The Kaunas Jewish Community marked the 85th anniversary of the death of Daniel Dolski (stage name of Daniel or Donil Broides), one of the founders of the genre known as “estrada music” in Eastern Europe, popular and sometimes humorous schlager-style songs performed on stage. Iser Shreiberg, the chairman of the Kaunas Hassidic Synagogue Religious Community and a member of the Kaunas Jewish Community, said a prayer for the dead at Dolski’s grave in the Jewish cemetery in the Žaliakalnis neighborhood of Kaunas. Those who turned out for the commemoration recalled the Kaunas Jewish Community had tended the grave of the performer.

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas said that joint efforts by the Kaunas Jewish Community, the Kaunas municipality, the Lithuanian Jewish Community, the Israeli embassy and other organizations were underway to refurbish the Jewish cemetery. Gercas Žakas also recalled the main moments in Dolski’s life and the story of the statue commemorating him on Freedom Alley, Kaunas’s main pedestrian thoroughfare. The life-sized statue by sculptor R. Kvinta was placed next to the Metropol restaurant, where Dolski performed, thanks to the efforts of chairman Žakas, although credit for the project truly belongs to Lithuanian actor and musician Vytautas Kernagis, he said.