The Sabbath begins at 9:22 P.M. on Friday, July 31, and concludes at 10:30 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:04 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:22.
With great sadness we report the death of Arie Ben-Ari Grozdensky on July 29. He was born in 1946. He was chairman of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, a long-time supporter of the Litvak community and a member of the board of the Goodwill Foundation. Born and raised in Lithuania, Grozendsky and family were able to repatriate to Israel in 1972. He was a tireless defender of Litvak heritage and proponent of Holocaust justice and remembrance. His grandparentsm uncles and cousins were murdered in the Alytus region in Lithuania.. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and chairwoman Faina Kukliansky extend our deepest condolences to his wife Bella, children, grandchildren, many friends and the entire Litvak community. May his memory be a blessing.
Eighteen visitors from Haifa and guide Idit Perri visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community July 20. They discussed the Holocaust, Jewish life, traditions, surviving material heritage and local cooking with Community members over tea.
The Klaipėda Jewish Community will hold a ceremony at the old Jewish cemetery there to name the names of 1,225 people buried there and to unveil a monument to the lost Jewish community and lost Jewish graves. Ruth Leiserowitz will speak about the history of Jewish cemeteries in Klaipėda, formerly known as Memel. The Jewish actors troupe Shatil will perform as well.
Time: 4:00 P.M., July 30
Place: Old Jewish cemetery, Sinagogų street no. 13, Klaipėda
Remigijus Žemaitaitis has lost his appeal at a Lithuanian appellate court on his conviction of sowing ethnic discord against Jews and Holocaust trivialization.
Member of parliament Remigijus Žemaitaitis made a series of anti-Semitic statements on facebook and elsewhere several years to launch his party Nemuno Aušra [Nieman River Dawn]. He accused Jews of carrying out a Holocaust against Lithuanians following Soviet occupation of the country, among other things. The appeals court in the latest ruling found Žemaitaitis had engaged in a form of Holocaust trivialization by comparing the Holocaust to Soviet crimes and by using dehumanizing language to describe Jews.
In a separate case earlier Lithuania’s Constitutional Court ruled Žemaitaitis’s statements on facebook and to media violated his oath of office as an MP and constituted a gross violation of the Lithuanian constitution.
The appeals court reiterated the earlier verdict against the Lithuanian MP and increased the fine levied against him from 5,000 to 10,000 euros.
The Sabbath begins at 9:34 P.M. on Friday, July 24, and concludes at 10:47 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:16 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:34 P.M. Tisha b’Av ends at sundown on Thursday, July 23.
The Šiauliai District Jewish Community commemorated the establishment of the Šiauliai ghetto 85 years ago, its liquidation several years later and Holocaust victims buried at the mass grave in Kužiai on July 20.
The International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania organized the procession to the Kužiai mass grave in the Luponiai Forest.
Šiauliai District Jewish Community chairwoman Rašella Galinienė addressed the gathering at the ghetto site in central Šiauliai and Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom performed kaddish. Šiauliai deputy mayor Justinas Švėgžda also spoke about the need to keep memory alive.
The commemoration continued indoors at the Chaim Frankl villa where Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky spoke about how her mother, an inmate at the Šiauliai ghetto, was marched with other prisoners to Radviliškis, where they were put on trains and sent to different concentration camps. Her mother was sent to the Stutthof concentration camp in what is now Poland surviving against all odds the barbarity of the camp.
The Ukmergė Jewish Community is planning a series of events on Sunday, September 6, to remember the victims of the Holocaust in Pivonija Forest. A ceremony will be held in the forest at one or more the mass graves, followed by the opening of an exhibit on Righteous Gentiles and a presentation of a new web site about the Jews of Ukmergė (Vilkomir).
Tentative program:
12:00 noon Commemoration of victims in Pivonija Forest
1:00 P.M. Righteous Gentiles exhibit opening at Tolerance Center, Ukmergė
1:30 P.M. Presentation of web site on Jews of Vilkomir, Tolerance Center, Ukmergė
Natalja Cheifec continues here internet lecture series and discussion club with a presentation of Tisha b’Av, which starts at sundown Wednesday. Log on and find out why this is the saddest holiday in Judaism, what this date on the Jewish calendar commemorates, why this fast day is different from others and the various stories and traditions associated with Tisha b’Av. Natalja will also discuss what fast days mean in general in Judaism., Everyone interested in Jewish culture, customs and religion is invited. To receive zoom credentials, click here.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Wednesday, July 22
Place: internet
The Sabbath begins at 9:44 P.M. on Friday, July 17, and concludes at 11:02 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:26 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:44 P.M. Tisha b’Av starts at sundown Wednesday, July 22.
July 15 was the 82nd anniversary of the liquidation of the Shavl ghetto. In July of 1941 two ghettos were set up in the northern Lithuanian city to imprison around 6,000 Jews from there and surrounding locations. Thousands were tortured and murdered there. By Himmler’s order the ghetto was renamed a concentration camp in 1943. From July 15 to 19, 1944, the 3,000 or so survivors were sent to Dachau and Stutthof concentration camps where the majority were murdered and the Shavl ghettos were closed.
Members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community gathered at the stone stele marking the entrance to the ghetto to remember both anniversaries on July 15 with a minute of silence, flowers, stones and candles to remember the victims.
This was followed by a film at the Povilas Višinskis Public Library. Professor Hektoras Vitkus from Klaipėda University spoke about the prevailing circumstance when the Nazis set up the two ghettos in the Lithuanian documentary. He said the city had a population of about 14,000 Jews on June 26, 1941.
The testimony of late Holocaust survivor and author Markas Petuchauskas was then presented. His testimony is well known in Lithuanian Holocaust historiography and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum in Lithuania both conserve recordings of his testimony.
Jonathan Seligman and other archaeologists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority have arrived back for summer and are working the Shulhoyf or Great Synagogue site in central Vilnius.
Seligman said they have uncovered already new finds this summer and plan to work down from the bimah to the ground floor in the main hall. The bimah stood about 1 meter high according to Seligman, and the upper surface is completely exposed now.
People interested in taking a guided group tour of the site are able to book a time on July 27, 29 or 30 by calling +370 650 91521 or writing info@gvf.lt. The minimum group size is five people and the cost is 20 euros per person, with an anticipated duration of 45 minutes. The tours are being organized by the Goodwill Foundation. More information available here.
Photo: Moshe Kantor, president, EJC, courtesy EJC.
by Moshe Kantor
Society is again being tested on whether it can distinguish legitimate political disagreement from collective hatred directed at an entire people.
On July 12, Europe marks Alfred Dreyfus Day, commemorating the French Jewish army officer whose wrongful conviction for treason became one of the defining symbols of modern antisemitism. More than a century later, Europe likes to believe that the Dreyfus Affair belongs safely to history, a reminder of prejudices overcome and lessons learned.
Nonetheless, the uncomfortable truth is that while the language has changed, many of the underlying patterns have not.
The challenge facing European Jews today does not resemble the antisemitism of the late nineteenth century. It is rarely expressed through crude racial theories or open declarations of hatred. Instead, it increasingly arrives wrapped in the language of politics, activism and social justice. The result is not always easier to recognize, but it can be just as damaging.
Malkelis Bliacheris has died. He was born in 1935. He was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. Our deepest condolences to his surviving family and friends.
Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Shelly Hugler Livne visited Šiauliai last week where she toured Jewish sites and met with the Šiauliai Jewish Community. The ambassador visited Righteous Gentiles Square, the site of the Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust, Chaim Frankl’s villa and the home of the Venclauskas family. She also discussed current events and plans for the future with members of the Šiauliai District Jewish Community.
The Sabbath begins at 9:52 P.M. on Friday, July 10, and concludes at 11:32 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 9:34 P.M. and completed before sunset at 9:52 P.M. Tuesday, July 14, is Bastille Day. July 15 is St. Vladimir Day in the Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
Photo: celebrate. My grandfather, Jonas Noreika, is in the third row. My mother, then two years old, is among them. Source: Silvia Foti, The Nazi’s Granddaughter (Regnery History, 2021).
by Silvia Foti
An open letter to Liam, on his bar mitzvah
Dear Liam,
You do not know my background and what I carry, as I know your background and your family history. You barely know me, and there is no gentle way to tell you who I am. I read about you in an article your cousin Grant Gochin published in The Times of Israel, about your family and mine. I am writing to a boy I have met just once, for a singular moment, at your cousin Grant’s home, to bless you shortly after the day you were called to the Torah and became a man. I am the granddaughter of the man whose orders helped empty your family’s world of Jews.
My grandfather was Jonas Noreika. He governed the Lithuanian district of Šiauliai, where the town of Papilė lies. He signed orders that confined its Jews and gave away what was stolen from them. Your family was murdered inside the system he ran. Tsile Gochin, the sister of your great-grandmother Sarah, was one of them. My grandfather bears responsibility for her murder, and that of your cousins, relatives, friends and neighbors.
Rabbi Harry Pell whose family roots lie in Ukmergė (Vilkomir) visited the Ukmergė Jewish Community recently. Pell teaches Judaism and Israeli studies in the United States and also works as a chaplain in the armed forces.
Ukmergė Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas provided Pell a tour of Jewish sites in the town and they spoke about Jewish history and heritage there. They also sampled imberlakh at a local restaurant.
Internet news site and cable channel Delfi.lt reports a man attacked Israeli tourists in Vilnius and posted a video of the attack on Sunday. Delfi contacted Lithuanian police and learned they received a complaint Monday afternoon about the video positing on facebook on Sunday. According to Delfi, a male suspect born in 1972 posted a video taken on Dūkštų street in Vilnius where he verbally attacked a group of three Jews and spit on them, then called upon others to do the same. He told Jews to “go home.”
Delfi.lt said internet news portal and daily newspaper lrytas.lt reported the suspect was Gintaras Liutkevičius, who goes by Grafas Liutkevičius [Count Liutkevičius] on social media. According to the latter, he posted the video of his attack on what appeared to be Jewish tourists on facebook with the title New Challenge: Spit On and Out a Zionist. Liutkevičius apparently approached the group he thought were Jews and spoke to them in Lithuanian, but group members asked him to speak English. The suspect then said in English he had heard Jews spit on Christians, although the three men said that wasn’t true. Liutkevičius reportedly then told them to go home and then spit on them.
Liutkevičius has been arrested over the incident which police view as a violation of Lithuanian law against racial, ethnic and religious incitement. The Lithuanian law forbids mockery and belittlement and the encouragement of hatred against a group or individual belonging to a group based on age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, race, skin color, ethnicity, language, origin including ethnic origin, social status, beliefs including religious beliefs and convictions and points of view. The law provides for punishment for transgressions including arrest, imprisonment up to two years, limitation of freedoms, and other measures.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
For the last two weeks a Lithuanian crew of diggers have been uncovering new archaeological strata at the site of the Great Synagogue or Gros-Shul in Vilnius. No Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologists have been seen this summer, although they were always in charge during past summers. Several teams of mostly young men were seen digging at the bimah and northern wall of the synagogue, but not at the mikvot which remain under a make-shift shed. The young men were wearing t-shirts identifying them as working for Lithuania’s Cultural Heritage Protection Department. They used shovels to pile mounds of debris on the western side of the synagogue and appeared to collect bricks at the northeast corner inside a gate next to the Vilna Gaon statue. No archaeological sieves were visible during several visits to the site. The dig at the eastern side of the complex appeared to reveal a descending staircase made of stone and an eastern wall of the synagogue just to the west of the staircase.
