In ushering out 2014, we remember the Lithuanian Jewish Community was established 25 years ago, and we remember how many contributions and how much effort people sacrificed to make this community what it is today. Our financial situation improved in 2014 and we become more independent. The community became more creative and freer, and many more plans, projects and hopes have surfaced. Improved finances have allowed us to bring more ideas to fruition. I would like to emphasize that the restitution monies received, which the Lithuanian state has begun to pay out, are not there for us to spend them all in one day, to splurge and waste these resources. No one has paid us all 128 million litas in a lump sum.

The finances are allocated a little bit at a time and we are saving them and trying not to spend the money immediately. Even when we do spend the money wisely, we understand that we are our own boss  here, and the money is intended to reach every Lithuanian Jew in Lithuania, and in some cases Litvaks living around the world and maintaining close ties with Lithuania or those who survived the occupational regimes in Lithuania. We are attempting to satisfy the public aspirations of the Jews of Lithuania, and that is a very broad concept. The professionals who work for the community, whether in Lithuania or abroad, work for a salary, setting up and carrying out social support, caring for Jews living in Lithuania and abroad. These are experienced people who today are able to implement plans more creatively and freely because they do know what Lithuanian Jews need.

Twenty-fourteen was a year of challenges for the regional Jewish communities as well as the Vilnius community, including those of Kaunas, Šiauliai, Klaipėda, Ukmergė, Panevėžys and Švenčionys. We have never had to do before what we did this year: to fund ourselves using the restitution monies we received this year. We also received a Norwegian grant, won a tender and became responsible for implementing yet another project, the Bagel Shop. This project is aimed at fighting anti-Semitism and encouraging tolerance. Beginning in 2015 the Lithuanian Jewish Community will assume the presidency of the Human Rights Coalition. This is a great responsibility. The coalition is not a corporate entity and is non-profit, and we are working for it out of our conviction of the–if the word still means anything in Lithuania–idea itself. We are writing reports for the United Nations and monitoring whether European democratic values are truly being practiced in Lithuania.

For 25 years we lived from funds donated by donors. We are so thankful for these donors because they sought to revive the Lithuanian Jewish community, and they have succeeded in doing that. Without them there might be no community today. Children and youth are very important to us. As we move into 2015 we have many plans not just for satisfying the needs of the elderly, but we are also thinking about how to more seriously, more professionally and more lovingly inculcate a sense of Jewishness in our children and young people, to insure the true and lasting revival of the Lithuanian Jewish community and its extension into the future.

 I thank the staff of our community who have worked with such dedication for so many years, and I thank our new people who have joined our collective, and not just Jews, but also those who understand Jewish needs, the professionals who are helping us manage money according to the stipulations of law and who are helping us fulfill the bureaucratic requirements, which seem to become more numerous every year. We are being scrutinized very closely, and we feel as if we were standing under a magnifying glass, and there always seems to be a group who sits idly by, doing nothing but complaining how we are doing everything incorrectly when it comes to money. In allocating the funding we are receiving now, we will never be able to satisfy the needs of absolutely everyone, and dissatisfied and disappointed people and parties can be expected to complain, while others are unable to furnish reports of their financial activities.What we desire least of all is to spend our time in court. We wish to avoid such unpleasant situations. Not all desires can be satisfied. After all, we see what happens when the Lithuanian state budget is drafted, and how many dissatisfied parties there are in that process… The budget is not elastic and cannot pay for everyone who wants to write articles or books using monies allocated from the Good Will Fund. The purpose of this fund is to serve the public interest of the Jews of Lithuania, not personal ambitions or expectations. Family members may help support publication of articles and books. The community, of course, seeks the satisfaction of the interests of all its members, but we still live in the real world and understand that this is impossible to do.

We have seen that non-Jews enjoy participating in the clubs operating within our community. Hebrew language, dance and yoga classes are the most popular among residents of Vilnius. That tells us we are on the right path, on the way towards making our programs attractive to all residents of Vilnius and that the level of our programs is sufficiently high. We are glad they come, and we don't need any public opinion polls or barometers to know that they are enjoying themselves.

We are looking forward to Hanukkah. This is a Jewish celebration of joy rather than a religious holiday. The name Hanukkah means renewal. The holiday is also a time for reflecting on what you have achieved, what you have done for the community, what you could do better, and to renew oneself. I invite you to come celebrate the holiday with us at 6 P.M. on December 23 at synagogue [where?-geoff], to light the eighth candle, because during Hanukkah we light one new candle every day for eight days. We invite everyone to come and join in, and perhaps even to light the candle. There has never been a tradition in Lithuania of lighting a public candelabrum, or menorah, and this likely rubs the Litvak sense of custom and propriety the wrong way but our synagogue is open to everyone, and this is a holiday of one of the peoples who call Lithuania home, so we invite Jew and non-Jew alike to come and celebrate together, and hope everyone will have a good time with us and try our traditional holiday dishes of potato pancakes and doughnuts.