Israel’s first ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon was the guest at the 31st meeting of the “Likimai”[Fates] cycle of seminars initiated and organized by Lithuanian Jewish Community deputy chairwoman Maša Grodnikienė on June 9, 2015.
The event was billed as an opportunity for LJC members and the general public to get to know ambassador Maimon better. Opening the event, Grodnikienė said it was the first actual meeting of the ambassador with the LJC members, because not all were able to attend the historic opening of the first embassy of the State of Israel in Vilnius earlier this year.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chair Faina Kukliansky also delivered a warm-hearted and friendly introduction, but cautioned that the State of Israel and the Lithuanian Jewish Community were two entirely different entities and sometimes held differing positions.
Ambassador Maimon beamed confidently at the full third-floor auditorium and said he disagreed with Kuklianksy. He said both the local community and the state were essentially the same thing: the Jewish community. After that he launched into a retelling of his life and career starting with his great-grandparents’ generation and his ancestors who lived in Yemen. His entire talk was marked by a kind of joviality which occasionally manifested as humorous remarks, all of which were faithfully and accurately translated.
The ambassador touched upon some of the major moments in his career, which began in the military, and how he entered the parachute corps, quickly advanced in rank and was eventually shared out to the diplomatic corps, at his own request. He was the ambassador to Addis Ababa during the massive skylift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1991 and apparently played a major role in making that happen, although he didn’t say he had and didn’t go into great detail. He expressed regret greater progress had not been made in peace negotiations with the Palestinians, and said he had harbored hopes after “the handshake” between Yassir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, that his children, which he did not then have, would not have to participate in the conflict. He said he was disappointed in that and both of his sons are now serving in the Israeli military.
Even though there was a June sun streaming into the third-floor windows and a filled-to-capacity auditorium, the event had the coziness of an FDR fireside chat, and the elderly audience’s support for the State of Israel and the ambassador was palpable. When question period arrived they ran the gamut of possibilities, from recent elections in Turkey and their impact on future A Meeting with the Israeli Ambassador to Lithuania at the Lithuanian Jewish Community
Israel’s first ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon was the guest at the 31st meeting of the Likimai [Destiny] cycle of seminars initiated and organized by Lithuanian Jewish Community deputy chairwoman Maša Grodnikienė on June 9, 2015.
The event was billed as an opportunity for LJC members and the general public to get to know ambassador Maimon better. Opening the event, Grodnikienė said it was the first actual meeting of the ambassador with the LJC members, because not all were able to attend the historic opening of the first embassy of the State of Israel in Vilnius earlier this year.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chair Faina Kukliansky also delivered an warm-hearted and friendly introduction, but cautioned that the State of Israel and the Lithuanian Jewish Community were two entirely different entities and sometimes held differing positions.
Ambassador Maimon beamed confidently at the full third-floor auditorium and said he disagreed with Kuklianksy. He said both the local community and the state were essentially the same thing: the Jewish community. After that he launched into a retelling of his life and career starting with his great-grandparents’ generation and his ancestors who lived in Yemen. His entire talk was marked by a kind of joviality which occasionally manifested as humorous remarks, all of which were faithfully and accurately translated by Bagel Shop project director Živilė Juonytė.
The ambassador touched upon some of the major moments in his career, which began in the military, and how he entered the parachute corps, quickly advanced in rank and was eventually shared out to the diplomatic corps, at his own request. He was the ambassador to Addis Ababa during the massive skylift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1991 and apparently played a major role in making that happen, although he didn’t say he had and didn’t go into great detail. He expressed regret greater progress had not been made in peace negotiations with the Palestinians, and said he had harbored hopes after “the handshake” between Yassir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, that his children, which he did not then have, would not have to participate in the conflict. He said he was disappointed in that and both of his sons are now serving in the Israeli military.
Even though there was a June sun streaming into the third-floor windows and a filled-to-capacity auditorium, the event had the coziness of an FDR fireside chat, and the elderly audience’s support for the State of Israel and the ambassador was palpable. When question period arrived they ran the gamut of possibilities, from recent elections in Turkey and their impact on future Turkey-Israeli relations, to the ethnic background of his wife. One person asked about possible exports to Israel of items manufactured by a group for the disabled, and the ambassador responded at length, saying the embassy was brand new and open to cooperation with all sorts of groups, and had in fact already engaged in some sort of support for another Lithuanian disabled group including the blind. Asked about his cultural preferences, the ambassador turned the question into one of musical tastes, and said it usually depended upon his mood, but that he liked older big-band music, Israeli artists and even Arabic-language pop music. One elderly questioner evidently got the Raid on Entebbe mixed up with the Ethiopian airlift, Operation Solomon, but the ambassador was able to speak on that topic as well.
The reception ended with a table of candies and wine and members of the audience came forward and surrounded the ambassador for a good half hour before he even got from the auditorium to the foyer.
