Lithuanian Jewish Community

Remembering Hamas Kidnap Victims in Šiauliai

The Šiauliai Jewish Community will exhibit photographs of more than 200 hostages taken and held by Hamas in southern Israel on the city streets in Šiauliai on Thursday.

The posters will go on display outside the building at Višinskio street no. 24, Šiauliai Jewish Community headquarters between 11:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M. on November 16.

The Šiauliai Jewish Community asks you to express support for the families of the kidnapping victims and seeks to bring attention to the fate of these people who have been trapped in a living in hell for more than a month now.

Israel reports Hamas is currently imprisoning 239 people abducted from southern Israel.

2023-11-152023-11-15

Jewish and Other Composers Rarely Heard in Lithuania at This Year’s Darna Festival

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and Cvi Parkas are holding the third annual Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance tomorrow, November 16, with a series of readings and musical performances.

The classical music group Duo Andersson, Julija Andersson on violin and brother Paulius on piano, will present a series of rarely-heard classical and contemporary works by Lera Auerbach, Jewish Lithuanian composer Anatolijus Šenderovas and Philip Glass in the Jascha Heifetz Hall on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. The Darna Festival is free and open to the public.

2023-11-152023-11-15

Australian Musician Skye Magnus to Perform at Darna Festival

Australian composer and musician Skye Magnus will perform her musical works at the Darna Festival on Thursday, November 16, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Her music touches on themes of love, misfortune, the spirit and God. The festival starts at 6:30 P.M.

2023-11-152023-11-15

Indrė Valantinaitė’s World of Poetry at Darna Festival

Lithuanian poetess Indrės Valantinaitė will read selections from her poetry at the Darna Festival to mark the International Day of Tolerance scheduled to start at 6:30 P.M. on Thursday, November 16, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.

2023-11-152023-11-15

Ukrainian Folklore Ensemble to Perform at Darna Festival to Mark International Day of Tolerance

The Ukrainian folklore ensemble Namysto will perform first in a series of concerts at the Lithuanian Jewish Community and Cvi Parkas’s third annual Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance.

Namysto was formed in Vilnius in 2019 by a group who performed Ukrainian folk songs in their free time. They’ve since expanded their repertoire with folk music expeditions to Polesia, the Steppe and the central Dnieper River region.

The festival starts at 6:30 P.M. on Thursday, November 16, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.

2023-11-152023-11-15

Pianist Darius Mažintas to Perform at Darna Festival

Musician and piano master Darius Mažintas will perform at the Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance on November 16. The program includes a musical composition by Ryuichi Sakamoto from his album BTTB and “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”

The Darna Festival starts at 6:30 P.M. Thursday at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. For more information, click here.

#Atmintis #Memory #AEPJ

2023-11-14

Darna Festival: Three Extraordinary Photography Exhibits

The Darna Festival happening this Thursday, November 16, to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance will feature three exceptional photography exhibits featuring work by Antanas Sutkus, Andrey Kezzyn and Bartosz Frątczak. All festival events and performances are free and open to the public.

Time: 6:30 P.M., Thursday, November 16
Place: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius

Antanas Sutkus is considered one of the top Lithuanian photographers of the 20th century. Andrey Kezzyn over the past decade has been staging theatrical photographs with actors in costume, and is a stage director himself. Bartosz Frątczak lives in Vilnius and is a teacher, philosopher and journalist as well as photographer. From 2014 to 2018 Frątczak photographed Holocaust survivors and family members, and rescuers. From 2017 to 2019 he documented living Polish World War II veterans.

#Atmintis #Memory #AEPJ

2023-11-14

Happy Birthday to Adomas and Adelina Kofman

On November 12 our tireless scout leader Adomas and his sister Adelina, also a scout, turned 20. Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community wish them a wonderful birthday, that all their dreams would come true, endless new adventures and the love of all around them. Mazl tov!

2023-11-14

Anti-Semitic Terrorism Continues in Montreal

Montreal Jewish school target of another shooting in city’s week-long string of hate crimes
by Alessia Simona Maratta, Global News, November 12, 2023

A Jewish school in Montreal was once again the target of gunfire early morning Sunday in what authorities say is the latest in a string of hateful acts targeting the community this week.

Police say 911 calls were made around 5 a.m. for gunshots heard near Yeshiva Gedola school in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood. Officers say they found bullet holes and casings at the building on Deacon Road near the Van Horne Avenue intersection.

Witnesses told officers a vehicle was seen leaving the scene after shots were heard.

Montreal police spokesperson Caroline Chèvrefils told Global News no one was inside the building at the time of the incident and no injuries were reported.

The investigation has been transferred to the SPVM’s hate crimes unit.

This is the second time Yeshiva Gedola has been the target of gunfire in just a few days. On Thursday police reported overnight gunshots fired at that same school and at United Talmud Torah school, also in the city’s Côte-des-Neiges area.

Full story here.

2023-11-13

Netanyahu: We’ll Defy the World If Needed to Defeat Hamas, PA Can’t Run Gaza after War

Photo: Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks about the Israel-Hamas war during a press conference on November 11, 2023. (Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)

Defiant PM rejects international criticism, blasts Macron for accusing Jerusalem of bombing civilians; says PA can’t rule Gaza after war; Gallant rejects world’s “moral preaching”

The leaders in charge of directing Israel’s war in Gaza vowed Saturday to soldier on with the grinding military offensive aimed at vanquishing the Hamas terror group, pushing back at international pressure to slow down or halt it, and pledging to “stand firm against the world if necessary.”

In a joint press conference prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defense minister Yoav Gallant and minister Benny Gantz rejected mounting international criticism over the civilian costs of the war, urging Western leaders to throw their support behind the Jewish state since its victory would mean victory for the entire free world as well.

2023-11-13

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 4:08 P.M. on Friday, November 10, and concludes at 5:22 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2023-11-102023-11-10

Challa Workshop

You’re invited to come to another challa-making workshop. This time we’ll make buns in the form of the star of David, and the workshop is dedicated to paying honor to the courageous soldiers defending our historical homeland, Israel, and to all the people of Israel caught up in the storm of war.

Time: 6:30 P.M., Friday, November 17
Place: Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius

Registration is required by writing zanas@sc.lzb.lt or calling +370 678 81514.

Am Yisrael khai.

2023-11-102023-11-20

Register Now for Makabi Tennis Tourney

The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club invites you to take part in our tennis tournament from 10:00 A.M. till 1:00 P.M. on Sunday, November 16, at the SEB Arena, Ąžuolyno street no. 7, Vilnius. The format will depend on the number and level of participants. Registration is required by November 16 by writing manovilnius99@gmail.com or calling 8612 81088. See you there!

2023-11-10

German Chancellor, President Mark Kristallnacht at Berlin Synagogue Firebombed Last Month

Photo: German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier and chancellor Olaf Sholz attended a ceremony to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms at the synagogue of the Kahal Adass Jisroel Jewish complex attacked by Molotov cocktails last month.

BERLIN (AP)–Across Germany, in schools, city halls, synagogues, churches and parliament, people came together Thursday to commemorate the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass in 1938 in which the Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Germany’s main Jewish leader Josef Schuster spoke at an anniversary ceremony at a Berlin synagogue that was attacked with firebombs last month.

“Jews have been particularly affected by exclusion for centuries,” Scholz said in his speech.

“Still and again here in our democratic Germany, and that after the breach of civilization committed by Germans in the Shoah,” they are being discriminated against, the chancellor added.

“That is a disgrace. It outrages and shames me deeply,” Scholz said. “Any form of anti-Semitism poisons our society. We do not tolerate it.”

2023-11-092023-11-09

One Hundred and Two Holocaust Survivors Ask Australians to Denounce Anti-Semitism and Hatred

Photo: Members of the Australian Jewish community participate in a rally in Sydney in late October. Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images

by Daisy Dumas, November 9, 2023

The broader Jewish community in Australia this week marked 30 days since the October 7 Hamas attacks with vigils and candle-lighting ceremonies

More than 100 Australian Holocaust survivors have united to denounce a wave of “senseless and virulent” anti-Semitism that they fear is growing in the country.

The “last witnesses to the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi regime,” many in their 90s, have penned a letter against abusive incidents that have targeted the Jewish community as Israeli retaliations continue after the brutal Hamas attacks and kidnappings of October 7.

“We are witnesses to the anti-Semitic propaganda that turned our friends, neighbors and the general public against us in Europe. We remember the six million Jewish lives lost because of this hatred,” the 102 Australian survivors wrote in the letter published in the Australian on Thursday.

2023-11-092023-11-09

Darna Festival to Celebrate International Day of Tolerance

The Lithuanian Jewish Community in concert with the Cvi Park enterprise again invite you to the Darna Festival of live music, poetry and photographic exhibits to celebrate UNESCO’s International Day of Tolerance.

The program includes an exhibit of photographs by Antanas Sutkus, Bartosz Frątczak and Andrey Kezzyn, snacks and drinks with live music at the Cvi Parkas kiosk in Petras Cvirka Square across the street from the LJC, a performance by students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, a performance by Australian vocalist and musician Skye Magnus, Algis Davidavičius speaking on the topic of tolerance, poetry by Indrė Valantinaitė, piano music by Darius Mažintas and Duettissimo with Glebas Pyšniakas playing cello and Dalia Dedinskaitė on violin.

Cvi Parkas will serve vegetable dishes and desserts, natural wine and craft beer for customers. The event itself is free and open to the public. It starts around 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, November 16, on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.

2023-11-092023-11-20

Hebrew Lessons Are Back

After a brief hiatus, Ruth Reches’s Hebrew classes for the general public are back. Classes will be held for beginner, intermediate and advanced levels at the Sholem Aleichem school in Vilnius starting Sunday, December 3. For more information and to register, write ruthreches@gmail.com

2023-11-092023-11-09

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania