The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to a Sabbath conducted by Rabbi Nathan Alfred and cantor Alan Brava at 7:00 P.M. this Friday, June 2, with kiddush at the Bagel Shop Café and prayer service at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. People 16 and under get in for free. To register, send an email to viljamas@lzb.lt or call +37067250699.
Professor Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, a specialist in art and visual representation in Lithuania and Eastern Europe focusing on the late 19th and 20th centuries from the Lithuanian Cultural Research Institute as well as the Vilnius Art Academy, will give a presentation called “Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne, 1918-1948: One City, Many Stories. Exhibit and Its Context” as part of the lecture series “Topical Art Research: The Newest Revelations from Lithuanian Art Research, Dedicated to the 700th Anniversary of the Founding of Vilnius” at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, May 30, at the Lithuanian National Art Gallery in Vilnius.
“Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne, 1918-1948: One City, Many Stories” is also the name of a museum exhibit which opened in Cracow, Poland, on May 23, 2023, and will travel to Lithuania and go on public display on November 9 at the the Lithuanian National Art Gallery in Vilnius.
Jankevičiūtė plans to discuss in her presentation the motivations which led to the creation of the exhibit, its structure, content and possible significance for Lithuanian and Polish art culture, especially the visual arts. She says the period chosen for her discussion was a time of true cultural ferment, that the city then on the borderlands was reminiscent of Lvov and Trieste for its multicultural identity and dynamism, with increasing and decreasing shifts in its population. Despite its interesting and unique identity, Vilnius hasn’t found a place on the art culture map of Poland or Europe, and only closed groups of people in Lithuania and Poland are interested in this period in the city, she claims. Usually they are people with a personal connection to the city.
The professor calls this exhibit the first attempt to integrate the art of Vilnius in the period between the two world wars into the wider history of the region’s culture and to provide a credible visual reconstruction of Vilnius art and its artistic life. She says the exhibit integrates the work of artists from the Jewish community.
The Sabbath begins at 9:18 P.M. on Friday, May 26, and concludes at 10:59 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Shavuot or Shavuos, the Feast of Weeks, begins on the evening of Friday, May 26, and extends into May 27 until sundown this year. The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to attend several events to mark this important holiday on Sunday, May 28.
Israeli dance lesson with Julija Potašnik
Location: Cvirka Park, across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.
Time: from noon on
Enjoying nature with children
The LJC’s children’s clubs Dubi and Ilan are inviting youngsters and their parents to spend Sunday in a beautiful natural setting along the river. Every family is invited to bring their own food for a potluck and barbecue. Water and snacks will be provided.
Location: Valakupiai (Valakampiai) beach no. 2 at the northeastern reach of Vilnius, GPS coordinates 54.742762, 25.293022.
Time: noon
Registration is required for participants at both events. Please contact Žana Skudovičienė by telephone at (+370) 678 81514 or write an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt to register and for more information.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community invite you to a concert performance by the Jerusalem Cantors Choir at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius at 7:00 P.M. on Tuesday, June 6, with Paul Salter conducting and Rita Feldman on piano.
The Sabbath begins at 9:07 P.M. on Friday, May 19, and concludes at 10:43 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The AP Gallery in Vilnius’s Užupis neighborhood is holding an exhibit of drawings and paintings by Simon Karczmar featuring shtetlakh. He was born in Warsaw in 1903, left France for Israel in 1962 and died in 1982. His grandfather with whom he spent his vacations as a youngster lived in the shtetl Divenishok near Vilnius/Wilno.
AP Gallery is located at Užupio street no. 4 in Vilnius. The exhibition called Luminous Shtetls opens at 6:00 P.M. on May 31. No information was provided on when the exhibit ends.
They’re not yet adolescents, but already have a firm opinion on almost everything, are constantly coming up with new and unusual words and get excited about things we don’t always understand. More than mobile phones and as much as the oxygen they breathe, they need to spend time with people their own age. Ilan Club is intended for children aged 7 to 12, and meets every Sunday at noon at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. For more information, contact LJC programs director Žana Skudovičienė by e-mail at zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
Members of the Dubi Club engage in fun activities every Sunday. Last time they learned to make desserts. They did a great job and their parents were happy to try the treats and watch their young ones learn practical life skills. Dubi Club is for children aged 4 to 6 and meets at noon every Sunday at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. For more information, contact LJC programs director Žana Skudovičienė by e-mail at zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
Arakdijus Vinokuras’s monthly quiz asks that question at the next quiz scheduled for 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, May 21 at the Bagel Shop Café in Vilnius. This quiz will be dedicated to the three Litvak writers Icchokas Meras and the recently deceased Grigoriy Kanovitch and Markas Zingeris, may they rest in peace. It will be streamed on facebook as well.
The Sabbath begins at 8:55 P.M. on Friday, May 12, and concludes at 10:26 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Sabbath begins at 8:42 P.M. on Friday, May 5, and concludes at 10:09 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Jewish discussion club #ŽydiškiPašnekesiai invites the public to attend a special panel to remember Markas Zingeris, who died unexpectedly recently.
Over fifty years of work Markas has left us a rich inheritance: thoughts, ideas, texts, books, plays, poetry and the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum, where he served as director since its inception for several decades. His keen insights and very rational thinking had a deep influence on the development of Lithuanian society and politics following independence as well as before. He always demonstrated a spirit of openness, tolerance, rationality and ethical behavior.
Panelists to include Emanuelis Zingeris, Markas’s brother and MP; Emilis, Markas’s son; Violeta Davoliūtė, professor of philosophy and the history of ideas at Vilnius University, cultural historian, Holocaust researcher and colleague of Markas and Gytis Padegimas, a famous Lithuanian theater director who was a close confident (appearing via internet at the discussion club). Actor, popular writer and journalist Arkadijus Vinokuras will moderate the conversation which will be live-streamed on facebook with the help of his son Saulius.
The event is to take place at the Bagel Shop Café at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius at 5:00 P.M. on Wednesday, May 10. The live-stream will be made available on facebook by following this short URL: https://rb.gy/uok94
The Sabbath begins at 8:29 P.M. on Friday, April 28, and concludes at 9:52 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club invites athletes and the athletically-inclined at any and all levels of proficiency to a three-day sporting festival at the Pailgo perlas recreational area on a scenic lake 30 kilometers outside Vilnius. The celebration will include more than just sports in a beautiful natural setting, with a Sabbath celebration, singing, dancing, concerts, bonfire parties, fishing and swimming, among other activities. Sports include badminton, kayaking, ping-pong, volleyball, soccer and perhaps others, depending on the weather. The camp will run from April 19 to 21, but attendees aren’t required to spend all three days there. For more information and to register, send an email to info.maccabilt@gmail.com.
The Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble will perform a concert called Promised Land to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel at 4:00 P.M. on May 14 at the House of Polish Culture in Vilnius. Tickets cost 10 euros. For tickets or more information, call +370 687 79 309 or +370 5 261 30 03.
The Sabbath begins at 8:15 P.M. on Friday, April 21, and concludes at 9:36 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Judaica Research Center at the Martynas Mažvydas Lithuanian National Library, the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum and Roma Social Center present their “mini klez-fest” which includes live music and a lecture on klezmer music.
The event will take place at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Museum at 6:00 P.M. on Sunday, April 30. The performers decided to call their hour-long concert “From Vizhnitz to Vilne: Klezmer Music from the Carpathians and Beyond.” The program is composed of songs selected by Jewish music researcher, ethnographer and artist-in-residence in the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego State University Yale Strom, recorded during ethnographic field work and which were once performed from the Carpathian Mountains to Jonava in Lithuania and locations inside Belarus. Yale Strom currently teaches music at San Diego State.
The lecture component by Strom will take part on at 6:00 P.M. on Wednesday, May 3, at the National Library in Vilnius. It is called “Relationship between Romani and Jewish Musicians before World War II: How and Why?”
The Lithuanian news website 15min.lt announced they will be showing the Holocaust documentary J’accuse with Lithuanian subtitles on April 17 and 18. The focus of the film is Grant Gochin whose entire family were murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania, and Silvia Foti who published a biography of her grandfather Jonas Noreika, debunking his lionization by post-WWII Lithuanians and revealing his deep collaboration with the Nazis in Holocaust crimes.
The film documents the personal stories of Gochin and Foti in their search for truth and justice, and how their paths came together several years ago, both now demanding accountability and truth from the Lithuanian state in addressing the genocide committed against the Jews in Lithuania during WWII.
Foti’s book is in its second edition in the United States with translations in various languages around the world. Lithuanian publishing house Kitos Knygos is publishing the Lithuanian version of the book.
In the film Gochin talks about his numerous court cases in Lithuania seeking justice for his murdered family members. He talks about the anti-Semitism inherent in the Lithuanian bureaucracy in the first decade after independence from the Soviet Union when he sought Lithuanian citizenship based on family origin, and some of the strange decisions Lithuanian courts made regarding his numerous cases against the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania to force them to tell the truth about Jonas Noreika. Foti also levels criticism against the Center for hiding the truth about genocide in Lithuania.
The film contains a wealth of photography and stories of Jewish life in Lithuania before the Holocaust. 15min.lt says it is offering its readers the rare opportunity to view the film with the original audio with Lithuanian subtitles for two days exclusively.
Full article in Lithuanian and link to the film here.
We are pleased to announce we received a number of drawings, water colors and works in other media in our Passover children’s drawing contest. A surprising number of young people in the Community responded, some sending in multiple entries. We were also pleasantly surprised by the talent demonstrated, and insights into the inner life of our children. Some of the entries reminded us of the work of Marc Chagall and Samuel Bak. It was simply too difficult to decide on any one winner, but all contestants will receive a package of chocolate-coated matzo. A big thank-you to all the parents who helped as well.