Rosh Hashanah at the Choral Synagogue
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community invite you to come celebrate Rosh Hashanah at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius at 6:00 P.M. on September 25. All in attendance will receive our calendar for the new year, 5783.
Greetings on September 1, the Back-to-School Holiday
The Lithuanian Jewish Community greets the students, parents and teachers of the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius and all our students and parents on September 1, the national back-to-school holiday. We wish you a very successful academic year.
Happy Birthday to Larisa Vyšniauskienė
We wish a very happy birthday to Larisa Vyšniauskienė, guardian of the eternal creative flame of the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble. We wish you even greater success, health and artistic achievement! Mazl tov. Bis 120!
New Israeli Ambassador Visits LJC
Newly-appointed Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein visited the Lithuanian Jewish Community where chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and the Jewish community in Lithuania wished and wish her meaningful work and creative joint initiatives with the LJC. Chairwoman Kukliansky also introduced the new ambassador to Rozeta Ramonienė, the director of the Former Ghetto Prisoners Welfare and Support Fund.
News from the Panevėžys Jewish Community
Every month the Panevėžys Jewish Community celebrates its members’ birthdays and anniversaries. In July and August we congratulated Diana Narevič and Rimantas Rimkus and Jurijus and Svetlana Grafman on their anniversaries.
We also provided and provide material support to our members.
Despite summer vacations, cultural and athletic events are being held and members are participating in Panevėžys regional events and scouting activities.
In the summer we usually have a large number of guests who care about their family histories. They often talk about their families over a cup of tea at the Panevėžys Jewish Community. One of the newer stories is about a family who emigrated to South Africa, then later between 1900 and 1910 they went their separate ways to Canada, China, England and Israel. They came back to Lithuania to learn about the former shtetl where their forebears once lived.
Happy Birthday to Semionas Finkelšteinas
We wish a very happy milestone birthday to Semionas Finkelšteinas, modern founder and president of the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club and head of Lithuanian Makabi delegations abroad. We wish you great health, happiness and a continued sharp wit. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Father and Trainer Eduardas Šeras Talks of Son Who Won Silver at Maccabiah
I’d like to present a person who, as Lithuanian Makabi president Semionas Finkelšteinas says, performed a small miracle at the recently finished World Maccabiah Games in Israel.
Daniel Šer is the silver medal winner in the junior chess competition. Daniel is 13, but he was playing against 16, 17 and 18-year-olds. A silver medal which just missed becoming gold by a hair, since Daniel collected the same number of points with the gold medal winner from the USA, and according to the rules, a tie like that means other indicators are taken into account, something is always kind of a lottery, and this time it wasn’t in our favor.
It was a great competition, very good results and a very high assessment not just for the medal won, but also because news reached us that the organizers of the competition and the chief referee sent the final results to the International Chess Federation along with the request to present Daniel the title of candidate master for his excellent playing in the competition.
Happy Birthday to Tatjana Archipova-Efros
We wish a very happy milestone birthday to our long-time member and WWII veteran Tatjana Archipova-Efros. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Israeli Ambassador Yossi Avni-Levy Leaving
Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yossi Avni-Levy’s diplomatic posting came to an end today. We are grateful to him for these several years of friendship and wish him the greatest success in his future postings.
Lithuanian Makabi Athletes Earn Medals at World Maccabiah
Congratulations to Rafael Gimelstein who took silver in tennis competitions at the World Maccabiah Games taking place in Israel, and to his proud mother Faina Kukliansky. Congratulations also to Alan Rinkevič who won silver in fencing on the international team along with athletes from France and Sweden, and a hearty congratulations to all our other Lithuanian Makabi athletes and trainers who are making such an excellent showing in so many sports.
Happy Birthday to Gennady Kofman
The entire Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman a terrific milestone birthday. He has done so much to collect and share information about the city’s once numerous Jewish community, and always finds the time and energy to meet and help travellers looking for their roots and to teach school children and the wider community about the Holocaust. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Happy Birthday, Emanuelis
We wish Emanuelis Zingeris a very happy milestone birthday this July 16. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Presidential Palace Reception on Coronation of Mindaugas Day
Photo: Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and son Rafaelis attended the reception. Photo by J. Stasevičius courtesy Lithuanian State Radio and Television.
The Lithuanian president invited special guests to attend a reception at the presidential palace compound Wednesday to mark Coronation of Mindaugas Day, the day chosen by historians and others to celebrate the coronation Lithuania’s first and only king, Mindaugas, in A.D. 1253 with a crown sent by Pope Innocent IV.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Story of King Mindaugas in brief here.
Happy Birthday to Mina Frišman
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners wish Mina Frišman a very happy birthday. Our heartfelt wishes for her endless health and many happy days ahead with her children and grandchildren.
Fayerlakh Jewish Song and Dance Ensemble Celebrates 50th Birthday
The Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh celebrated their 50th birthday on Sunday, June 19, at the Polish House of Culture in Vilnius with performances by musicians, singers and dancers.
The group formed back in the early 70s within the general milieu of Jewish, Lithuanian, Russian and Polish volunteer collectives, including the Yiddish-language People’s Theater. Many of the Jewish volunteer cultural groups–a choir, vocalists, a dance troupe, actors and personnel from the People’s Theater and a popular stage band–later immigrated to Israel and formed the Anakhnu Kan ensemble there. 1971 was also the year Jewish musician Yasha Magid founded a vocal and instrumental group. By 1972 this group had formed its core of enthusiastic musicians and the dance troupe, and held their first concert. That’s the story of how Fayerlakh, at the time the only Jewish song and dance ensemble throughout the Soviet Union, formed in Vilnius.
Congratulations to Faina Kukliansky’s Grandson Simonas on Graduation
Congratulations to Faina Kukliansky’s grandson Simonas on his graduation from the University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom. All of Faina’s family and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community are proud of you. We wish you the greatest success in life.
Fania Brantskovskaya on Film
In 2014 a group of German filmmakers travelled to Lithuania to document the amazing life story of our resident Jewish partisan soldier and long-standing member of the Community who recently celebrated a milestone birthday. The film was released in 2015 and is available on DVD and may be booked by cinemas anywhere in the world (see contact information at the bottom of this post). Here are the liner notes from the DVD released in 2015:
Fania Yocheles-Barntsovskaya was about to begin her studies when on June 22, 1941, the Germans invaded her hometown of Vilnius, known at that time as the Jerusalem of the North.
Happy Birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya
We wish a very happy milestone birthday next week to Vilnius ghetto survivor and Jewish partisan Fania Brantsovskaya.
You were about to begin university when the Germans invaded on June 22, 1941. When they ordered your family into the Vilnius ghetto, you crossed the street, Pylimo, to the Jewish Hospital section of the ghetto between Pylimo and Ligoninės streets. You joined the FPO, carried out sabotage missions against the Lithuanian Nazis, fought in the forests and marched into Vilnius with the Red Army when the Soviets liberated the Lithuanian capital. Although the fascists murdered your entire family, you stayed in the country and continued fight for a better future. After your husband passed away, you devoted yourself to telling the truth to the younger generations about the Holocaust and how Jews didn’t go like lambs to the slaughter, but fought tooth and nail, and prevailed against their oppressors.
We salute your bravery, your decision to fight and the life you devoted to telling the truth and serving humanity in your native land.
Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Victory Day
Members of our Community met on sunny May 8 to mark the end of World War II, an end without which none of us would likely be alive.