Heritage – Page 19 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

News from the Great Synagogue

Archaeologists continuing their annual summer digs at the Great Synagogue complex in Vilnius plan to share their results from this year’s dig with media at the site itself at noon on August 26. The site is located at Vokiečių street no. 13A in Vilnius.

This year they continued to uncover the bima and aron kodesh, and uncovered a floor mosaic. They’ve also uncovered the base of one of four pillars.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said “This year there was an especially moving moment: finally we have seen the central part of the synagogue which was destroyed more than sixty years ago.”

Media contacts:

Michail Segal, executive director, Lithuanian Jewish Community, +37065075939, info@lzb.lt

Dr. Jon Seligman, Israeli Antiquities Authority, jon@israntique.org.il

Zenonas Baubonis, archaeologist, z.baubonis@gmail.com

2021-08-252021-08-25

Gesher Club Offers Tour

The Gesher Club at the Lithuanian Jewish Community is offering a two-day tour of the Panemunė castles and the Curonian Spit on August 28 and 29. The group will visit the Pažaislis monastery, the Raudondvaris manor estate, Vilkija, the Veliuona earth-mounds and the Raudonė and Panemunė castles. They will also visit the Holocaust memorial and Alley of Synagogues in Jurbarkas, with rest and an overnight stay in Klaipėda with an evening tour of the Klaipėda Old Town. Following breakfast on Sunday the group will move on to the Curonian Spit with visits to Juodkrantė, the Dead Dunes and Nida, followed by the return trip to Vilnius. The tour will be conducted by long-time LJC member and professional tour guide Markas Psonikas. For more information and to register, call+37067881514 or send an mail to zanas@sc.lzb.lt. For more about Markas’s tours, see here.

2021-08-19

Almost Half Million Euros Wasted on Palace of Sports Reconstruction Project

Photo: Palace of Sports, Vilnius, courtesy BNS/Lrytas.lt

Now that the Lithuanian Government has rejected a plan to outfit a conference center in the Palace of Sports falling into disrepair in Vilnius, Lithuania’s Turto bankas maintains they’ve received no directions on how to use the space in the future. Nonetheless, this Lithuanian state property bank says it has to maintain the building and is considering carrying out necessary maintenance work there.

Turto bankas, the state agency responsible for the project, said they cannot comment further on the Government’s reasons for rejecting the plan. Government reps told BNS they will seek alternatives to the Congress Center conference center project.

“For now all we can say is the Government resolution for reconstructing the Palace of Sports as the Congress Center has not been rescinded, annulled or amended,” Turto bankas told BNS.

2021-08-172021-08-22

The Great Synagogue of Vilnius: Finds from the Past and a Vision for the Future

At 6:00 P.M., August 24, Israeli Antiquities Authority department of digs and research director Jon Seligman will deliver a lecture called “The Great Synagogue of Vilnius: Finds from the Past and a Vision for the Future” at the Lithuanian Jewish Community located at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. The lecture will be in English and is open to the public.

Archeological investigation resumed this year at the synagogue site on August 9 and the team of archaeologists including Seligman have begun fully uncovering the remains of the bima and aron kodesh there. They plan to uncover the main floor and the southeast and northwest wall sections as well.

Event announcement here.

2021-08-172021-08-17

EJC Slams Polish President, Calls Anti-Restitution Law Undemocratic, Unjust, Immoral

Saturday, August 14, 2021–European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor slammed the ratification of a bill passed by the Polish parliament which will make it far harder for Jews to claim restitution on properties appropriated and stolen during the Holocaust era.

“This law is undemocratic, unjust and immoral,” Kantor said. “This is not bringing order to chaos as president Duda claims, it is making legal what should be illegal and is merely legalizing theft. The president had an opportunity to right the wrong created by the parliament. He could have shown moral clarity and leadership, but he chose not to.

“Moreover, this law will also further highlight Poland’s unique position as the only country in the region which makes Holocaust restitution impossible and runs counter to its international commitments. It is outrageous that someone who survived the Holocaust, who will be in their later years, will still be deprived justice by this cruel, illegitimate and discriminatory law.”

2021-08-172021-08-17

Polish Senate Approves Bill Limiting Holocaust Restitution

Photo: Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid lashes out at bill last June. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images

The law would prevent Holocaust survivors from regaining property seized after World War II. It triggered sharp criticism from Israel and the United States.

Poland’s parliament late Wednesday passed legislation that would put an end to most legal claims for properties confiscated after World War II.

The bill states that administrative decisions can no longer be challenged in court after the expiration of a 30-year period, essentially preventing Jews from recovering property seized by Poland’s Communist-era authorities.

The legislation, which passed earlier in the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, still has to be signed by president Andrzej Duda before taking effect.

Full story here.

2021-08-132021-09-10

News from the Kaunas Jewish Community

I am endlessly grateful for the friendship and fruitful cooperation from the very beginning with the Kaunas 2022 team (and especially the Memory Bureau team) and I am thankful for the honor bestowed me as a member of the consultation committee for the Litvak Forum to take place in 2022.

I am so very glad because it is always pleasant to communicate with open, tolerant people who are hungry for knowledge and who are striving to insure our society might also become more open, more tolerant and more accepting.

I am glad because we are joined in a common goal: to encourage recognition of the multicultural history of our city and to appreciate what we have, while not averting our gaze from painful episodes.

2021-08-09

Panevėžys Jewish Community Receives Visitors

With virus restrictions eased, the Panevėžys Jewish Community received some foreign visitors interested to learn more about their relatives, their biographies and their fate.

Yeir and his wife, both from Israel, visited us on July 25. He’s the great-grandson of famous Panevėžys rabbi Rabinovitch, the ilui who lived and worked here for more than 20 years. Yeir was keen to learn more about religious life in Panevėžys in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He experienced the city and visited Jewish heritage sites here.

According to archive documents from 1857, eight synagogues in Panevėžys are mentioned, with a few more synagogues located in private residences. Religious life in Panevėžys is the subject of a forthcoming book called “Žvilgsnis į praeitį: Panevėžio žydų istorija ir palikimas” [A Glimpse into the Past: The History and Legacy of the Jews of Panevėžys], already printed and soon to be launched.

2021-08-09

Shalom, Akmenė

On August 4, 1941, the Jews of the Akmenė region who were being detained in the town of Akmenė were taken to Mažeikiai and murdered. An event called “Shalom, Akmenė” was organized and held to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust there on August 4. A new monument marking the site of the former synagogue in Klykoliai village was unveiled and the victims were remembered at the town square in Akmenė with a reading of names, sung prayers and kaddish. The ceremony there ended with a procession along Stoties and Viekšnių streets to the Akmenė town cemetery. Old Jewish cemeteries on the Tirkšliai-Mažeikiai highway were also visited.

Participants included members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community, Lithuanian MP Kasparas Adomaitis and others. Our gratitude goes to the organizers, Diana and Marijus Lopaitis and the Akmenė History Museum.

2021-08-062021-08-06

Kupiškis Remembers Onset of Holocaust 80 Years Ago

On July 30 organizers and guests of the “Road of Memory 1941-2021” project and local residents assembled at the Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum where museum historian Aušra Jonušytė moderated events.

United States embassy to Lithuania representative Wartenberg welcomed visitors in the name of US ambassador Robert Gilchrist and Lithuanian Foreign Ministry ambassador Marius Janukonis and veteran Conservative Party politician, former minister and MEP Rasa Juknevičienė as well as others participated and spoke at the event whose main organizer was Lithuania’s International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes, whose deputy director Ingrida Vilkienė also delivered an address to the audience. Kupiškis regional administration mayor Dainius Bardauskas also spoke.

A procession bearing banners and flags walked to the mass murder site at the Freethinkers’ Cemetery in Kupiškis with marchers bearing flowers, candles and stones inscribed with the names of the murdered. The commemoration included a reading of the names of the victims and descriptions of their lives and families.

2021-08-04

Storm Damage at the Jewish Cemetery and a Request from the Administration

The most recent storm in Vilnius did damage to the Jewish cemetery on Sudervės raod in Vilnius. Many grave monuments fell down and some broke. If you have loved ones interred at this cemetery, the administrator of the cemetery is asking you to renew your contact information including telephone numbers and email addresses so that the administration can contact you.

The administration’s telephone number is 370 67025750 and the email is es48e@hotmail.com

2021-08-032021-08-04

Topic for This Year’s Jewish Culture Day: Dialogue

The Lithuanian Jewish Community has been celebrating the European Day of Jewish Culture for a number of years now on the first Sunday in September with events in Vilnius and at associated LJC member communities around the country. The topic this year is dialogue, #Žydiškipašnekesiai, revealing different aspects of Jewish culture, the Litvak contribution to Lithuanian history, culture and democracy and the living Litvak legacy. The LJC usually opens its doors, the Choral Synagogue and other locations to visitors on this day with lectures, musical performances and authentic Jewish food. This year the event will take place on the eve of the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah. Stay tuned for the full program.

2021-08-03

Lithuanian Jewish Community Kids Enjoy Summer Camp

Two LJC children’s summer camps took place in July, full of activities and fun. Not only did the kids have a chance to shake off state restrictions for fighting the virus by getting a little wild, they also learned a lot. The LJC camps among other things taught Jewish history and tradition. The kids learned to make challa, visited the Ninth Fort Holocaust site in Kaunas and engaged in other learning activities.

2021-08-02

Exhibit: Interwar Lithuanian Photographers

2021-08-02

Table of Truth Web Event

About the event

Learn about the extraordinary connection to one chess table with Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community; Shulamit Rabinovich, San Francisco engineer; Dudu Fisher, Israeli-based world-renowned entertainer; Grant Gochin, South African wealth Manager and Silvia Foti, Chicago journalist.

We will reveal recently discovered facts about the Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust denial by the Lithuanian Government, and present new paths to education about the horrors of the past.

The table WILL talk.

We will conclude the program with Dudu Fisher chanting Kaddish.

When: 10:00 A.M. PST, 1:00 P.M. EST, 7:00 P.M. South Africa, 8:00 P.M. Israel, September 12, 2021

Representatives of the Lithuanian Government have also been invited to attend and speak.

For more information and to register, see http://israelusa.org/table-of-truth/

2021-08-022021-09-14

US Seizes Scrolls, Manuscripts Stolen from Jews during Holocaust

A US Army chaplain examines one of hundreds of Jewish Torah scrolls, stolen from all over Europe by Nazi forces, in Frankfurt, Germany in 1945. Photo: Irving Katz/US Army Signal Corps/FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Seventeen scrolls, manuscripts, and community records [pinkasim] which were stolen from Jewish communities in Eastern Europe during WWII have been recovered, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.

Why it matters: “The Scrolls and Manuscripts that were illegally confiscated during the Holocaust contain priceless historical information that belongs to the descendants of families that lived and flourished in Jewish communities before the Holocaust,” acting US attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said in a statement.

• “This Office hopes that today’s seizure will contribute to the restoration of pre-Holocaust history in Eastern Europe.”

The big picture: The documents were found through a Brooklyn auction house which had them for sale. In addition to the 17 artifacts recovered, four more are believed to exist: three in upstate New York and one in Israel.

• The records date from the mid-19th century to World War II and were looted from Jewish communities in Romania, Hungary, Ukraine and Slovakia.

• According to an affidavit in the case, the artifacts were believed to be “lost for all time” prior to being offered for sale at the New York auction house.

Full article here.

2021-07-27

Jewish Scouts Camping

The Jewish scouting troupe is camping beside a lake in the Trakai region, enjoying the sun, the great outdoors, friendship and scouting activities.

Scout leader Renaldas Vaisbrodas reported: “The Jewish scouts have invited me for a new adventure. Somehow naturally it has become my calling. I believe in the scouting movement and I hope Jewish young people in Lithuania would revive one of the largest youth organizations in Lithuania in the period between the two world wars. Why? Because life is stronger than death. This hike is special. For one day an artifact from 1931 will return to the town of Žiežmariai connected with local Jewish scouts. The most important thing is to have fun with a goal, no matter what the weather.”

2021-07-272021-07-27

Lithuanian Media Report US, Israeli, Danish Ambassadors Attend Road of Memory March in Šiauliai

Lrytas.lt

The Lithuanian daily newspaper and news website Lietuvos rytas reports the Road of Memory march on Sunday to mark the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust in Šiauliai was attended by the US, Danish and Israeli ambassadors as well as Lithuanian members of parliament.

Besides members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community, MPs Emanuelis Zingeris and Rima Baškienė, US ambassador Robert Gilchrist, Israeli ambassador Yosef Avny-Levi, Danish chargé d’affaires Jakob Greve Kromann, Lithuanian Jewish Community executive director Michailas Segalis, Vilnius Religious Jewish Community chairman Simas Levinas, Kaunas Religious Jewish Community chairman Mauša Bairakas, a representative of the Vilnius Jewish Community and others.

The event was staged by Lithuania’s International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupations Regimes in Lithuania as part of their “Road of Memory 1941-2021” project.

2021-07-192021-07-19

Šiauliai Regional and Klaipėda Jewish Communities Commemorate Holocaust Victims in Ylakiai

Members of the Šiauliai Regional and Klaipėda Jewish Communities attended an event to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in Ylakiai, Lithuania, on July 6. The town center hosted an exhibit called “The Homes They Lived In” about Jewish families, businesses and activities. During the commemoration opera soloist Olga Šardt-Žarova sang “Our Father” and other works in Hebrew. After a minute of silence, a procession set off for the mass murder site and the old Jewish cemetery. Candles were lit and flowers placed at the site of the former synagogue, as were stones as well at the mass murder site, where kaddish was also performed.

According to the census at the end of the 19th century, 57% of the town’s population were Jews. Before World War I there were 150 Jewish families there. The town was heavily damaged during that war and many buildings include the synagogue burned to the ground. The town was rebuilt with large contributions made by Jews and in 1923 Jews constituted 41% of the population then. Many Jewish residents engaged in trade, light production and even agriculture before World War I. There were two mills with Jewish owners. Commerce took place at the weekly market and the large fair held once every five years. According to a government survey in 1931, there were 20 shops there, of which 17 belonged to Jews.

2021-07-192021-07-19

Forgotten Names: The Symbol of Lithuania in Works by Musicians Scattered around the World

The spiritual formation of an artist is impossible without a creative environment. This is indivisible from the specific people who set a great example, who direct the artist, enrich the artist spiritually, and support and encourage the artist. That sort of environment is exactly what existed in Vilnius in the early 20th century, giving rise to wonderful musicians including Jascha Heifetz, the Schneider brothers, the Reizenberg sisters, the great Hofmekler family and others.

Some left Lithuania and made incredible careers, others remained and became known in their homeland. Their lives were different, but their legacy is very clear. Let’s remember them, let’s enjoy their works. We will discover a world we didn’t know which was hidden from us for almost a century.

During the event we will learn about the lives of these renowned musicians and their works will be presented.

2021-07-16