Vilnius’s only working synagogue, the Choral Synagogue on Pylimo street, hosted a concert on the evening of Thursday, May 14, by the choir of the synagogue on Lowenstrasse in Zurich, Switzerland, conducted by Robert Braunschweig. The guests told the audience that while their Jewish community isn’t all that large, it is the largest in Europe at the current time, comprised of 400 families. The choir itself began over 90 years ago.
The audience was mainly members of the Vilnius Jewish community, with a few non-Jewish locals present as well. Haim Burstein, Lithuania’s chief rabbi, was in attendance, and the new Israeli ambassador to Lithuania, Amir Maimon, also attended. Bruno Kaspar, the Swiss consul in Lithuania, was also on hand.
The choir’s repertoire was as advertised a mixture of Jewish and Christian liturgical pieces, with styles often merging in the same song. Besides Hebrew lyrics the choir successfully performed several songs in Yiddish. For Hirsh Glik’s partisan hymn, Sog Niet Keynmol, which brought the audience, Jewish and gentile alike, to their feet, the choir improvised a new song upon the final line, “mir seinen do,” which sounded distinctly modern in tempo and style.
The choir also performed May 13 in Kaunas, and was scheduled to hold a Sabbath morning concert on May 16 at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius as well.