Heritage

Gunman Killed in Munich near Israeli Consulate on Anniversary of Black September Massacre

Gunman Killed in Munich near Israeli Consulate on Anniversary of Black September Massacre

BERLIN–Police in Munich say they thwarted a potential attack on Jewish targets Thursday after they shot and killed a man who was firing a rifle near the Israeli Consulate and a museum documenting Nazi Germany.

Police have not offered details on the suspect. Some German media outlets reported he was a juvenile from Austria police had previously investigated for alleged ties to Islamic extremism.

Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle verified the authenticity of cell-phone videos shared online which show a younger male carrying a rifle fitted with a bayonet before and during the shootout.

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Visitors in Švenčionys

Visitors in Švenčionys

Mother and son Eudenta and Samull Virine from Canada visited the Nalšia Museum in Švenčionys on August 21 where Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro gave them a guided tour including viewing implements and artifacts from Jewish homes, the history of the region and a new exhibit on the fate of the Jews of Švenčionys. Eudenta’s mother was born in Švenčionys.

They sought archival information about the families of Leiba and Abraham Alperovitch and Mengel Bushkanietz with the help of historian and museum specialist Nadežda Spiridonovienė. The museum has very little information regarding these surnames but they are recorded as living in Švenčionys in a Russian Empire census conducted before World War I.

The two visitors also viewed the Menorah statue in the town’s central park. They went on to visit a Jewish mass murder site in nearby Švenčionėliai.

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European Day of Jewish Culture 2024

European Day of Jewish Culture 2024

This year’s topic is family.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is celebrating the European Day of Jewish Culture this Sunday, September 1, with a full day’s program of events, lessons, workshops, discussions and exhibits. All events are free and open to the public, but registration is required for most of the events below.

Here’s the program:

11:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M. First Hebrew lesson for the whole family with Ruth Reches at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius. Ruth will soon be forming new classes for studying Hebrew. Register here: https://bit.ly/4g5jZbW

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Lithuanian Jewish Community Statement on Genocide Center’s Newest Report on Kazys Škirpa

Lithuanian Jewish Community Statement on Genocide Center’s Newest Report on Kazys Škirpa

The Lithuanian Jewish Community representing 32 Lithuanian and foreign Jewish organizations categorically rejects the latest report and conclusion by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania regarding Kazys Škirpa.

We note that a ban on propagating totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and their ideologies has been in force in Lithuania since May of 2023. Under this law symbols of totalitarianism and authoritarianism–statues, street names, names of squares and other of other public locations–cannot be instituted, and those which are currently in existence must be removed from public space. The LJC is convinced Kazys Škirpa, whose publicly-made anti-Semitic statements and incitement to get rid of Jews gave rise to a wave of violence with such tragic results, should not be honored. Statues and commemorative plaques in his honor are a gigantic insult to the memory and relatives of the hundreds of thousands of Lithuanian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. All the more so bearing in mind that until now Lithuania has not established a national memorial commemorating the more than 200,000 victims of the Holocaust, our fellow citizens. Neither is there any monument paying honor to the heroism of Lithuania’s rescuers of Jews who risked their own lived and those of their families.

The International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania set up by the president of Lithuania has recognized the activities of the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Lithuanian Provisional Government, both led by Škirpa, as anti-Semitic. Chairman of the Commission’s Nazi Crimes Subcommittee Millersville University professor Saulius Sužiedelis stated: ” This is a statue to a man who led an organization which promoted violence against Lithuanian citizens of other ethnicity and which incited anti-Semitism. This is not a subjective judgment or interpretation, all of these statements are founded on historical facts, sources and documents.”

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Geršonas Taicas: Researching My Family’s Genealogy Grew into a Passionate Hobby

Geršonas Taicas: Researching My Family’s Genealogy Grew into a Passionate Hobby

interviewed by Katrina Zeiter

On the topic of Litvak history and personalities, one of the Community’s most active members, Geršonas Taicas, always provides interesting facts and facts unknown even to seasoned researchers. Celebrating his 75th birthday this year, his greatest passion is genealogy. Like a fish in its natural element, he dives into the archives, discovering incredible connections which force us to consider history from another perspective, and also helping Litvak descendants scattered around the world find their family roots. A Litvak himself, he can speak for hours on the notable chef and cooking author Fania Lewando, the crooner Daniel Dolskis and former British prime minister Boris Johnson, but in this interview we spoke about the genealogist’s own story which serves as a mirror of a period in Lithuanian Jewish life which fewer and fewer now remember.

What are your first childhood memories?

I was born in Ukmergė [Vilkomir] in 1949 to a family who had been incarcerated as “enemies of the people” at a gulag in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. My father Alter was an accountant and my mother Masha was a teacher.

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Arie Ben-Ari Grodzensky Visits Panevėžys Jewish Community

Arie Ben-Ari Grodzensky Visits Panevėžys Jewish Community

Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel chairman Arie Ben-Ari Grodzensky visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community last week where he learned about Community activities, met members and viewed archival documents. He noted progress in conserving and commemorating the Litvak heritage in Panevėžys.

Grodzensky was born and raised in Lithuania and also serves on the executive boards of the Goodwill Foundation and the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

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News from Šiauliai

News from Šiauliai

Members of the Šiauliai Jewish Community and friends from Germany Saturday toured Lithuania’s Kurtuvėnai Regional Park. They took in the visitors’ center, some of the beautiful landscapes, learned about the history of the town of Kurtuvėnai and visited a barn museum at the manor estate there.

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Visitors to Panevėžys

Visitors to Panevėžys

A delegation of directors and students from the Leikund Yeshiva in New York City visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community recently. Most of them were members of the Frank family as well. They were interested in Litvak history and visited some of the mass murder sites. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman told them about the history of the Jews of Panevėžys and about the Panevėžys Jewish Community’s activities. After visiting the Panevėžys Jewish Community the group went on to tour Jewish sites in Panevėžys including the Jewish cemetery, different locations in the city and Holocaust mass murder sites in the area.

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News from Šiauliai

News from Šiauliai

Architect Tauras Budzys visited the Šiauliai Jewish Community recently. He’s the person behind the project begun back in 2018 to mark the graves of Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania with a special symbol. He and Šiauliai Jewish Community leaders agreed to hold an exhibit of Lithuanian Righteous Gentiles in Šiauliai in early September. The exhibit was created by Budzys and Barbora Karnienė and features the names, biographical facts and numbers of Jews rescued by 45 Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania.

A Tribute to Žilvinas Beliauskas

A Tribute to Žilvinas Beliauskas

by Rabbi Moshe Martin Levin

Žilvinas Beliauskas WAS ALWAYS:

Tall and handsome;
Brilliant and articulate;
Talking in long sentences without taking a breath;
He always listened with both ears.

Always was an encyclopedia of so many subjects.

A true patriot who knew the shortcomings as well as the achievements of his homeland.

A husband in love with his wife Ieva.

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Israeli President Planning to Visit Lithuania in Fall

Israeli President Planning to Visit Lithuania in Fall

According to diplomatic sources the Israeli leader’s visit to the three Baltic states had been planned for June.

“The dates of the visit have been adjusted due to the busy agenda of the Baltic leaders and the Israeli president,” press secretary for the president of Lithuania Ridas Jasulionis told BNS.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told BNS that she had canceled a trip several weeks ago after learning of the visit planned by the president of Israel. She added Herzog had planned to visit the Lost Shtetl Museum under construction in Šeduva, Lithuania. Herzog is the descendant of Litvaks with roots in Šeduva.

Sports Encyclopaedia Presented in Šiauliai

Sports Encyclopaedia Presented in Šiauliai

The summer Olympic Games opened in Paris Friday, and the Šiauliai Photography Museum hosted a presentation of an illustrated sports encyclopaedia called “Sportas Šiauliuose ir Lietuvoje (iki XX a. vidurio)” [Sport in Šiauliai and Lithuania (until the mid-20th century)] last Wednesday.

Author Jonas Nekrašius told the large audience the story of the birth of the genesis of the publication and thanked the collectors, museum specialists and other people who helped make the launch a success, giving copies of his book to them.

There was keen interest in the section of the book the on the history of the Šiauliai section of the Makabi Lithuanian Jewish sports and gymnastics society which operated between 1921 and 1940. The late chairman of the Šiauliai District Jewish Community Sania Kerbelis contributed heavily to that chapter of the book.

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Government Approves Proposal for Jewish Memorial at Palace of Sports

Government Approves Proposal for Jewish Memorial at Palace of Sports

by Augustė Lyberytė, ELTA, July 17, 2024

The cabinet ministers Wednesday approved a proposal by a working group who has been operating for over a year now on setting up a memorial to the old Jewish cemetery at the site of the Palace of Sports in the Vilnius neighborhood of Šnipiškės.

Government deputy chancellor Rolandas Kriščiūnas said proposals from the working group should be seen as a guidepost.

The plan is for a memorial to be set up inside the Palace of Sports and in the territory of the old Jewish cemetery surrounding that building.

“The site would be open to the public with special focus placed on synergy between the outside territory and the interior space,” Kriščiūnas said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Commemoration of 80th Anniversary of Liquidation of Shavl Ghetto

Commemoration of 80th Anniversary of Liquidation of Shavl Ghetto

On July 15 people gathered in Šiauliai to remember the liquidation of the ghetto there on July 15, 1944, when the surviving approximately 3,000 Jews imprisoned there were sent to Dachau and Stutthof for extermination.

Faina Kukliansky’s mother was imprisoned in the ghetto. She recalled: “I am here not just as the chairwoman of the the Lithuanian Jewish Community. I am the daughter of a female prisoner of the ghetto. My grandmother miraculously was able to save two of her daughters, but not the third one. I was named after her, Feigele, little bird.”

She said we were in the debt of the ghetto prisoners and the Jews who died for their concord and unity, and so their sacrifice will not have been in vain.

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Events in Kaunas Considered by Researchers: “Think about History, Understand Memory”

Events in Kaunas Considered by Researchers: “Think about History, Understand Memory”

by Jurgita Šakienė, kauno.diena.lt

An international academic conference to mark the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto has begun at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. Called “Think about History, Understand Memory,” the conference includes researchers from Lithuania and abroad who will present Jewish life before and during the Holocaust through the lens of history, politics, social sciences, the theater and the arts.

“This anniversary is a powerful reminder of our collective responsibility to understand memory and to insure the lessons of the past inform our present and future,” Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein said during her speech opening the conference. Also giving welcome speeches were US ambassador Kara McDonald and Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas.

Germany’s ambassador Cornelius Zimmerman in his speech said, among other things, “It’s difficult to understand how these unspeakably brutal things could have happened. But they happened. I feel sadness, remorse and shame. It’s crucial to remember everything in order to prevent this from happening again.”

Full story in Lithuanian here.

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Marking the 80th Anniversary of the Liquidation of Shavl Ghetto

Marking the 80th Anniversary of the Liquidation of Shavl Ghetto

July 15 is the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the liquidation of the Šiauliai ghetto in 1944 when the surviving 3,000 Jews were transported to Dachau and Stutthof concentration camps, condemned to die there instead. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and both Šiauliai Jewish Communities invite the public to remember and pay honor to the victims of the Šiauliai ghetto, the men, women, children and elderly who were murdered this July 15.

Program

11:30 A.M. Gathering at Šiauliai ghetto gate monument at the intersection of Trakų and Ežero streets to remember the victims;

12:00 noon procession to Chaim Frenkl villa at Vilnaius street no. 74 with stopover on Righteous Gentiles Square;

12:30 P.M. Commemoration of victims at Frenkl villa.

Transportation: there will be minibus to carry passengers to the event leaving from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius at 8:15 A.M. on July 15. Passengers must register before the event (see below).

Registration: Those wishing to attend are asked to please register before 4:00 P.M. on July 12 by calling Liuba Šerienė at (+370) 5 261 3003 or by sending an email to office@lzb.lt.

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Rabbi Andrew Baker Receives State Award

Rabbi Andrew Baker Receives State Award

Photo by Robertas Dačkus

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda conducted a state awards ceremony July 6, Lithuania’s Coronation of Mindaugas Day. Co-chairman of the Goodwill Foundation and AJC International Affairs Department director Rabbi Andrew Baker received the Commander’s Cross “For Merit to Lithuania” at the ceremony in recognition of his work for justice for the Lithuanian Jewish community and commemoration of victims of the Holocaust, among other things.

Panevėžys Jewish Community Welcomes Guests from Israel with Roots in Panevėžys

Panevėžys Jewish Community Welcomes Guests from Israel with Roots in Panevėžys

Sonia Furman and husband visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community June 27. They live in Israel where Sonia’s husband served in the military as an airplane pilot.

Her mother Fryda was born in Panevėžys in 1919 and went to Memel/Klaipėda at the age of 14 for training for repatriation to Palestine. According to Israel statistics, 9.950 Jews from Lithuania did repatriate, but Fryda wasn’t one of them. She came back from the training course and moved to Šiauliai where she established a women’s clothing store. She married Yankel Furman from Šaukėnai in 1940 after the latter completed Lithuanian military service.

In August of 1941 the Šiauliai ghetto was established and Yankel and Fryda were imprisoned there. Sonia’s uncle Hershon was born in that ghetto in 1942 and was then murdered in the Kinder Aktion there.

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