by Jacob Piliansky
Iam proud to be a Litvak, and I am proud to be a citizen of independent and democratic Lithuania. I very much enjoy walking in our city’s delightful VingisPark, as well as downtown in the beautiful city center area.
However, I feel suddenly both sad and shocked, when I see neo-Nazi parades with swastikas and other fascist symbols along Gedimino Boulevard on our independence day repeating the yelled chants of “Lithuania for [Ethnic] Lithuanians.”
Press Release
NEW YORK/JERUSALEM – Leaders of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) on Tuesdayexpressed shock and outrage at yet another terrorist attack against Jews in Jerusalem. At least four people, including a rabbi, were killed and more than a dozen others wounded when two Arab terrorists burst into the synagogue during morning prayers and attacked worshipers with a gun, a meat cleaver and an ax. The two perpetrators were killed by police officers arriving at the scene. It was the deadliest terror attack in Jerusalem in many years.
WJC President Ronald Lauder said: “Our hearts go out to the victims of this heinous crime and to their families.” Lauder said the bloodbath in the Kehilat Bnei Torah Synagogue in Har Nof was “obviously the result of an orchestrated campaign by Palestinian groups whose sole aim is to incite to hatred and violence against Jews.”
He welcomed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ condemnation of the attack but said that in order to be credible Abbas had to stop the “vicious incitement against Israelis that is happening on his watch.”
“Instead of opposing the extremists in his own ranks, Mr. Abbas has been placating them. If he wants to retain any credibility he must show strong, unequivocal leadership now. Failure to do so would have catastrophic consequences and would probably put a stop to the peace process for many years to come. The next weeks will show if he is a credible Palestinian leader,” Lauder said.
The WJC president called it an outrage that houses of prayer were now being deliberately targeted by Palestinian terrorists. “Houses of worship anywhere in the world must be sacrosanct. Whoever attacks peaceful worshipers in a synagogue, a mosque or a church is nothing but a despicable criminal.”
About the World Jewish CongressThe World Jewish Congress (WJC) is the international organization representing Jewish communities in 100 countries to governments, parliaments and international organizations.
Media contact
Brussels: Michael Thaidigsmann
Director, Media relations, World Jewish Congress
Tel: +32 2 552 09 24
Cell: +32 495 510 917
Email: mthaidigsmann@wjcmail.org
The Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania laments the passing of South African Jewish leader Mervyn Smith, a wise leader and a great friend. We extend our most sincere condolences to his children and grandchildren. May his memory never be forgotten.
Faina Kukliansky
Chairperson of the Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania
On 11 November, representatives of the British, Jewish and Lithuanian communities in London attended the opening of the exhibition “Hello, Paris. The Path of Litvak Artists” at Europe House, Lihtuania’s Embassy in London reports.
Exhibition opening. Photo courtesy of MFA
These observations do not claim to be a review of the traveling exhibition “Lithuanian Jews behind the Iron Curtain,” which was mounted by the Tolerance Center of the Vilnius Gaon Jewish State Museum in Vilnius (hereinafter “the state Jewish museum”) from 13 March to 31 July 31 this year. By and large, issues raised refer to the fate of Lithuanian Jewry during World War II and contemporary issues regarding some issues in Lithuanian history.
The design, composition and execution of the March-to-July 2014 exhibit at the state Jewish museum were all excellent, with state of the art utilization of both sides of exhibition boards. There was a wealth of material, particularly photographic, on spheres of life including individual, family, children and adults, group, duets, “before and after” photos of the prewar and postwar periods, official photos of events, documents, newspaper clippings, posters, quotes from academic papers of academics, quotes from letters and literary works, memoirs of the eye-witnesses to the events, cartoons and captions to them, correspondence of public officials, etc. One side of each stand presents the materials in the Lithuanian language, the other in English. The exhibition is mobile: it can be quickly assembled, prepared for inspection, quickly disassembled, folded and transported. This allows us to suggest that the exhibition can be (or is even meant to be?) exhibited not only in Vilnius or Lithuania, but also abroad: it has recently become a fashion among the Lithuanian academic community, while exploring the tragedy of Lithuanian Jews during World War II (the Holocaust issues), to arrange conferences, symposia and other scientific events on this subject and related Jewish questions, not only in Lithuania, but also for foreign tours in the UK, the USA, South Africa and further afield.
Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly on Monday and said that the United States will never abandon Israel.
“Were there not an Israel, US would have to invent one. We will never ever abandon Israel – out of our own selfinterest,” he said.
Biden also said that Israel has the right to defend itself, and that the US supports Israel with $8.5 million per day.
THE GA IS THE PREMIER LEADERSHIP RETREAT for Federation volunteer leaders and professionals engaged in the business of Jewish philanthropy from across North America and around the world. With Israel in crisis, it is more important than ever.
Exibit dedicated to 100 years of the Joint Distribution Committee’s work in Panevėžys (Ponevezh) and Lithuania.
The exhibit, to open on November 6, 2014, at Respublikos street No. 14 in Panevėžys, includes photographs and documents from the Lithuanian Central Archive and the Panevėžys archive detailing and documenting the Jewish American charity’s work. It also includes photographs and documents from the Joint’s own archive, the City of Panevėžys’s Jewish Archive, the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Panevėžys Regional History Museum archive.
The Joint Distribution Committee, or Joint, renewed aid to the regional Jewish communities and Jews in trouble in Lithuania and the other Baltic states following independence.
This year, to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish American charity, the Panevėžys (Ponevezh) Jewish Community undertook a project which culminated in a public event on November 6, 2014. The goal of the project was to showcase the Joint’s charitable work in Panevėžys and Lithuania.
The event began on the sunny morning of November 6 at the city’s G. Petkevičaitė-Bitė Public Library. A large audience of esteemed guests took part in the conference staged by the Panevėžys Jewish Community. Community chair Gennadu Kofman opened the conference with a speech about the Joint’s unique and historical activities during and after World War II.
MEILACH STALEVICH
(1923—2014)
by Dovid Katz (www.dovidkatz.net)
The Jewish Community of Lithuania has just lost one of its most powerful and authentic Litvak personalities, and one of the very last Vilna-born prewar Jews in Vilnius, Meilach Stalevich, who was born on June 28th 1923. The funeral: Wednesday November 12th, at 2 PM at the Vilnius Jewish cemetery.
Born on June 28th 1923 in the city (then Wilno, Poland; forever in Yiddish: Vílne), Meilach grew up on Kíyever gás (now: Kauno gatvė), opposite the Mishmères-Khéylim (Mishmeres Cholim) hospital which had a kloyz (prayer-house) where his grandfather Avigdor was the gábe (gabbai). Afterwards his family lived in a flat rented to them by a friendly Catholic priest on the grounds of nearby All Saints Church (Visų šventųjų; in local Yiddish: Kolanshómes [from: kol haneshómes ‘all souls’]). Meilach studied at the Yiddish secular Reál-gimnàzye on Rudnítsker gas (today’s Rūdninkų). He is a highly decorated hero of the war against Hitler (the only Jew in a Red Army unit of Cossacks). Most of his relatives were murdered at Ponár (Paneriai). He had received a letter in 1944 (after Vilna fell, but while he was still fighting at the front) that nobody of his family survived.
Apr, 29 2014 — (All Things Considered) —
There was a time in Eastern Europe when the landscape was dotted with wooden synagogues, some dating to the 1600s. Inside, the walls and ceilings were covered with intricate painted designs. Almost all of these structures were destroyed during the Holocaust, and with them, a folk art. But in Burlington, Vt., a synagogue mural has been uncovered where it lay hidden for a quarter century.
Aaron Goldberg grew up in Burlington. His family was among the Jewish immigrants, most of them from Lithuania, who settled in a section of the city known as Little Jerusalem in the late 1800s. Goldberg first saw the mural in the 1970s when he was in middle school and accompanied his mother to a carpet store.
The founders of The Seventy Years Declaration on the Anniversary of the Final Solution Wannsee Conference are urging Australian individuals and organisations to support their movement against Holocaust revisionism.
They have recently launched the ‘Defending Truth in History’ campaign with a brand new website:www.seventyyearsdeclaration.org.
Against the backdrop of rising ultra-nationalism and anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the campaign aims to fight an insidious form of Holocaust revisionism – double genocide. This notion, which equates the Nazi genocide with Stalinist atrocities and calls for joint memorialisation of the two tragedies, is gaining popularity across Europe, and even in America.
Renee Ghert-Zand is a reporter and feature writer for The Times of Israel.
There have been three Jewish mayors in Toronto’s history, and now it seems there will be a fourth—at least according to halacha, or Jewish law.
Archival records obtained by The Times of Israel indicate that Mayor-elect John Tory has a maternal Jewish grandmother. According to the Jewish law of matrilineal descent, this makes Tory himself Jewish.
During a pre-election debate hosted last month by the Centre for Jewish and Israel Affairs and the United Jewish Appeal, mayoral candidate Doug Ford caused a stir by rattling off a list of all the Jews in his life (his doctor, his accountant, his lawyer, etc.) as a means of defending his brother, scandal plagued Mayor Rob Ford, against accusations of anti-Semitism. Ford even mentioned for the first time publicly that his evangelical Christian wife is actually Jewish on her mother’s side.
The Tolerance Centre of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, together with other institutions, this year will celebrate International Tolerance Day, which was included on the UNESCO list of international days of commemoration in 1995 (16 November). The other institutions that will take part in the commemorative events are the Embassy of Poland in Vilnius, Migration Board of Vilnius County Police Headquarters, and the Polish Institute in Vilnius.
The exhibition“Jan Karski. Man of Freedom” will be opened on the 13th of November, 2014, at 5.00 p.m. in the Tolerance Center (Naugarduko Str. 10/2, Vilnius). Zygmunt Stępiński, deputy director of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews (POLIN), and Lena Dąbkowska-Cichocka, POLIN representative on the strategic development questions, will take part in the opening ceremony. The finalists of Citizen of the Republic of Lithuania, a competition for school students attending comprehensive schools in Vilnius district will also be awarded during this event. After the official part, we invite you to the concert of the Reszów Klezmer Band as a celebration of tolerance.
Please be so kind and print out the attached invitation before coming to our event.
5 November 2014
The Situation in Jerusalem:
One Israeli man was killed and 14 injured, some seriously, in Jerusalem today (Wednesday, 5 November) when a Palestinian deliberately rammed his commercial van into two separate crowds of Israelis near a light-rail train station and then attacked passers-by with a metal pole.
A nearly identical attack took place exactly two weeks ago (Wednesday, 22 October) when a Palestinian steered his car into a light-rail station killing an Israeli-American baby and a woman originally from Ecuador and injuring eight.
On Wednesday, 29 October, a Palestinian terrorist attacked Yehuda Glick, an American-born Israeli, as he was departing from a conference in central Jerusalem. The terrorist shot Rabbi Glick multiple times and he remains in critical condition.
Today’s Rioting on the Temple Mount:
This coming January 27, will mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops. As some of you know, my father was deported three times to Auschwitz. The first time, on June 22, 1943, he was on a transport from his hometown of Bedzin with his first wife – the widow of a close friend of his whom he had married after his friend had died – and her daughter. This particular transport was taken on regular train wagons rather than cattle cars, and my father, a superb swimmer, managed to escape by diving out through a window as the train crossed a bridge over the Vistula River. Hit by three German bullets, my father managed to return to the Bedzin Ghetto where he was reunited with his father.
Less than six weeks later, during the liquidation of the Bedzin Ghetto, my father avoided deportation to Auschwitz once more by escaping to the nearby town of Zawiercie. In late August 1943, however, he arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of a transport from Zawiercie. In late December 1943 or early January 1944, he was transferred to a labor camp near Bedzin, Lagisha, from which he escaped shortly thereafter. He was hidden for over six weeks by a Polish friend in Bedzin, but was recaptured by the Germans sometime in April 1944 as he was on his way to get forged identity papers that he hoped would enable him to reach Hungary. Returned to Auschwitz, he was imprisoned for more than six months in the notorious Block 11, the so-called Death Block, where the Germans attempted in vain to get him to rebeal the identity of the firend who had hidden him. In November 1944, he was sent from Auschwitz to Langensalza, a sub-camp of Buchenwald in Thuringia; from there to Dora-Mittelbau; and from there in early April 1945 to Bergen-Belsen where he was liberated by British troops on April 15.
A new commemorative stone erected in honor of Righteous Gentile Polina Tarasewicz (born 1905, murdered 1943) was consecrated at the cemetery in Parudaminis village in the Marijampolis aldermanship in the Vilnius region on October 30, 2014. Anatoliy Kasinski, formerly Kazriel Bernan, provided testimony on how Polina Tarasewicz took in and hid him, his brother and his mother at Predtechenka village (now known as Biržiškės) in the Vilnius region. A local turned Tarasewicz in and Nazis and local collaborators set up an ambush at night.
Tarasewicz had time to tell Anatoliy to run to the forest, which is the reason he survived. The murderers took Tarasewicz and the survivor’s mother and brother to a wooded area and shot them, then they burned down her house and farm. The next day Tarasewicz’s relatives secretly dug up her body and reburied her next to her mother’s grave at the Parudaminis cemetery. At an awards ceremony at the Lithuanian Government House on April 28 of 2014, Polina Tarasewicz along with 20 other people who saved Jews during World War II at risk to their lives and those of their families were honored.
(Brussels, Thursday, October 30, 2014) – The European Jewish Congress has called the Swedish Government’s decision to officially recognize a Palestinian state a display of poorly timed judgment.
“Only last night an Israeli was gunned down in an attempt at cold blooded murder, following on from the intentional murder by ploughing into a crowd of people in Jerusalem, killing two, including a three month old baby, all of which follows Palestinian leaders calling on their people to do anything possible to ‘protect’ Jerusalem,” EJC President Dr. Moshe Kantor said. “And rather than condemn the incitement to murder and seek ways to calm the situation, Sweden is merely adding fuel to an already enflamed Middle East and taking unilateral actions which the European Union committed its member states not to undertake.”
“This recognition also means recognizing a state which is at least in part controlled by the terrorist group Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel. Furthermore, with the current chaos and mass murder in places like Syria and Iraq, it appears bizarre that a foreign government would take such significant action completely unrelated to seeking ways to protect the tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians whose lives are at immediate risk.”
“Today the government takes the decision to recognize the state of Palestine,” Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom said in a statement on Thursday. “It is an important step that confirms the Palestinians’ right to self-determination,” she said, adding that “we hope that this will show the way for others.”
“This move is also illegitimate because it stands in opposition to commitments made by the European Union that neither side should take unilateral steps, and here is a member state doing exactly that,” Kantor continued. “For over 20 years the international community has consistently used the stick against Israel with all manner of threats and the carrot for the Palestinians, giving them prizes even while they continue to refuse to negotiate, telling them that recalcitrance is a strategy worth pursuing.”
“Perhaps there should be a major reassessment by the international community to assist the two sides get back to the negotiating table rather than taking actions which just pull the sides further apart.”
European Jewish Congress (EJC)
Tel : +3225408159
Fax : +3225408169
Web : www.eurojewcong.org
