Simon Rozenbaum at the consulate in Tel Aviv. Photo: LTV program Menora

by Aidanas Praleika

Lithuania recently supported the United Nations against Donald Trump’s initiative supporting Jerusalem. How would Lithuania have voted a century ago?

Many today association Zionism with conspiracy theories, but a century ago the basic “conspiracy” was the foundation of the State of Israel. An idea which Lithuania, a state based on ethnicity, supported. If Lithuania had been asked back then to give her verdict on recognizing the capital of the Jewish state, she would have almost certainly voted the other way. Lietuvos Žinios spoke with publicist and Menora television program producer Vitalijus Karakorskis about the connection between the Zionists and Lithuania back then.

The Jewish Floridan reports G. Volkauskas’s appointment as Lithuanian general consul in Palestine.

Lithuanian-Israeli diplomatic relations are numbered in the years since the restoration of independence, but you are talking about a much larger time scale.

When Lithuania supported the resolution at the United Nations opposing recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, I thought: why? Maybe because Lithuania today sees reasons to act this way, but after looking over the history between the wars, we see that even Lithuania, based on the ethno-linguistic principle, was very favorable towards Zionist ideas to create the State of Israel. And the Zionists were no less eager supporters of Lithuanian statehood, supporting not only the recognition of Lithuanian statehood, but actively working to consolidate Lithuanian statehood.

Full story in Lithuanian here.