After a short vacation, the Knafaim Club for youth aged 13 to 17 has reopened, ready to receive members and friends every Friday at 6:00 P.M., with different games and activities to improve Jewish and general knowledge, followed by a ceremony to greet the Sabbath. For more information, contact programs director Žana Skudovičienė at zanas@sc.lzb.lt or call+370 678 81514.
The Goodwill Foundation is planning to disburse from 5 to 10 million euros to those who lost personal property during the Holocaust and their heirs and who meet specific criteria.
Those who survived the Holocaust in Lithuania and their heirs are eligible to make application until December 30, 2023. Compensation is planned to be paid by July 1, 2025.
No claims can be made for plots of land, but applications made by those seeking recompense for commercial buildings, residential homes and apartments will be considered seriously.
Those eligible to apply include Jewish property owners who lived in Lithuania until May 8, 1945, and whose property was seized by the Nazis or Soviets from June 15, 1940, until March 10, 1990, and who didn’t have an opportunity to receive their property and get compensation for it because they weren’t Lithuanian citizens from June 18, 1991, until December 31, 2001. Inheritors eligible for compensation are widows or widowers of former Jewish property owners, parents or children of such, and in the event they are dead, then grandchildren or spouses of grandchildren. Those left property in last wills and testaments are also eligible, as are their widows or widowers, parents, children, grandchildren or spouses of grandchildren.
The Sabbath begins at 4:57 P.M. on Friday, February 10, and concludes at 6:13 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to a new series of quizzes on Sundays on Jewish history. Writer Arkadijus Vinokuras will moderate the quiz at the Bagel Shop Café on Sundays with a new topic every week. Come and show off your knowledge, or just come to learn something new. The first quiz will be held at 2:00 P.M. this Sunday, February 12, at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. The topic will be Jewish music, with musc professor Leonidas Melnikas offering his expert opinion as judge. Register by sending an email to katrina@lzb.lt.
The #ŽydiškųPašnekesiai discussion club will address the topic “Was Jewish Life Great during the Smetona Era” at the Bagel Shop Café at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius at 5:00 P.M. on February 8. The discussion will be live-streamed on the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s facebook page.
In the broader public discussion of whether to erect a statue to the interwar Lithuanian president and dictator Antanas Smetona, proponents have begun saying he defended Lithuania’s Jewish population and was even known as “King of the Jews.” Opponents of the monument counter there were no stops placed on anti-Semitism in Lithuania in the period between the two world wars, meaning the entire span of Lithuanian independence, and Jews were banned from public service and elsewhere.
What do today’s Jews and Lithuania’s current crop of historians think about these issues? Attend or tune in to find out.
Moderator and club founder Arkadijus Vinokuras will put the question to Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community; Žygimantas Menčenkovas, member of the Leftist Alliance, philosopher, teacher and activist and via internet Linas Venclauskas, historian and author of a recent book on Lithuanian anti-Semitism prior to 1940.
The Sabbath begins at 4:42 P.M. on Friday, February 3, and concludes at 6:00 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
A concert and discussion will be held at the Stasys Vainiūnas House at Goštauto street no. 2-41 at 5:30 P.M. on Wednesday, February 8, in memory of the remarkable Lithuanian musical couple Saulius and Silvija Sondeckiai. Professor Leonidas Melnikas is to speak and students from the Saulius Sondeckis Art Gymnasium in Šiauliai will perform. The event is free and open to the public.
February 3 marked seven years since the death of renowned Lithuanian musician, conductor and professor Saulius Sondeckis. In the run up to that sad anniversary, his widow, cello player and professor Silvija Sondeckienė, passed away on January 21.
The Sabbath begins at 4:28 P.M. on Friday, January 27, and concludes at 5:47 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Residents of Palanga are invited to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day this Friday, January 27, with a candle-lighting ceremony at the Old Cemetery in Palanga at 11:00 A.M. followed by the unveiling of a new plaque commemorating the town’s synagogues destroyed during World War II at Vytauto street no. 98 at 11:30 A.M.
The family duet of Vera Vaidman on violin and Vera Emanuel Krasovsky on piano will perform works by Beethoven and Schubert at the Organum Concert Hall in Vilnius at 7:00 P.M. on Friday, February 3. Tickets are available here and if you enter the code LZB you’ll get a 10% discount. Krasovsky was born in Vilnius and attended Vilnius University among other institutions of higher learning. The couple live in Tel Aviv currently
The Sabbath begins at 4:15 P.M. on Friday, January 20, and concludes at 5:35 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
To mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust instituted by the United Nations in 2005, the Lithuanian Jewish Community will host a presentation of Vytautas Magnus University teacher Linas Venclauskas’s monograph about Lithuanian anti-Semitism and of Vytautas Toleikis’s book about the portrayal of Jews in Lithuanian literature.
The two presentations in Lithuanian begin at 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, January 26 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Note the United Nations’ International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. more commonly called International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is officially on Friday, January 27, to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
The Sabbath begins at 4:02 P.M. on Friday, January 13, and concludes at 5:24 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
J’ACCUSE! Lithuanian complicity in the Holocaust and its coverup
Date: 8:00 P.M. South African Standard Time (UTC +2, same time zone as Lithuania), Thursday, January 19, 2023
Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_t4pEdH4LR3ano0wwyzfEnA
What would you do if you discovered that your grandfather, a national hero in Lithuania, was also a genocidal killer of Jews? Would you keep quiet or expose the truth?
This controversial documentary exposes Lithuania’s policy of Holocaust denial and its celebration of the perpetrators of the genocide of its Jewish citizens.
This is a unique opportunity to view the documentary in full and meet the filmmakers and heroes of this ground-breaking story.
Please note that this is a private screening by invitation only. The recording of this internationally award-winning documentary will NOT be available on YouTube after the event.
The two days of activities are intended to teach the traditions and customs of the Roma and Jewish communities in Lithuania and to counter stereotypes and fight anti-Semitism and Romophobia at home and abroad in various contexts. This is the first time educators from Lithuania are being invited to meeting with representatives and lecturers from both communities. We believe these teachings will be helpful for teachers working with young people as well as for cultural workers in the towns and cities where Jewish heritage is undergoing restoration. Those who work with young people and representatives from NGOs are invited to attend. The two-day workshop begins in January at the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius with the participation of experts from the Lithuanian Human Rights Center and the Padėk Pritapti organization, and of course the Lithuanian Jewish Community as well. We invite you to share this invitation with your colleagues. For more information, click https://bit.ly/3PXEoTz. To register, click https://bit.ly/3jDbJa5. A program in Lithuanian is available here.
For more information, contact Dovilė Rūkaitė at projects@lzb.lt.
The Sabbath begins at 3:50 P.M. on Friday, January 6, and concludes at 5:14 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Old Vilnius Town Hall and the Lithuanian Literature and Folklore Institute invite you to an evening to remember the life and work of Irena Veisaitė. The event marks Irena’s 95th birthday and will also serve to launch the book “Our Irena: Memories Irena Veisaitė” edited and compiled by Reda Pabarčienė. The book will be available for purchase at the presentation. The venue is the Old Vilnius Town Hall, 6:00 P.M., January 9, 2023. It is free and open to the public. The event will be conducted in Lithuanian.
The Sabbath begins at 3:43 P.M. on Friday, December 30, and concludes at 5:06 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Sabbath begins at 3:36 P.M. on Friday, December 23, and concludes at 5:01 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Sabbath begins at 3:34 P.M. on Friday, December 16, and concludes at 4:58 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.