Vilnius, April 26, BNS–A new Vilnius Regional Jewish Community is being established and will be headed by long-standing president of the Makabi Lithuanian Athletics Club Semionas Finkelšteinas.

Representatives of the association reported its establishment Thursday.

This has made more acute a conflict between Jewish organizations. Vilnius Jewish Community leader Simonas Gurevičius is angry not all who wanted were able to participate in the new organization’s establishment and said the new community is being established solely to support Lithuanian Jewish Community leader Faina Kukliansky.

A press release from the new organization Thursday said the Vilnius Regional Jewish Community “will actively bring together Jews of the Vilnius region who are in favor of working constructively” with the Lithuanian Jewish Community, regional Jewish communities and social organizations, and will also represent the social, cultural and political interests of Jews living in Vilnius and surrounding areas. The statement said the new organization will bring community old-timers and the powers of youth together for joint activity.

“My parents were both students of the interwar Sholem Aleichem Jewish School in Kaunas and wouldn’t understand the events now happening and afflicting the divided Jewish community. They would consider this a deep shame and insult,” Finkelšteinas said.

Representatives didn’t indicate how many members comprise the organization and only said the founders are public figures, businesspeople, students and representatives of academia, art and athletics. Daumantas Todesas, director of the Jakov Binka welfare and support fund and a participant in the new organization, told BNS “a great many people” took part in its founding.

LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told BNS she knew about the community being established but was unable to provide much more details.

Simonas Gurevičius: Attempt to Support the LJC Leadership

Vilnius Jewish Community leader Simonas Gurevičius said the establishment of the new organization was held in secret and some representatives of the community he heads were refused entry, and so he also lacks information about the goals of the new group.

Nonetheless he characterized the newly established community as an organization loyal to the LJC.

Gurevičius pointed to a finding from the Vilnius City District Court issued in December of last year which said the re-election of Kukliansky in May of last year was illegitimate because the number of votes in the Vilnius Jewish Community opposed to her were reduced on the eve of the election unfairly. Kukliansky likewise said the election for the chairmanship of the Vilnius Jewish Community last May was also illegal, after which she as chairwoman of the Vilnius Jewish Community (as well as the Lithuanian Jewish Community) was succeeded in her post by Gurevičius. The verdicts are also being challenged in court.

“It’s not hard to guess that because of the re-election of the head of the LJC, recognized as illegal , once the court decision comes into effect the LJC will have to hold new elections in which corporate entities will vote, the members of the LJC, so they new to quickly cook up new organizations loyal to the current government and accept new members to the LJC,” Gurevičius told BNS.

He said the current LJC chairwoman was “a chairwoman without a community” following [his] election as the new head of the Vilnius Jewish Community.

“No less important, and perhaps the most important thing is that the current LJC government is losing control in allocating Goodwill Foundation funds for the needs of the Vilnius Jewish Community. But now there will be a formal institution for acquiring these funds,” he said.

Daumantas Todesas said everyone who agreed with the ideas of the new organization was allowed into the foundational meeting.

“The founders assembled and we had our own goals. We invited those who support our ideas and were not prepared to open some kind of market. Their attempt to come in was an attempt to create confusion and stop our work. Because when you create an organization, you have the idea to invite people who want to support you, and not those who want to hinder you. They weren’t invited, so we didn’t let them in. That’s natural,” Daumantas Todesas indicated.

by Ignas Jačauskas

politika@bns.lt, +370 5 205 85 08