Dear friends,
You’re invited to the Mini-Limmud educational conference on Judaism December 11-13 at the Vilnius Grand Resort hotel.
Mini-Limmud is and includes:
● Three days of meeting and talking with friends and the like-minded;
● The best speakers from the Baltics, Israel, Russia and elsewhere;
● A special program for children;
● An unforgettable Hanukkah evening with special performers.
Dear members of the community,
Yitzhak Navon, who served as the 5th President of the State of Israel from 1978 to 1983, passed away on Saturday, November 7, 2015 at the age of 94. His funeral took place on Sunday, November 08, 2015 on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.
Through the years Navon combined public activity, political activity and writing, which centered mostly on preserving the cultural heritage of Sephardic and Mizrachi Jewry. In 1978 he was elected to serve as the fifth President of the State of Israel. He served in office until 1983.
During his Presidency, he strove to act as a bridge between Israel’s ethnic groups, religious and secular, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, left and right, Jews and Arabs and to allay high tensions following the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Sinai Peninsula pursuant to the peace agreement with Egypt.
J. Greisman, “Curses, the Evil Eye and Porcha (Instilling Fear) in Judaism”
12 noon, Sunday, November 8, 2015
Lecture to be held in Lithuanian in the Jascha Heifetz Hall, third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street No. 4, Vilnius
The Lithuanian Jewish Community express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the victims of flight 9268 on Kogalymavia Airlines and to all the Russian people. We are with you in our hearts and minds.
Job announcement aimed primarily at LJC members and their family members
Duties:
Coordinating youth counselor and youth volunteer work.
Initiating new programs for Jewish young people.
Encouraging participation by youth at all Jewish community events, including educational events, volunteer activities and etc.
Preparation of monthly reports and plans for the youth programs.
Work with the regional Jewish communities.
Requirements:
Experience working with young people.
Knowledge of Jewish history and traditions.
Enthusiasm, communications skills, striving for the best results.
Good organizational skills.
Good computer skills.
Driver’s license and private automobile.
Knowledge of Lithuanian, English and Russian.
Work experience at Jewish organizations would be a plus.
Please contact us with your CV and a motivational cover-letter at:
valentin.baltija@gmail.com
Dear Lithuanian Jewish Community members and friends,
We are happy to announce the much-loved traditional Jewish culture conference Mini Limmud will take place from December 11 to 13 this year.
Stay tuned for further information.
The LJC Social Center is seeking a personnel administrator for the home care department. Please send your CV to Social Center director Simas Levin at simas@sc.lzb.lt
You’re invited to attend Rabbi Klev Krelin’s lecture “Weekly Torah Selection: Abraham and His Sons. Jews and Arabs” at 6:00 P.M. on October 27 at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.
Can Lithuania consider itself a competitive state in the Baltic region and the EU today? What do international corporations perceive as our strengths and weaknesses?
Investors and political party representatives will address these and other questions, share insights on the education and tax systems, labor relations, infrastructure, Lithuanian accessibility and other topics, and present Lithuania’s standing on the investor confidence index.
Lithuanian parliamentary speaker Loreta Graužinienė will open the event.
Time: 1:00-3:30 P.M.
Date: October 28, 2015
Location: Conference Center, Building III, Lithuanian parliament
Please register by October 25: http://bit.ly/1R26y9V
Investors’ Forum
Totorių 5-21, LT-01121, Vilnius
The Kaunas Jewish Community plans to mark the 74th anniversary of the Great Action at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas at 12 noon on October 25, 2015.
Let’s remember and honor the memory of the victims.
The Large Action was the mass murder operation on October 28 and 29, 1941, during which about 10,000 people were murdered at the Ninth Fort in a single twenty-four hour period, including about 4,300 children.
This weekend we will host the following programs :
KNAFAIM – Friday 18:30 P.M. We are taking teens for a special event to Labirinthus (see https://www.facebook.com/labyrinthusgame) and we will celebrate Sabbath there.
ILAN – Sunday at 3.00 P.M. Kids will have a peula on the topic of Jewish values. At about 4:30 P.M. there will be a quiz. Havdala ceremony and story at around 5.30 P.M.
Training for camp and club counselors – Sunday 12 noon. Around 20 young leaders will gather
to acquire more knowledge on Jewish topics.
The Alexander Macht Chess Tournament will be held at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street No. 4 at 6:00 P.M. on Sunday, October 18. The tournament was organized by the LJC and the elite chess and checkers clubs Rositsan and Maccabi.
Boris Rositsan gave the LJC website a small interview in the run-up to the tournament where, he said, at least 30 people are planning to play. Special medals have been ordered for this competition.
What does the name Alexander Macht signify?
Boris Rositsan: Alexander Macht is an historical figure and a very important person in the history of Lithuanian chess as well as Jewish. We cannot forget this sort of person, so we are continuing the tradition of tournaments. In interwar Lithuania he was Lithuanian champion seven times over. Macht lived in Kaunas and was director of the Jewish People’s Bank. He went to Israel in 1935 and directed the famous Bank Leumi there. No one wrote, said or remembered anything at all about this great chess player during the Soviet period. We have prepared a program dedicated to Litvak chess players. After we presented our book “Žydai Lietuvos šachmatų istorijoje” [“Jews in Lithuanian Chess History”] at the beginning of this year, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky asked us why weren’t continuing that history. I would like to say that we are preparing to do just that in cooperation with the community. We are holding two tournaments, this is for adults, but if strong young chess players come forward, we will include them. On October 31st there will be a tournament dedicated to the memory of Itzhak Vistinietzki [Isakas Vistaneckis] and children will play in that. We are inviting children aged five and over to come and learn to play chess. We have student groups at the community for the ages of 5, 6, 7… and 13 years old. Also, elderly and retired LJC members are coming to us. Fishman is helping me with the training. Serious work is taking place, non-commercial, I really love chess and I want to revive the LJC chess movement.
A group of volunteers from among the personnel of the Lithuanian Jewish Community gathered October 8 at the old Jewish cemetery in the Vilnius neighborhood of Užupis. Although not that many people turned out, those who did put their backs into it, hauling off brush and saplings. Volunteer director Juozas Labokas of the Regional Park’s Office of Inspector told volunteers of the history of the site and called for more volunteers and volunteer actions so the refurbishment of the cemetery could continue through the winter months. Strong individuals are sought especially, since many of the trees being removed require heavy lifting.
The site located along Olandų street next to the Soviet-era funeral home facility there was a Jewish cemetery where some 70,000 people were buried. The 11-hectare cemetery now falls under the care of the Pavilniai Regional Park. It has been completely overgrown by weeds, bushes and small trees. Now enough undergrowth has been cleared away to reveal some of the surviving Jewish headstones.
The cemetery was the main Jewish burial site in Vilnius from 1831 to 1946. The cemetery was destroyed beginning in 1965.
Currently the Municipal Works and Transportation Department of the Vilnius municipality is undertaking work to refurbish the graveyard. Trees are being removed to provide an aesthetic view of the grave monuments. Currently work is on-going in 4 hectares and volunteers are sorely needed.
The Pavilniai Regional Park webpage says:
The more people who step forward to contribute to putting the old Jewish cemetery in order, the more quickly the territory will be liberated from the brush. We hope for your reply and await your telephone call or email.
telephone: Vida at 8 614 92 522
email: parkas@botanika.lt
The Pavilniai Regional Park administration directed by Vida Petiukonienė is currently clearing growth, brush and trees at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Užupis on Olandų street in Vilnius. Those who drive by can already see how the appearance of the cemetery has changed, it looks like a real cemetery again with clear borders and headstones and fragments of headstones visible. This is only the beginning
We are calling for volunteers to help in this important work.
The regional park director has informed us volunteers are needed to help bring the cut trees and brush to the road. There’s still a lot of work to do, so we’re suggesting not a single day of volunteer clean-up, but a whole season’s worth! Please tell your friends and family and figure out when your group might be able to come and help out. School groups are more than welcome. The director says they are ready to take on volunteers every day.
Everyone is invited. It would be best to have groups of volunteers organized and ready to lend a hand by October 10.
Pavilniai Regional Park director may be contacted directly by email at vida.petiukoniene@gmail.com
or you may contact the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s representative for heritage protection Martynas Užpelkis at paveldas@lzb.lt or by telephone at 8-615 13257
Thank you for your help.
Exhibit opening ceremony 5:00 P.M., Thursday, October 1, at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum (Naugarduko street No. 10/2, Vilnius)
The Tolerance Center will host a mobile exhibition from the French-based Yahad-In Unum organization called “Shot: A Decade of Yahad-In Unum Studies” from October 1 to November 22, 2015. The exhibit presents material from comprehensive historical research based on testimony by eye-witnesses, photographs and maps to reveal the lesser-known side of the Holocaust in the East, “The Holocaust by Shooting.” This refers to the systematic extermination of Jews and Roma in the Soviet Union starting with the establishment of ghettos and camps and culminating in the end of the war.
Yahad-In Unum, Hebrew and Latin for “together,” is a humanitarian organization founded by French Catholic priest Patrick Desbois in 2004 whose goal is to identify, document and systematize information about sites in Eastern Europe where the Nazi einsatzgruppen carried out the mass murder of Jews during World War II.
The ten-year study by the organization uncovered the Nazis’ main plan for extermination. Over 79 field studies researchers discovered 1,700 mass murder sites and collected testimony from over 4,000 non-Jewish locals in Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Romania, Makedonia and Poland. In 2013 the organization began studies in Lithuania. Over 2 years Yahad-In Unum recorded testimony from 243 witnesses who identified 131 mass murder sites.
Unlike at the concentration camps, many victims of the “Shooting Holocaust” survived to tell the world what happened. It is believed that five years from now very few of those who witnessed but didn’t personally experience the crimes committed will be left among the living. Researchers at the organization say they want to investigate the evidence for every mass shooting in order to present undisputable proof to Holocaust deniers, to commemorate the victims and to protect the mass grave sites, and also to prevent genocide and mass violence in the future.
Marco Gonzalez, the director of Yahad-In Unum in Paris, said: “The Nazis used a special method of killing Jews in Eastern Europe, leaving their corpses in mass graves dug deep in the forest. Each murderer saw his victim, and each victim saw his murderer.” The exhibit presents a five-tier plan used for almost all the mass murder operations in Eastern Europe: collecting the victims, marching them to their deaths, disrobing, mass shooting and then expropriations of property following the murders.
Father Desbois said the massacres which the Nazis and their collaborators carried out village by village in Eastern Europe have become the archetypal model for mass murder in the present time in countries such as Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkan states and Syria. “As a wave of anti-Semitism and hate rises, Yahad-In Unum’s work is more important than ever before. … This exhibit was first shown at UNESCO headquarters in Paris in January of 2015, and this will be its second showing in Europe, in Lithuania, where more than ninety percent of Jews were murdered during the Holocaust,’ Father Desbois said.
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum and the International Commission for the Assessment of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania together with the exhibit organizers will hold a seminar for teachers the same day the new exhibit is unveiled to the public.
Entry is free of charge.
Those wanting to attend the seminar are asked to register by September 28 by sending an email to: rasa.ziburyte@leu.lt
For more information, please see:
www.jmuseum.lt
http://www.yahadinunum.org/
Press contacts:
Julijanas Galisanskis, Yahad-In Unum representative
telephone: +32 25137713
email: j.galisanskis@yahadinunum.org
Ieva Šadzevičienė, director of Tolerance Center, Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum
telephone: (8 5) 262 9666
email: ieva.sadzeviciene@jmuseum.lt
Wednesday, September 23
7:00 P.M. International concert “Breaking the Silence” (Vilnius Church of St. Francis of Assisi (Church of the Bernardines), Maironio street No. 10-22, Vilnius).
To honor the memory of Jewish artists who suffered, there will be a concert program of 3 premieres in Vilnius: Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963), Concerto funebre altui and string orchestra; Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942), five works for strings; and Arvo Pärt (born 1935), Stabat Mater for choir and stringed instruments. Performers: Vilnius City Municipality Choir Jauna muzika, artistic director and conductor Vaclovas Augustinas, Austrian-Bulgarian string orchestra, Camerata Orphica Les Orphéïstes, Razvan Hamza (alto), conductor Amaury du Closel. Donatas Puslys will be master of ceremonies. Entry is free.
Lithuanian NGO Programme operator Human Rights Monitoring Institute is organizing a conference on Anti-Semitism, Radicalisation and Violent Extremism. The event will take place on 30 September, 2015 in Vilnius.
The participants of the event will include experts of human rights, practitioners working in the field of inclusion, de-radicalisation, prevention of extremism, as well as representatives of international organisations and NGOs.
Please fill in REGISTRATION FORM, which is open until September 15th and we will inform you with updated programme.
Greetings on Rosh Hashanah!
During the holiday we invite you to attend our holiday events!
The events begin at 12:00 noon on September 13, 2015
12:00 Official greeting speech by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky (in the White Hall)
12:30 “Art Workshop”: Rosh Hashanah activities for children from the Dubi and Dubi Mishpaha Clubs (Dubi Club room)
12:30 “Art Workshop”: Rosh Hashanah activities for Ilan and Knafaim Club members (Ilan Club room)
12:30 Holiday “Who, what, where?” game for adults. Game led by Irina Slutsker (Jascha Heifetz Hall)
12:30 Israeli dance with Karina Semionova (White Hall)
2:30 Lecture by Lara Lempert “Days of Trembling: Reading the Torah as a Means of Social Engineering” (Jascha Heifetz Hall)
2:30 Rosh Hashanah art workshop for grownups with artist Raimondas Savickas and presentation of creative projects for 2015-2016 (Student Union premises)
7:00 P.M. Rosh Hashanah holiday at the Choral Synagogue (Pylimo street no. 39, Vilnius). Presentation of calendar for the Jewish year 5776. Concert by violinist B. Kirzneris, violinist V. Mikeliūnas and A. Gotesman on percussion: “Sounds of the Vilnius Synagogue.”