The Sabbath begins at 7:36 P.M. on Friday, September 8, and concludes at 8:47 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Wooden Synagogue in Alanta Renovated
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania
Sabbath Times
Last Israeli Dance Workshop for Now
Julija Patašnik is planning to hold her final Israeli dance lesson of the summer season at the Israeli street food kiosk in Petras Cvirka Square this Friday with beginners at 5:00 P.M. and more advanced dancers at 6:00 P.M. The food kiosk is closing for fall this Sunday evening. Stay tuned for more classes and workshops with Julija at other locations.
Jewish Humor Quiz
Arkadijus Vinokuras, who counts among his professions that of clown as well as author and journalist, will present a quiz on Jewish humor at the outdoor Israeli street food kiosk in Petras Cvirka Square located across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius at 5:00 P.M. on Sunday, September 10.
The quiz will be live-streamed here: https://www.facebook.com/zydubendruomene/live_videos/
Commemorating Victims of the Holocaust in Panevėžys
The Panevėžys Jewish Community will hold a series of ceremonies on Friday, September 22, to remember the victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Participants will gather at the Sad Jewish Mother monument on Memory Square in Panevėžys located at Vasario 16-osios street next to the Vyturis pre-gymnasium.
Program:
2:00 P.M. Opening ceremony, wreath- and stone-laying at the monument, addresses;
2:40 P.M. Travel to the mass murder site in Kurganava Forest where approximately 8,000 Ponevezh Jews were murdered;
3:30 P.M. Travel to Žalioji Forest where approximately 5,000 Ponevezh Jews were murdered;
5:00 P.M. Conference and screening of Holocaust films from Yad Vashem at the Panevėžys Jewish Community located at Ramygalos street no. 18 followed by coffee and tea.
Everyone is invited to attend any and all of these events.
Panevėžys Jewish Community Invites You to Celebrate Rosh Hashana
The Panevėžys Jewish Community is proposing a picnic in the Community’s courtyard as part of celebrations of the Jewish New Year, 5784, located at Ramygalos street no. 18 in Panevėžys. The plan is to meet at 4:00 P.M. on Sunday, September 17, at the Panevėžys Jewish Community. If the weather is good the picnic will take place outside with holiday treats, food, gifts for children and Jewish calendars for members. If the weather isn’t good events will move inside. The event is free and open to the general public.
Fall Scouting Camp
A camping trip will be held from September 15 to 17 called “The Secrets of the Green Forest in Panevëžys at the Žalioji or Green Forest for scouts aged 6 to 18. The cost is 15 euros per scout, with a discount of 12 euros each for two or more scouts from the same household. Guides and volunteers are also being asked to contribute 10 euros each. The cost includes food, scouting equipment and the program of events. Transportation will be provided with details to be provided to participants and parents later. Registration should be made before or on September 9 with payment via bank transfer to be received not later than September 12.
Register here: https://forms.gle/FiGJv5kMc1D2nraD8
Payment should be made to Lietuvos skautijos padalinio Panevėžio kraštas via bank transfer to the account LT387044060002754214.
Condolences
Ela Matiuchina passed away September 6. She was born in 1937. We extend our deepest condolences to her widower Valentinas, daughter Irina and all who knew and loved her.
European Days of Jewish Culture in Klaipėda
The Klaipėda Jewish Community will present a program of events to celebrate European Days of Jewish Culture beginning Sunday afternoon on September 10 at the Klaipėda Jewish Community located at Sinagogų street no. 13 in the port city.
The Shtatil theater troupe is to perform a play about Jewish stories and events in Klaipėda city and district, formerly known under East Prussian rule as Memel and Memelland (or Memelgebiet), respectively. The performance won’t be confined to the theater: players promise a tour through the city to illustrate the fictional stories about Jewish life which could have happened there.
The play concludes at the Klaipėda Puppet Theater at Turgaus street no. 9, followed there by a presentation of more Jewish stories, namely fairy tales, for the whole family, narrated by Klaipėda Jewish Theater director Nerijus Gedminas and actors.
#EDJC2023 #Atmintis #Memory #AEPJ #UNESCO #Lietuvos žydų bendruomenė ##KlaiėdosŽydųBendromenė #OurCommunities
Open House at the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community invites the public to an open house this Friday as part of the Šiauliai Days currently being celebrated. This is an opportunity to learn more about what the Community does and Šiauliai (Shavl) Jewish traditions, and to tour the interior as well as the museum, to get to know members and to view the exhibition “Wooden Synagogues of Lithuania.”
Time: 11:00 P.M., Friday, August 8
Location: Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community, Višinskio street no. 24, Šiauliai
European Days of Jewish Culture in Vilkomir
After a great start in Vilnius, the European Days of Jewish Culture move on to Vilkomir (Ukmergė) with a series of interesting and perhaps moving events. The two-day program promises to enrich the public’s knowledge of Jewish culture and hopefully to teach them about the rich Jewish heritage inherent in their local area.
At 2:00 P.M. on Thursday, September 7, there will be a reading of the names of Holocaust victims at the location where the Great Synagogue once stood in Vilkomir (Vienuolyno street no. 2).
At 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, September 7, the Ukmergė Tolerance Center (Vasario 16-osios street no. 11) will open an exhibit of photography by Jurga Jackevičiūtė called “Įmelsta žemė” [Pierced Land] including a presentation by the photographer of her trips to Jerusalem.
At 5:00 P.M. on Friday, September 8, the Ukmergė Tolerance Center will screen a documentary film by Loic Salfati called “Secrets of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius” which includes documented historical facts, a large number of interviews and findings from archaeological digs at the site of the former Grand Synagogue in 2019 and 2021 to tell the hitherto little-known true history of the synagogue which mostly survived the Holocaust and World War II only to be razed in the 1950s. There will be a discussion with the French filmmaker following the screening.
Commemoration of Holocaust Victims in Vilkomir
The first Sunday in September is the traditional time to commemorate the Jewish victims murdered in the Holocaust in the Pivonija Forest outside Vilkomir (Ukmergė) and this year marked the 82nd anniversary of the mass murder. As usual, the commemoration began at 12 noon.
Members of the Ukmergė Jewish Community and fellow Jews from the Vilnius and Kaunas communities gathered at the mass murder site for the ceremony.
Also attending the ceremony were Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, American embassy chargé d’affaires Tamir Wasser, UK ambassador Brian Olley, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, Ukmergė regional administration mayor Darius Varnas and others.
Ukmergė Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas initiated the ceremony, saying: “Every year we remember this tragedy, we gather here not only to honor the dead, but also in order to ensure this tragedy never happens again, and with the aim of telling the truth about the tragic events of 1941.”
Live Music at Cvirka Park with Erica Jennings and Petras Geniušas
The Israeli street food kiosk at Petras Cvirka Park in Vilnius is opening the fall season with the start of a new series of Blue Mondays live music events. Tonight, Monday, September 4, vocalist Erica Jennings and piano virtuoso Petras Geniušas will share the stage. After the duet, guitarist Kopcevas will delight the audience with his enchanting airs. Entry is free and open to the public. It all starts at 7:30 P.M. at Petras Cvirka Park across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community located at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.
Šiauliai Jewish Community Hosting Kosher Food Preparation Class
The Šiauliai Jewish Community is hosting a kosher food-making class at the Šiauliai Jewish Community at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, September 5. Tatjana Bekermeister is the manager of the 7:40 kosher café and will be teaching the class. Everyone is welcome and those who attend will receive an edible surprise.
Condolences
Larisa Kalinkina, a member of the Kaunas Jewish Community, passed away September 4. She was born in 1938. Our deepest condolences go to her son, friends and all who knew and loved her.
Lithuania’s Genocide Center: A Bullhorn for the National Unification Party?
by Arkadijus Vinokuras, Times of Israel, September 2, 2023
Director of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania [hereinafter Genocide Center] Arūnas Bubnys in refusing to carry out the decision from the so-called De-Sovietization Commission to remove a monument commemorating murderer of Jews Juozas Krikštaponis, under pressure from public anger, has ordered the municipal administration of Ukmergės [Vilkomir] to remove the bas-relief image and name of Juozas Krikštaponis and to rededicate the monument to local Lithuanian partisans.
Finally, some initiative has been shown, although the law was grossly violated. Nonetheless, the issue of what influence the National Unification Party [Nacionalinis susivienijimas] and other interest groups have over Genocide Center commemorative policies remains unanswered.
The situation is absurd: Genocide Center director Arūnas Bubnys acting as sovereign has come up with his own pseudo-rules and has refused for months to follow the order from the De-Sovietization Commission, an order which, according to Lithuanian law, must be carried out within 5 days.
Sabbath Times
The Sabbath begins at 7:54 P.M. on Friday, September 1, and concludes at 9:06 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
September 1 is a national holiday in Lithuania, Back-to-School Day. The first Monday in September, September 4 this year, is also Labor/Labour Day, a national holiday in the United States and Canada, and their embassies in Vilnius will be closed.
Bavarian Governor Orders Deputy to Fully Explain Himself to Clear Allegations of Anti-Semitism
Bavaria’s governor says his deputy has not done enough to prove he wasn’t responsible for an anti-Semitic flyer as a high school student
BERLIN (AP)–The governor of the German state of Bavaria said Tuesday [August 29] that his deputy had not done enough to prove he wasn’t responsible for an anti-Semitic flyer as a high school student and ordered him to answer a detailed questionnaire to clear himself of any possible involvement in the scandal that caused an uproar in Germany.
Daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Friday that when deputy governor Hubert Aiwanger was 17 he was suspected of writing a printed flyer calling for entries to a competition titled “Who is the Biggest Traitor to the Fatherland?”
Biblio File: Journey toward Dark Truths
Photo: Jews in the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania are boarded onto trucks during a deportation action to a work camp c. 1942 (Image: US Holocaust Memorial Museum)
by Justin Amler, August 30, 2023
Our People: Discovering Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust
by Rūta Vanagaitė and Efraim Zuroff
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 240 pp., A$49.99
Under the terms of the secret protocols of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940. After the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, Lithuania was occupied by the Germans in June 1941.
Caught in the middle were the country’s Jews.
Our People is a book about a journey in search of truth in the face of authorities who want to take that truth and distort it into something quite different.
One of the greatest myths of the Holocaust was that it was Hitler and the Nazis alone who committed the atrocities against the Jews. But this is, at best, misleading. While the Nazis were the driving force behind the genocide of the Jewish people, they could not have succeeded without the collaboration of willing local citizens across many countries.
Golda Meir: 11 Little-Known Facts about Israel’s Remarkable Prime Minister
by Yvette Alt Miller, August 24, 2023
There’s a lot you don’t know about Israel’s Iron Lady.
The new movie Golda depicts former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir’s day-by-day decisions during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Viewers watch as Golda, played by Helen Mirren, juggles high-stakes diplomacy and brinkmanship over 19 excruciating days which defined her premiership. Israel ultimately won the war but with a terrible loss of life.
Here are 11 lesser-known facts about Golda Meir, one of Israel’s most famous founders.
1. Golda’s first memory was fearing for her life.
Born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1898, Golda spent her first eight years in the shadow of horrific antisemitism there. Her very first memory was of her father Moshe desperately trying to reinforce the entrance to the little house they shared with another Jewish family while a violent mob brayed for blood outside.
Golda later described:
I can still recall quite distinctly hearing about a pogrom that was to descend upon us… I knew it had something to do with being Jewish and with the rabble that used to surge through town, brandishing knives and huge sticks, screaming “Christ-killers” as they looked for the Jews and who were now going to do terrible things to me and to my family…to this day I remember how scared I was and how angry that all my father could do to protect me was to nail a few planks together while he waited for the hooligans to come. (Quoted from My Life by Golda Meir: 1975)
Golda later described that the fear of that terrible night never left her, and helped motivate her to build a Jewish state where Jews could live freely in safety.
2. Her namesake was a Jewish grandma with a will of steel.
Lithuanian MP Who Espouses Anti-Semitism Moves on to Accusing Police of Rape
Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis who earned censure from his party, fellow MPs and leading Lithuanian political figures as well as a number of foreign ambassadors to Lithuania for making anti-Semitic statements on his facebook page in spring, and then continuing to do so as controversy swirled around him with demands from all sides for an apology, is again in the news. This time he’s apparently trying to generate political capital or at least get noticed by claiming a female Lithuanian police officer was raped by two male colleagues at a training workshop held in Kaunas in August of this year.
The Lithuanian Police Department responded to the accusations the next day, saying:
“The post Lithuanian member of parliament Remigijus Žemaitaitis posted yesterday about an alleged criminal act committed by officers IS NOT TRUE.”
Full story in Lithuanian here.