Lithuanian Jewish Community

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?”

2023-08-312023-08-31

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.

2023-08-312023-08-31

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.

2023-08-31

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.

2023-08-30

Israel Must Exist “For Eternity” Because of the Holocaust

Times of Israel staff, August 28, 2023

Speaking to Israeli TV about her film role as Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, the star actress declares she would join anti-government protest movement if she had the chance

British actress dame Helen Mirren believes Israel must exist forever, saying it was a lesson learned from the Holocaust, though she opposes the direction the current government is taking the Jewish state.

In an interview aired by Channel 12 on Sunday Mirren spoke about her leading role in “Golda” depicting Israel’s first and only female prime minister, Golda Meir, during the period of the fateful 1973 Yom Kippur War. The interview was recorded in July when Mirren was in Israel for the premiere of the movie at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

“I believe in Israel, in the existence of Israel, and I believe Israel has to go forward into the future, for the rest of eternity,” Mirren said. “I believe in Israel because of the Holocaust.”

She revealed there were those who had tried to talk her out of making the film due to Israel’s controversial position on the world stage, but, she said, “I’ve met such extraordinary people in Israel.”

“I know there is a base, a foundation of deep intelligence, thoughtfulness, commitment, poetry even, in Israel that is very, very special, I think,” said Mirren.

Full article here.

2023-08-30

Keydan Holocaust Victims Remembered

Yesterday was the 82th anniversary of the annihilation of the Jewish community of Keydan (Kėdainiai). Jews from the city of Keydan and the small towns of Šėta and Žeimiai were murdered at Daukšai village near Keydan in 1941. This mass murder operation targeted 2076 people in total with 710 men, 767 women and 599 children brutally massacred for being born Jewish. The Keydan Jewish community had lived in the area for 300 years before this.

The commemoration ceremony took place at the mass murder site, followed by a presentation at the City of Kėdainiai’s Multicultural Center of Aron Pik’s book Notes from the Valley of the Slaughter. Translator of the book Andrew Cassel also participated, as did Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas and a representative from Lithuania’s International Commission for Assessing the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Regimes in Lithuania.

2023-08-30

Nechama Lifshitz Song Contest Slated for Mid-September

The Nechama Lifshitz Song Contest is back and scheduled for several days in mid-September. A big hit last year, we expect it will draw even more attention this third time around.

Nechama, or Nekhama according to a stricter transcription, was an amazing Yiddish-language songstress sometimes called the Jewish Nightingale who began her professional career in Vilnius and Kaunas, going on to fame in the Soviet Union and world renown with concert tours abroad.

The best voices from Lithuania and abroad will meet at the Lithuanian Music and Theater Academy performance hall from 11:00 A.M. till 6:00 P.M. on September 17. The hall is located at Tilto street no. 16 in central Vilnius. That same evening Jazz Cellar 11 at Aušros vartų street no. 11 in Vilnius will host popular music vocalists starting at 8:00 P.M.

On September 18 there will be a concert performed by prize winners at the Old Town Hall in Vilnius starting at 6:00 P.M. The same evening the party continues at Jazz Cellar 11 with the closing ceremony for the song contest.

2023-08-30

Yiddish Lesson with Simas Levinas

“I grew up in a Jewish setting. We lit candles during Hanukkah as did everyone, we ate home cooking. Only now, thinking about how that food was prepared, so I realize this was kosher food. We were surrounded by Jews, Jews came over as guests, when you got sick it was Jews who treated you. When I was small I didn’t even know things could be any other way. I only saw girls dressed colorfully next to the Gates of Dawn in Vilnius, and I wanted those kinds of clothes, too, but my grandmother wouldn’t let me, saying only Polish girls dressed that way,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman and attorney Faina Kukliansky recalled about her early childhood.

“Later on life changed, school, studies, new people, new homes where you couldn’t keep chickens with their legs tied as in my grandmother’s kitchen. One important thing, however, didn’t change: the Yiddish language which we used at home, all our relatives and closest friends…” …

Simas Levinas will deliver a lesson in basic Yiddish at 11:00 A.M. on September 3 in the kitchen of the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius. Everyone is welcome to attend the free event which is part of the European Day of Jewish Culture celebrations in Lithuania.

2023-08-302023-08-30

Presentation/Discussion of Book about Vilnius Yiddish Folk Theater

You’re invited to a presentation and discussion of the book “Вильнюсский еврейский Народный театр 1971-1999” [Vilnius Jewish Folk Theater 1971-1999] with the author Betsalel “Tsalik” Frank from Israel. Boris Kirzner will serve as moderator for the Russian-language event. Following the event, the author will invite the audience to share a glass of wine and celebrate Sabbath together. The event will take place in the Jascha Heifetz Hall at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius at 6:00 P.M. on Friday, September 8.

2023-08-292023-08-29

Happy Birthday

The entire Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes Fayerlakh director Laurisa Vyšniauskienė a very happy birthday. May your days be filled with health, appreciation of your important work, talented people and many happy moments. Mazl tov. Bis 120!

2023-08-28

Condolences

Borisas Furmanskis passed away Sunday, August 27. He was born in 1955. Our deepest condolences to his widow, daughter and all his friends and relatives.

2023-08-28

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 8:08 P.M. on Friday, August 25, and concludes at 9:25 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2023-08-242023-08-24

Youth Seminar in Latvia

People aged 18 to 40 are invited to attend a seminar for participants from the Baltic states and the Ukraine from September 14 to 17. There is also the possibility for children aged 6 to 12 to attend as well.

The seminar will include a Jewish New Year/Rosh Hashana celebration and participants will learn about European social programs and spend evenings with the Erasmus+ program group.

The seminar will be held at the seaside Minhauzena Unda Hotel.

2023-08-242023-08-24

Jewish Community of Balbirishok Remembered

A stone stele marking the site of the synagogue which once served the Jewish community in Balbirishok (Balbieriškis) was unveiled in the small Lithuanian town last week.

Attending the unveiling ceremony were Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, US embassy chief of mission William Kendrick, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, educational program coordinator of the International Commission for Assessing the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania Ingrida Vilkienė, representatives of the Prienai regional administration and the Balbieriškis aldermanship and a large contingent of local residents and students from the Balbieriškis primary school’s Tolerance Center.

LJC chairwoman Kukliansky welcomed the audience and said she was impressed and pleased the truly significant role played by Litvaks in the history of the town was being remembered and appreciated.

2023-08-242023-08-24

European Day of Jewish Culture Events in Vilnius

September 3rd is coming. The first Sunday in autumn, the day the Lithuanian Jewish Community will again celebrate the European Day of Jewish Culture, a day the Community has celebrated for a decade now. As in previous years, all events across Europe to celebrate the day are modeled on a general theme. This year it’s memory. This topic is like a bridge leading to the Jewish cultural legacy which remains to a great extent unknown by the wider population. #Atmintis or Memory doesn’t end on the first Sunday in September, of course, and in September and October the Lithuanian Jewish Community will hold and coordinate events throughout Lithuania.

Below you’ll find the events program for September 3, all of which are free and open to everyone.

#EŽKD2023 #EDJC2023 #Atmintis #AEPJ #LietuvosŽydų(litvakų)Bendruomenė #CviParkas #BeigeliųKrautuvėlė Kultūros Paveldo Departamentas Tautinių mažumų departamentas prie Lietuvos Respublikos Vyriausybės #mūsųbendruomenės #OurCommunities

2023-08-232023-08-23

Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Lithuania

On the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania