Heritage – Page 45 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Evening to Give Thanks to Rescuers of Jews in Kaunas

“It’s difficult to express in words our gratitude and respect. It is our duty to remember not just the victims of the Holocaust, but also those brave people who risked their lives and those of their families to rescue Jews, sometimes their neighbors, sometimes friends, but more often complete strangers,” Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas at an annual evening event to give thanks to rescuers and their children , grandchildren and now even great-grandchildren. He thanked those in attendance for their close and war ties with the Jewish Community and for so enthusiastically attending Jewish Community events.

Singer Judita Leitaitė, pianist Rūta Mikelaitytė-Kašubienė and violinist Paulina Daukšytė performed at the event. Kristina Kazakevičiūtė, the daughter of a rescuer and an actress at the Kaunas Chamber Theater, read some profound poetry and then lightened the mood with some Jewish jokes. Participants in school tolerance education centers also attended and there were discussions of how to teach Jewish culture to school pupils in a more interesting way. The evening ended with the presentation of small gifts.

2017-05-252017-06-21

Vilnius Jewish Community Conference WILL NOT TAKE PLACE May 24

We would like to inform you the conference of the Vilnius Jewish Community announced by one member of the executive board of the Vilnius Jewish Community acting on his own volition and without general consent to be held 6:00 P.M. on May 24 (notice was made in the April 22 issue of the newspaper Lietuvos rytas) will not take place, and that the announcement of the meeting is retracted by the Vilnius Jewish Community.

Community members will receive an announcement about the 2017 conference of the Vilnius Jewish Community in the near future when the date, venue and agenda for the future conference is confirmed by the executive board of the Vilnius Jewish Community.

Faina Kukliansky,
Community chairwoman

2017-05-242017-05-26

Launch of Judaic Studies Center

The exhibition “People and Books of the Strashun [Mefitse Haskalah] Library” opened May 22 to mark the public launch of the Judaic Studies Center at the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library. Dr. Lara Lempertienė, director of the new center, is the curator of the exhibition and the designer was Center researcher Miglė Anušauskaitė.

The exhibit documents the Mefitse Haskalah Jewish Public Library located on what was then Strashun Street from 1902 to 1940 (and which became the Vilna ghetto library under Herman Kruk until 1943), but also pays homage to Mattityahu Strashun (1817-1885), the bibliophile whose collection was housed at the Strashun Library proper, next to the Great Synagogue, but large portions of which passed through the Strashun street library during the Holocaust. The exhibit includes items from the collections of the Lithuanian national library as well as documents on load from YIVO, the Lithuanian Central State Archive, the History of the Lithuanian State Archive and the Lithuanian Art Museum.

National library general director Dr. Renaldas Gudauskas opened the exhibit at the ceremony Monday. YIVO director Jonathan Brent and Frida Shor, the author of an article about the Strashun Library, were also there.

2017-05-23

Contest Winner’s Trip to Strasbourg

Viktorija Stundžytė, a tenth-grader from the Dukstyna School in Ukmergė (Vilkomir) and a participant in her school’s Tolerance Education Center, took part in the awards ceremony for the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania’s nation-wide contest “On the Trail of Suffering for Freedom and Struggle” held in Vilnius May 5. The high-school student and her teachers visited the Museum of Genocide Victims, the Lithuanian parliament and the Palace of Teachers, where the awards were presented. Viktorija won a trip to Strasbourg.

She submitted an entry about the woman Stasė Ruzgytė-Staputienė who lost her mother in childhood, was adopted and experienced the Soviet and Nazi occupations. Viktorija set the story down in 100 pages after transcribing and typing it.

Viktorija called the project an invaluable experience which she will be able to use in her life and pass on to her children and grandchildren to remind them what goes on in this world. “As I was listening to the audio recording sometimes I wanted to go to the places about which she spoke, but sometimes I just wanted to be a heroine and get all those people out of there so they wouldn’t have to suffer anymore and experience everything the people in these recordings experienced,” she said about her work.

2017-05-23

Oldest Wooden Synagogue in Pakruojis Opens after Renovation

The renovated wooden synagogue in Pakruojis, Lithuania, was opened to the public on May 19.

Jews settled in Pakruojis in the 1710s. The majority were merchants and they contributed heavily to the growth of the local economy. The growing Jewish population affected the growth of the town and its social life. In 1787 and 1788 the town suffered large fires. Only 5 of 42 Jewish homes survived. The Jewish population grew right up until World War I. In 1939 there were 120 Jewish families living in Pakruojis.

Footage by Skirmantas Jankauskas for lzb.lt

Pakruojis teacher Janina Mykolaitienė recalls the Jews who lived there:

2017-05-222017-05-26

Litvak Gatekeeper Attempts to Interfere in LJC Elections via Internet Invective

by LJC staff

Self-proclaimed gatekeeper of all things Litvak, professor without portfolio or classes Dovid Katz has taken exception with a new logo trademarked by the Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community for no other reason than that he detests the Lithuanian state.

Never mind he has subjected himself to a potential damages suit by using the new trademark without permission on his web site, Katz is apparently, in his own mind, in the heat of an election battle for the future chairmanship of the LJC. Except he isn’t a candidate, has no constituency and has consistently sought to sow discord within the Community’s ranks, playing sides against one another. One semi-recent example: his public complaints against Rabbi Borshtein, after whose contract was not renewed, Katz attempted to create an international scandal involving alleged “big money” attempting to usurp Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania for construction projects.

Seeing an opportunity to attack what he believed to be a new weak link, Katz took exception with the new trademark logo conceived by a 100% ethnic Litvak architect and designer. Her crime? She used a symbol of Lithuanian statehood in conjunction with a menorah.

2017-05-192017-05-28

Meet LJC Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and Watch the Film Dialogue with Joseph by Elžbieta Josadė

We kindly invite Jewish young people and the general public to a screening of a documentary film by Elžbieta Josadė called Dialogue with Joseph on at 7:00 P.M. on May 18 at the Pasaka Theater (Šv. Ignoto street no. 4/3, Vilnius). After the film you may meet and discuss with film director Elžbieta Josadė and editor Rareş lenasoaie. Entrance is free to the public.

Dialogue with Josef was honored with a special jury award at the international competition Jihlava IDFF 2016 in the Overseas category and Best Central and Eastern Europe Documentary Film subcategory. The national premiere was November 2016 at the Scanorama film forum.

About the film:

“Joseph paints the earth and the sky with no other ambition than to observe and to gain a better understanding of the landscape‘s visual structure. Shyly, the filmmaker follows her father in his work and in this so particular space which surrounds him.“

At 6:00 P.M., just before the screening of the film, we invite young people from the Jewish Community to an informal meeting at the restaurant La Boheme (Šv. Ignoto street no. 4/3, Vilnius, right next door to the Pasaka Theater) with Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky. We will discuss Jewish heritage, future prospects for the Jewish community and other issues.

2017-05-182017-05-19

Israeli Ambassador Says Names Not Numbers at Holocaust Mass Murder Sites

Izraelio ambasadorius: ant Holokausto kapaviečių turėtų būti ne skaičiai, o žmonių vardai

Lietuvos žinios

For centuries the Jewish community was an inseparable part of Lithuania, but this isn’t completely understood now. The legacy of the once-thriving Jewish communities is not receiving the attention it’s due. Lietuvos žinios spoke with Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon about whether Lithuania is a friendly country for Jews, how our mutual understanding is evolving and what still needs to be done to improve relations.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2017-05-18

Thank You

LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky received the following thank-you note from the granddaughter of a Lithuanian woman who rescued Jews from the Holocaust.

Hello,

My grandmother Stasė Minelgienė (a recognized Righteous Gentile) asked me to thank you for the card [debit card] which she received as a gift. She also asked me to wish you a nice day, good health and the highest success.

Respectfully,
Her granddaughter,
N. Žvirblytė

2017-05-18

Lithuanian Jewish Community Celebrates Leonidas Melnikas’s Birthday

The Destinies program of evening cultural events celebrated the birthday of Lithuanian musician and composer Dr. Leonidas Melnikas last Thursday, May 11.

The evening began at the Jascha Heifetz hall at LJC headquarters in Vilnius with the airs of a tango, an overflow crowd and the birthday boy smiling on stage. Leonidas Melnikas is a piano player, organ player, musicologist, a tenured doctor, the head of his cathedral at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater, chairman of the academy’s senate and professor. He’s also a member of the board of directors of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. He turned 60 Thursday.

The birthday celebration was part of the Destinies program of evening cultural events initiated and organized by LJC deputy chairwoman Maša Grodnikienė, who used the occasion to honor the memory of Melnikas’s father Isaiah Melnik, who would have turned 110 that same day. He was a well-known pharmacist at the Vilnius Central Pharmacy (on what is now Gedimino prospect) and at the Žvėrynas Pharmacy in Vilnius, where he made his own preparations in his time. He survived both Stutthof and Dachau. He was beloved by all and was a calm and warm person who enjoyed attending all sorts of concerts. His son Leonidas’s musical career began when his mother took him to the Ąžuoliukas school. His first teacher was the famous pianist Nadežda Duksdulskaitė. “My entire childhood was illuminated by my parents, the very best, the very wisest people, and family remains extremely important to me,” Melnikas said of himself before embarking on a performance of tango melodies with violinist Boris Traub, cellist Valentinas Kaplūnas and accordion player Gennady Savkov.

2017-05-182017-05-25

Attend Opening Ceremonies for New Judaica Studies Center

The Judaica Studies Center of the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library was officially established May 3, 2017, but will only open to the public May 22 and May 23 with several events and exhibitions.

The Center’s main function is to further research on the Jewish documentary heritage, carrying out educational and informational projects and publicizing the results. The Center is an open enterprise and aimed at educational cooperation. According to its mission statement, the Center actively publicizes information about the Jewish textual heritage at its events, in the national and international media and on the internet, and also conserves collections of modern Judaica publications.

Program:

May 22

1:00 P.M. Opening ceremony (foyer, fifth floor)
2:00 P.M. Launch of exhibit People and Books of the Strashun Library (exhibit hall, third floor)

May 23

1:00 P.M. Samuel Kassow (USA) lecture Uniqueness of Jewish Vilna (conference hall, fifth floor)
2:30 P.M. Presentation The Vilnius YIVO Project (conference hall, fifth floor)

Full announcement in Lithuanian at the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library web page here.

2017-05-18

Dukstyna Primary School of Ukmergė Tours Sugihara House in Kaunas

Vida Pulkauninkienė, coordinator of the Tolerance Education Center at the Dukstyna Primary School in Ukmergė (Vilkomir), and a group of students from the Center visited the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas May 15. They viewed the memorial exhibit there, a chronicle of events in Kaunas from 1939 to 1940, a virtual exhibit of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara’s deeds in Lithuania and an audio-visual exhibition about the daily life of Jewish refugees in Lithuania. They also learned about how Jews saved themselves, travelling to Kobe, Japan, on the visas Sugihara issued, then on to the USA, New Zealand and other countries.

Museum director Simonas Dovidavičius led the tour.

The group also visited the site of the former Slobodka ghetto in Kaunas, guided by Daiva Žemaitienė, also a Tolerance Education Center coordinator.

The Ukmergė Jewish Community set up the field trip as part of a continuing education project with financial aid from the Goodwill Foundation.

2017-05-17

Pakruojis Wooden Synagogue Restored

Following renovation, the wooden synagogue in Pakruojis, Lithuania, is to open its doors to the public Friday. The synagogue is to house the Pakruojis Regional Juozas Paukštelis Library. The women’s gallery and a permanent exhibition will remind visitors of Jewish life and history in the region. The Pakruojis synagogue was built in 1801 and is believed to be the oldest surviving wooden synagogue in Lithuania. It was renovated and painted in 1885.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2017-05-172017-05-26

LitvakSIG Delegation Visits Lithuania

LitvakSIG delegation visit Tolerance Center, Vilna Gaon Museum, Carol Hoffman third from left

The Litvak genealogical web site LitvakSIG‘s board of directors have recently been travelling around Lithuania as part of their important work. The board currently includes nine members: Amy Wachs, Barry Halpern, Carol Hoffman, Dorothy Leivers, Garri Regev, Jill Anderson, Phil Shapiro, Ralph Salinger and Russ Maurer. Six of the nine board members visited Lithuania this past week to meet with archivists and members of the Vilnius and regional Jewish communities. We managed to interview Carol Hoffman at the Bagel Shop Café in Vilnius last Sunday.

§§§

Tell us something about yourself.

My names is Carol Hoffman. I was born and raised in the United States. My father was born here in Lithuania in 1892 in Kapčiamiestis, in Yiddish it’s Kopcheve. My mother was born in the United States but her mother was born in Kapčiamiestis, in Kopcheve, in about 1858. So my entire family from my mother’s side and from my father’s side are Litvaks.

So, my entire family are Litvaks, they’re from the same place, from the same shtetl, and I was raised with a strong sense of being my brother’s keeper. I came to Israel in 1972 with three young children and a husband and we settled in the northern part of Israel. I worked as a librarian and a teacher of computer science in the university for many, many years, and I retired seven years ago when began working full-time as a volunteer for LitvakSIG. This is my seventh or eighth or ninth trip to Lithuania, I’m not sure. My first trip was in 2000. I had never been here. I met Regina Kopelevich on the border and we went to … Kopcheve and then to Vilnius. So I feel the strong sense of roots.

2017-05-162017-05-26

Maceva Litvak Cemetery Catalogue

Litvak Cemetery Catalogue MACEVA 2016.

This Newsletter contains an overview of activities of Litvak Cemetery Catalogue MACEVA in 2016.

Švenčionys (Svintsyán). It is believed that this cemetery was established during the 15th century. This is one of the oldest and largest cemeteries of Lithuanian Jewry, encompassing an area of 39670.00m2. We had expected to find approximately 2000 graves. Our work with students has found closer to 3,000 surviving graves. Approximately 1200 tombstones still have full, or partially legible inscriptions.

Prior to World War II, the cemetery was larger, it was devastated during the war and beginning in 1941, locals began to plunder stone monuments for construction material. Many tombstones were damaged and uprooted, black marble tombstones were considered particularly desirable.

The current condition of the cemetery is mediocre.

Many of the gravestones are fully, or partially buried, giving us limited ability to access the inscriptions. Many gravestones are leaning or have already collapsed.

The city of Svencionys has no directional signs indicating the location of the cemetery. …

Full catalog here.

2017-05-122017-05-26

Birthday Evening with Dr. Leonidas Melnikas at the Lithuanian Jewish Community

The organizers of the Destinies series of evening events are pleased to invite you to come celebrate the birthday of professor Leonidas Melnikas at the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

Program:

Dr. Leonidas Melnikas on piano, Boris Traub on violin, Valentinas Kaplūnas on cello, Gennady Savkov on accordion

Participating:

Silvija Sondeckienė and composer Audronė Nekrošienė-Žigaitytė, president of the Union of Lithuanian Musicians.

Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, May 11
Location: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius

Event planned and moderated by Maša Grodnikienė, deputy chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community.

2017-05-112017-05-12

A New Litvak Logo

We have a new Litvak logo designed by Viktorija Sideraitė-Alon.

The Lithuanian Justice Ministry has granted permission to use the national Lithuanian symbol of the pillars of Gediminas as part of a Lithuanian Jewish Community logo trademark. The patent process for making the Litvak symbol a Lithuanian Jewish Community trademark is being completed right now.

The posts, pillars of columns of Gediminas was used as a coat of arms or insignia by Lithuanian grand duke Vytautas the Great beginning in 1397, following its use by his father grand duke Kęstutis, and has been employed by many other Lithuanian and Polish leaders since then. The Jewish community, living in Lithuania for approximately 700 years no, is an indivisible part of Lithuanian society in the political and historical sense. Many peoples have called Lithuania home over the centuries and the Jewish community has also made significant contributions to the state, the culture and the economy. Incorporating the pillars of Gediminas into a Litvak logo makes perfect sense and corresponds to what the current Lithuanian state openly declares, namely, pride that Lithuania has been open, tolerant and diverse over the centuries.

2017-05-112017-05-26

Presentation of Jews of Vilkaviškis at Lithuanian National Library

The Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library is hosting a presentation of the book “Dingusios tautos pėdsakais’ [Traces of a Lost People] by Antanas Žilinskas, the long-serving director of the Vilkaviškis Regional History Museum who has collected material about the Jews once resident in Vilkaviškis over many years, the contents of the book published in 2015. The event will also feature a meeting with Ralph Salinger, an Israeli historian specializing in the history of the Jews of Vilkaviškis. The public event is to be held in Lithuanian and English at 4:00 P.M. on May 12 at the library in Vilnius.

Jews were living in Vilkaviškis in the 16th century when queen Bona Sforza allotted a forest for the Jews to construct a synagogue. The Vilkaviškis synagogue appeared in 1623. There was a Jewish gymnasium in Vilkaviškis from 1919 to 1940. There were around 150 shops in the town, of which about 130 were Jewish. In 1939 there were officially 3,609 Jews living in and around the town, constituting 45 percent of the population.

2017-05-112017-05-15

Misha Breakfast Program at Choral Synagogue

Dear Community members,

Before his death, long-time client of the LJC Social Programs Department Avishalom Moishe Fishman left a last will and testament donating his savings to the Lithuanian Jewish Community who had cared for him in his latter years.

To honor Moishe Fishman’s wishes, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky proposed using the funds for the needs of the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.

In furthering Jewish traditions of charity, it was decided with Vilnius Jewish Religious Community chairman Simas Levinas to use the funds received to set up a free-breakfast program in the cafeteria on the second floor of the Choral Synagogue, Pylimo street no. 39, Vilnius.

Moishe lived alone and was a client of the Social Programs Department for about 18 years.

The Community and its members, and especially members of the seniors club, became his second home and family.

Let’s remember together this enlightened man beloved and honored by all who knew him.

For the first time a plaque will be placed on the wall of the synagogue to thank and remember a local philanthropist, rather than a donor from abroad.

Everyone knew him as Misha, so this has been dubbed “Misha’s Breakfast Project.” It will begin Monday, May 15. The breakfast program will take place at the synagogue from 9:00 to 10:00 A.M., Monday to Friday.

2017-05-102017-05-23