“If I lived in Lithuania, I would be an active member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, at least in order to avoid a third marriage,” a guest from the United States visiting the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius while on a tour of Litvak heritage sites said.

The old joke goes like this: in Lithuania, a man must marry three times: a Polish woman, a Jewish woman and a Lithuanian woman. The first wife is to show him what true passion is. The second wife teaches him how to treat money, and the third wife will tend his grave beautifully.

The group from the Taube Center for Jewish Life and Learning are visiting Jewish heritage sites in Lithuania and Poland.

“Well, we don’t regulate the life of young people, but we do strive to make sure our seniors don’t have to look for care-givers. Staff from the LJC’s Social Center make daily home visits to our seniors and provide all kinds of help, organize entertainment and, most importantly, overcome the sense of isolation many of them feel,” Saul Kagan social center director Michail Segal said.

The visitors were interested in Litvak history and life today and asked how they could contribute to popularizing Jewish culture. They were well aware that September 23 will mark the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto, and asked whether Lithuania will mark the anniversary as impressively as the Poles commemorated the victims of the Warsaw Uprising recently.