usually when you hear a new Holocaust exhibit or book is being presented at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Museum in Vilnius, you can expect a whole gaggle of diplomats and a certain number of people from that new Lithuanian elite which does understand Holocaust issues to some extent to be in heavy attendance.

Perhaps it was because it was held in the early afternoon on a Tuesday in early March, more likely it was a conscious decision to forego the pageantry and fanfare made by the director of the museum, but for whatever reason the opening ceremony for Danutė Selčinskaja’s new mobile exhibit was subdued, even somber to some extent, befitting the subject matter. There was no Californian wine awaiting toasts after the ceremony, no cheese snacks or fruit on the table in the foyer. Instead, there were about twenty apparently photocopied and hand-folded brochures laid out carefully for guests to take before or after the event.

2015-03-17

In the East of EU-NATO-Land: Again, Latvian Authorities Grant Riga Old Town and its “Liberty Monument” on March 16th to 1500 Worshippers of Hitler’s Waffen SS Latvian Divisions

All Waffen SS members swore an oath to Adolf Hitler, some were recycled Holocaust killers; Lithuania’s far-right leaders J. Panka and R. Čekutis, fresh from neo-Nazi march in Vilnius, were on hand as honored guests; for the second year in a row, the prime minister forbade his ministers from attending.

2015-03-17

Six Months After Protective Edge, Hamas Says Bases Near Gaza Border Rebuilt

Hamas’ “military wing”, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement on Saturday claiming that many of its bases on Gaza’s border with Israel have been fully rebuilt, and asserting that it had recovered from Israel’s summer offensive.

The Brigades’ statement added that Hamas was “not afraid” of confronting the IDF again.

An official report on the Brigades’ website said that, “No sooner had the war ended, than the Qassam Brigades started a new stage of the conflict [with Israel] in preparation for the battle of liberation,” according to the Palestinian Maan news agency.

2015-03-17

Israel opens its first embassy in Lithuania, pre-war home to 250,000 Jews

The event was celebrated during a ceremony Thursday, the Baltic News Service reported, in the capital city of Vilnius, where one in four residents was Jewish before the Holocaust.

Lithuania used to have 250,000 Jews but the vast majority were killed by German Nazis and their local collaborators.

Israel’s first ambassador to the Baltic nation is Amir Maimon.

Lithuania opened its embassy in Israel shortly after the two countries established diplomatic relations, in 1992 — a year after Lithuania regained its independence from Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union. In 2012, Lithuania, which has been a member of the European Union since 2003, appointed a commercial attache to serve in Israel.

Israel, however, refrained from opening an embassy in Lithuania. The Jewish state was represented in Lithuania by Israel’s embassy in the capital of neighboring Riga.

2015-03-15

Decision 2015: Israelis’ Choices When They Head to the Polls

The leaders of the eight political parties running in the March 17 Israeli Knesset election participated in their first televised debate on Feb. 26, moderated by anchor Yonit Levi of Israel’s Channel 2 network. Absent from the discussion, however, were current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his most formidable challenger, Zionist Union alliance chairman Isaac Herzog.

If Zionist Union wins the most seats in the Knesset (Israel’s legislature) and is able to form a governing coalition, Herzog—whose Labor party merged with Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah party for the election—would rotate the role of prime minister with Livni.

When Israelis enter the “kalfi” (Hebrew for ballot box) next month, they will cast votes for entire parties—not for specific candidates. Each party, which presents a list of candidates for membership in the Knesset, must win at least 3.25 percent of the total vote to get the minimum representation of about four seats. The new Israeli government will be established based on how many seats each party wins, and the president will appoint the prime minister, who is usually the leader of the party that won the most Knesset seats.

2015-03-14

Yiddish Reading Circle Returns

On March 12, 2015 the Yiddish Reading Circle conducted by world-renowned Yiddishist Dovid Katz returned to the large hall on the second floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community building in Vilnius.

Dovid Katz, who was a professor of Yiddish at Vilnius University for 11 years, has been conducting the informal circle off and on for lovers and native speakers of Yiddish for several years now, as his schedule allows.

The first class in the current round of readings began in the traditional manner with those in attendance giving their names and place of origin in Yiddish to the best of their ability.

This was followed by the also-traditional reading of a short text in Yiddish by volunteers around the table. Dr. Katz offered help when needed and punctuated the reading with explanations of general and more obscure aspects of the language.

2015-03-14

Vilnius Neo-Nazi March 2015

About 1,500 people assembled and marched at 4:00 P.M., March 11, 2015–Lithuania’s second independence day–from the central Cathedral Square to the square next to parliament down Vilnius’s main street Gedimino prospektas.

As in previous years, marchers carried a black-and-white flag with a swastika and the inscription “Skinhead Lietuva” (Skinhead Lithuania) employing the lightning-bolt SS symbol, a flag which featured prominently as the marchers spoke at length and sang next to the parliament building.

Witnesses including native Lithuanian speakers reported the marchers again used the offensive slogan “Lithuania for Lithuanians” as the marched up the main street.

The turnout was somewhat smaller than in previous “peak” years but was nonetheless impressive, since the march was rescheduled at the last moment when the Vilnius municipal authorities again caved in to fascist youth demands for a permit to sanction their public spectacle. It had originally been scheduled for 3 P.M. March organizers claimed they would go forward with it without a permit. The neo-Nazis had to squeeze in between other regularly scheduled events, and actually ended up pooling their forces behind the sound-stage on Cathedral Square where the combined martial orchestras of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were performing a concert for the public.

2015-03-14

Jews in Lithuania Do What They Do Best

Dalius Simėnas

The Israeli-capital companies operating in Lithuania work in sectors well known to Jews: they control real estate, develop the IT business and, as an example, make cash registers. The heads of Israeli companies in Lithuania welcome the first Israeli ambassador to Vilnius but say that opening an embassy isn’t enough, hard work awaits for Israeli business to discover Lithuania as a country in which to invest and expand.

Direct Israeli investments in Lithuania, according to the Lithuanian Department of Statistics, are not especially great this year, comprising 12.71 million euros. The main sector, worth 10.5 million euros, is real estate, with the remainder going to refining and refinishing industry, IT and other spheres. This doesn’t compare to the much more significant investments made by EU partners in Sweden, Denmark and other Nordic countries, nor to US investments.

2015-03-14

JDC greetings

Dear friends,

At JDC, we know that celebrating women isn’t just about honoring heroines of the past. And it’s not just about acknowledging the remarkable women and girls who are catalysts for change today, from Sarajevo to Sderot.

We’re excited to introduce you to some of the dynamic women continuing JDC’s legacy of service to women and girls globally – from our Board leadership to the next generation of talent transforming the way we serve Jewish communities in need around the world.

2015-03-12

Dailyslave.com | Jews In Baltics Afraid Of An Increasing Amount Of People Who Dislike Them

Look at what this Yiddish fool said. A Jew named Dovid Katz is apparently upset that people are realizing that much of what we’ve been told about Adolf Hitler have been Jewish lies. He is also mad that there are more people in the Baltics who are coming to the realization that they don’t like Jews.

He even claims that looking at Hitler favorably is not a Western value. This is a total lie as it is absolutely a Western value to look at Hitler favorably. He was the last White European leader who stood up for Western civilization and against the Jewish Marxism that has turned this world into a cesspool of war and degenerate filth.

From Fox News:

“We have to say that the support of Hitler and rewriting history to turn Hitler into a liberator of this area is not a western value,” Yiddish scholar Dovid Katz, founder of the DefendingHistory.com website, told FoxNews.com. “If you’re repatriating Nazi war criminals to be re-buried and honored as part of national history, that is not behavior compatible with western ethics and values.”

2015-03-12

Chair of the Lithuanian Jewish-Litvak Community Statement

Faina Kukliansky, chair of the Lithuanian Jewish-Litvak Community, has issued the following statement on the eve of the March 11th Lithuanian Independence Day holiday, following reports in the media that a march through the heart of the Lithuanian capital by ultranationalists would go forward as planned:
Faina Kukliansky, chair of the Lithuanian Jewish-Litvak Community, says the March 11th holiday is to very important and dear to Lithuanian Jews, and therefore should not be an occasion for insulting citizens of other ethnicities through means unacceptable in a democratic society.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community strongly condemns the Nazi chants often heard on this day of great import to the Lithuanian state, and we are very encouraged by the words of Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius
uttered on the eve of the holiday at the Sholem Aleichem Jewish school in Vilnius that he will not allow the sowing of ethnic discord through various slogans and chants on the occasion of the birthday of the state.

He said that the head of the Government and other government officials want to stress that anti-Semitism and intolerance will not be tolerated in Lithuania.

2015-03-12

LJC Statement

The Lithuanian Jewish Community does not approve of the march by the Union of Lithuanian Nationalist Youth held on March 11, Lithuanian Independence Day, in Vilnius, because we believe the values publicly espoused by the marchers do not correspond to the principles of the modern democratic state which has been the basis for the creation of Lithuania for the last 25 years.

The Community is surprised by the lack of political will and action by Lithuanian government institutions in putting a stop to the spread of dangerous ultranationalist and Nazi tendencies in Lithuania. The decision to permit the march by this organization which is opposed to tolerance and ethnic concord in the Lithuanian state is unjustifiable if only for the constant refrain of the fascist slogan in marches by nationalists of “Lithuania for Lithuanians.” The marchers also carried a flag bearing black-and-white symbol of the White Pride World-Wide movement, and a black-and-white flag extolling skinheads with the stylized emblem of the SS and a Nazi swastika.

The LJC notes the ever diminishing turnout of followers of Julius Panka and other nationalist youth organization leaders, but we maintain efforts are still sorely needed to bring home to the public how unacceptable the ideas they declare publicly are in a tolerant civil society.

2015-03-12

On Eve of Planned Neo-Nazi March, Statements by Head of Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Simon Wiesenthal Center

VILNIUS—On the eve of the planned neo-Nazi march in central Vilnius, slated for 3 PM on March 11th, Lithuania’s independence day, the chairperson of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, Faina Kukliansky, issued a statement on the community’s website, which was followed within minutes by a statement from the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Director of East European Affairs, Dr. Efraim Zuroff. The full text of both statements follows:

2015-03-11

Untraditional Integrated Lesson called “How Much do We Know about Jewish Culture?”

by Editor, Feb 17, 2015, Jurgis Pabrėža Preparatory Gymnasium of Kretinga

In February of this year the seniors of the Jurgis Pabrėža Preparatory Gymnasium of Kretinga had two open non-traditional integrated Lithuanian-language, history and English-language lessons about Jewish culture. During studies on the topic of Jewish literature, it was noted the students had little knowledge of this, so the decision was made to expand their horizons with supplementary material including facts from the religion, history and life of the Jewish people and a characterization of Jewish identity. Izaak Kutzi, a citizen of Israel who has lived in Lithuania for some time but speaks English, was invited to help with the lesson. The lesson was prepared beforehand: tasks were assigned students, the course of the lesson and the role of its leaders were discussed, a test was prepared to assess the acquisition of information, and Kutzi even made traditional Jewish food-dishes. Further participants in the lesson included teachers from the gymnasium and the local district, members of the Kretinga Jewish Community and students from Klaipėda University.

2015-03-09

Contest „Signs of the Lithuanian Jewish Culture“ is open for submissions

Tolerance campaign “The Bagel Shop” is glad to announce that the photo contest “Signs of the Lithuanian Jewish Culture” is now open for submissions.

You are kindly invited to send us photos or their compositions, capturing traces of the Lithuanian Jewish cultural and historical heritage as well as signs of the Jewish Community’s presence in Lithuania nowadays.

The deadline for submissions is 30 April, 2015. The winners will be rewarded!

Please find more information in the Regulations listed below.

2015-03-09

Rare Footage of the Chofetz Chaim Surfaces—From Fox News(reel)

If you are not part of the closed world of ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, Jewry, or within the Orthodox rabbinic fraternity, you are more than likely completely oblivious to the release last week of an obscure newsreel from 1923, which for nearly a century has remained unseen, languishing on some dusty shelf in an obscure storage location in the United States. However, for the Orthodox community, the release of this footage is without exaggeration one of the most sensational media events to have occurred in the history of modern media, right up there with how secular audiences perceive movie footage of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon or of the Titanic’s discovery deep in the Atlantic Ocean.

2015-03-08

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania