A meeting of the Kėdainiai regional council at the beginning of July resolved to establish a Jewish Cultural Heritage Association.

It is to include residents of Ukmergė and Joniškis as well as Kėdainiai.

The Kėdainiai regional leaders have already adopted the plan and are now waiting to see how the two partners resolve to act. the city councils of Ukmergė and Joniškis are supposed to meet in August and their decision is expected at that time.

Once the resolutions are known, work to establish the association is to begin.

The idea of creating the Jewish Cultural Heritage Association came up at the end of May when the Cultural Heritage Department held a consultation in Kėdainiai.

According to many of Lithuania’s regional administration representatives, the association is needed to popularize the cultural heritage of the Jewish people who once thrived in this country.

Kėdainiai regional mayor Saulius Grinkevičius is a proponent of establishing the organization to popularize Jewish culture: “Kėdainiai has a significant Jewish legacy. As much as they are able, our historians popularize the cultural heritage of this people, but even greater promotion would not in any way be too much. The more we educate the public about our rich heritage, the more tourists we can expect who will help strengthen the region economically.”

Kėdainiai regional history museum specialists have made a significant contribution to popularizing the Jewish cultural legacy. Audronė Pečiulytė, director of the Multicultural Center, said many projects involving the history of the region, which includes a remarkable slice of Jewish history, have been and are currently being implemented in Kėdainiai. “The Jewish heritage is abundant throughout the country. There is no lack of it in Kėdainiai either. But we must keep in mind that heritage is not just buildings alone. We need to learn how to present in an interesting way what made and makes us rich. I believe the establishment of the Jewish Cultural Heritage Association will be very beneficial. We will be able to coordinate different [tourist] routes crisscrossing several administrative regions. We could coordinate actions and equally direct flows of tourists. I think Jewish cultural heritage is interesting to Lithuanians themselves as well as tourists from abroad, it just has to be presented in an interesting way,” Pečiulytė said.

Rimantas Žirgulis, director of the Kėdainiai Regional History Museum, also approves the idea of setting up this association. “These sorts of associations operate in many European countries which have a significant Jewish heritage. We would simply make use of the expertise of our colleagues and make use of what made the Jewish community so rich once upon a time, and what has remained of that today.”

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