History of the Jews in Lithuania – Page 68 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Amendments to Constitution Could Discriminate against Litvaks

A group of Lithuanian parliamentarians initiated draft amendments to the Lithuanian constitution on September 20, 2018, under which a natural-born citizen of the Republic of Lithuania who acquires citizenship of another country which meets the criteria of European and trans-Atlantic integration to be defined in law does not lose Lithuanian citizenship.

Adoption of the amendments would take place in May during the upcoming referendum if voters approve of the measure for dual citizenship, with the constitutional amendments coming into effect in 2020, which the Lithuanian parliament has named the Year of the Vilna Gaon and the Year of Litvak History.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is concerned the privilege of acquiring dual citizenship according to geographical location reflected in the draft legislation contains indirect discrimination against citizens of countries which might not be included in the criteria for European and trans-Atlantic integrations, countries such as South Africa, Australia, Israel, Argentina and others.

2019-04-032019-04-08

In Memoriam Composer Anatolijus Šenderovas

How does one became a creator of music? And will there ever be a good answer to this question? Everyone studies under the same teachers, learns the same things, hears the same music playing around them, and so canons are born which lodge deeply in our minds and from which everyone draws. But all of our destinies are different: one person who is accustomed to being guided by mentors becomes unable to disentangle himself from these canons and continues on exclusively in that which he has learned and knows, while another, eager to show his courage, tramples upon everything which was sacred to the generation of his teachers, that which he was taught. And only a very few take to speaking in their own voice, unconcerned whether this conforms to fashion or if there is a demand for it, unconcerned if this clashes with the truths and rules invented by someone else.

Anatolijus Šenderovas was one of those few who travel off on their own path. He was free to accomplish the goals he set for himself without trying to prove himself to anyone, he created that which he felt he must create. He immortalized in his work his experience and that which he held dear. Perhaps that’s why his music is so recognizable and why it cannot be confused with anyone else’s.

2019-03-292019-04-04

Saying Goodbye to Anatolijus Šenderovas

Lithuanian composer and conductor Anatolijus Šenderovas passed away in the US on March 25. His funeral will be held in Vilnius on Friday, March 29.

The funeral begins at 10:00 A.M. in the Jewish section of the Sudervės road cemetery in Vilnius, with speeches and burials starting at 11:30 A.M. (procession with seven stops according to Jewish tradition). A bus will be made available to ferry mourners to the cemetery leaving from Pylimo street no. 4 at 9:30 A.M.

2019-03-282019-03-29

Who Sanctioned Institutional Anti-Semitism in Lithuania? (updated)

The Lithuanian Jewish Community was shocked by an unsigned “explanation” published by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania (hereinafter Center) on March 27, the day before the anniversary of the horrific Children’s Aktion (mass murder operation) in the Kaunas ghetto, a text which, apparently seeking to avoid responsibility, not only seeks to justify actions by Jonas Noreika during World War II but also contains features which are crimes under the Lithuanian criminal code, namely, denial or gross belittlement of the Holocaust. Note that article 170(2) of the Lithuanian criminal code (public approval of crimes against humanity and crimes by committed by the USSR and Nazi Germany against Lithuania or her residents, their denial or grossly diminishing their scope) also applies to corporate entities.

It is unacceptable to the LJC that there might be a collective condemnation of ethnic Lithuanians or any other ethnic group for perpetrating the Holocaust, and therefore it is equally incomprehensible to us on what basis the Center tried to convince Lithuanians, writing in the name of all Lithuanians, of Holocaust revisionist ideas.

This “explanation” is full of factual and logical errors, for example, one sentence claims “the Lithuanians worked operated against the will of the Germans” while another says “Germany was seen as an ally.” Also, based on a single source, the claim is made that the number of Lithuanians who shot Jews was “lower than in other nations.” The text fails to explain why the greatest percentage of Jews were murdered in Lithuania when compared to the other states of Europe, including Germany, and thus clearly seeks to diminish the fact of Lithuanians’ contribution to the murder of the Jews. The Center text claims “the residents of occupied Lithuania in 1941 didn’t understand ghettos as part of the Holocaust,” not just heaping scorn on the pain of ghetto inmates but also belittling those Lithuanian heroes who rescued Jews at the risk of their own lives and those of their families. The Center’s Noreika apologetica is based on the testimony of his fellow Lithuanian Activists Front members. Note the LAF call to free Lithuania by ridding the country of “the yoke of Jewry” in 1941.

It is the LJC’s opinion that the Center as a state institution founded in law by distorting historical facts, grossly diminishing the scope of the Holocaust and creating a fictional narrative of history is incompetent to fulfill its main task as defined in Lithuanian law, namely, the restoration of historical truth and justice.

Therefore, the LJC asks:

-representatives of the Lithuanian executive and legislative branches to respond appropriately and in a timely manner by condemning this incident of institutional anti-Semitism;

-that the Center take responsibility and retract publicly the above-discussed text, apologize to the LJC for the gross belittlement of the scope of the Holocaust and apologize to the Lithuanian public for misinforming the public.

If within a reasonable time an amicable solution is not found, the LJC, in defense of its interest protected by law but now violated, reserves the right to make sue of the defensive measures and remedies provided in Lithuanian law.

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

2019-03-282019-05-08

Isaac Bashevis Singer Presented at Limmud

Rabbi Borukh Gorin from Russia gave a presentation of the life and work of Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer at the 2019 Lithuanian Jewish Community Limmud held in Druskininkai this month.

Gorin is editor-in-chief of the Lekhaim magazine and the Knizhniki publishing house. The magazine is published on paper (about 7,000 copies per issue) and the internet, and is read by about 80,000 internet subscribers. The hard-copy magazine is sent out to readers in Israel, Europe and America, as well as 75 other countries. Gorin says Lekhaim is a window on the contemporary Jewish world and contains articles on history, religion and modern Jewish life. It is published in Russian. It often contains information about Lithuanian Jews. Some time ago the magazine featured Chaim Grade, one of the most important writers in Yiddish who was born in Vilnius on April 4, 1910. He passed away in New York on April 26, 1982. Following the death of his widow, unpublished manuscripts by Chaim Grade were discovered and should be published within a few years. Grade wrote about Vilnius.

In Druskininkai Gorin spoke about Bashevis Singer, calling him one of two well-known Yiddish writers, along with Sholem Aleichem. Singer wrote about Polish Jewish life before the Holocaust. Gorin pointed out Singer came from a family of talented writers, with his brother Israel and sister Ester respected writers in their own right. His father was a rabbi and a good storyteller and his mother was a rationalist and aristocrat. Bashevis Singer moved to the USA before World War II and wrote for the Forward, where he published a cycle about a Polish Jewish family. Singer describes Polish Jewish life and he wrote after the war as if the Holocaust had never happened.

2019-03-272019-04-04

Chiune Sugihara Remembered at Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and Japanese ambassador to Lithuania Shiro Yamasaki attended the unveiling of a plaque to honor Jewish rescuer Chiune Sugihara at the Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium in Vilnius. The Jewish school in Vilnius has maintained a sister-school relationship for several years with the Japanese school Sugihara attended. Visiting teachers from the Japanese school were presented a small gift by the LJC, copies of the recently-published Rudashevski ghetto diary in Lithuanian and Yiddish.

2019-03-26

New Mobile Museum Exhibit Features Lithuania’s Righteous Gentiles

A new mobile exhibit from the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum has begun its rounds with an opening in Kaunas on March 5. “When You Save a Life, You Save a World” debuted at Vytautas Magnus University to a large audience, including Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas and members of the Community, relatives of rescuers and those rescued, city residents and guests from other locations.

Vytautas Magnus professor Juozas Augutis gave a word of welcome and said he was proud of the exhibit opening and the light shed by the Righteous Gentiles. He said the children lost to the Holocaust were a great loss to everyone: “Kaunas’s pain is the pain of all of Lithuania.”

Dr. Kamilė Rupeikaitė–then deputy director of the museum but last week becoming its new director, replacing longtime director Markas Zingeris–emphasized the museum’s long-term commitment to and work on researching the stories of rescuers of Jews. Danutė Selčinskaja, the curator of the exhibit and of the accompanying catalog and the director of the museum’s department for commemorating rescuers of Jews, presented the overall concept of the exhibition with an emphasis on stories from Kaunas. Fruma Vitkinaitė-Kučinskienė, a Holocaust survivor rescued by gentiles, said the Righteous Gentiles were the gift of fate to whom she is still grateful, and she said she was so happy today to be able to talk to members of the families who rescued her. “I think there are many who will agree that those days when Jewish children were rescued were the most beautiful days in the Lithuania of that time,” Juozas Vocelka said. He is the son of Righteous Gentile Pranas Vocelka who dedicated his life to saving Jews.

2019-03-252019-03-27

Kaunas Ghetto Children’s Aktion Commemoration

On March 28, 2019, the Kaunas Jewish Community will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Children’s Aktion in the Kaunas ghetto during which, over one day, about 1,700 children and elderly were rounded up and murdered.

The commemoration begins at 4:00 P.M. at the “Children’s Torah” statue at E. Ožeškienės street no. 13 in Kaunas. The commemoration continues at 5:00 P.M. in the concert hall of the J. Gruodžio conservatory at J. Gruodžio street no. 6, Kaunas. The program includes a performance of “The Jewish Girl and Her Three Mothers” by the drama theater of the Aušra Gymnasium (directed by N. Žilinskienė) and a concert by the J. Gruodžio conservatory’s string orchestra (conducted by K. Domarkienė). Aleksandras Rubinovas will serve as MC.

2019-03-212019-03-26

Markas Petuchauskas’s Price of Concord at Leipzig Book Fair

Markas Petuchauskas’s book Price of Concord has been translated to German and will be presented at the Leipzig Book Fair taking place from March 21 to 24. The Leipzig Book Fair is the second largest book fair in Germany after the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The new translation has been published by the LIT Verlag publishing operation in Berlin. The translation was financed by the Lithuanian Culture Institute. The German version of the book, Der Preis der Eintracht, is to be presented at 1:00 P.M. on March 23 during the OstSüdOst forum at booth E501 in Hall 4 with translator Markus Roduner, author Markas Petuchauskas and moderator Joachim Tauber. The book presentation is scheduled to run until 1:30 P.M. Another presentation will take place at 6:00 P.M. the same day with the same participants at the Jewish Culture Center at Ariowitsch-Haus located at Hinrichsenstraße no. 14, Leipzig. The main LIT Verlag booth is booth G208 in Hall 3 at the book fair.

2019-03-212019-03-26

Holocaust Distortion

by Efraim Zuroff

The situation regarding Holocaust commemoration and education in Lithuania is likewise extremely problematic.

It was only slightly more than a year ago that Holocaust distortion, which has been going on undisturbed for the past almost 30 years, and is currently rampant throughout post-Communist Eastern Europe, suddenly became an issue in Israel. The reason was the uproar over the by now infamous Polish Holocaust bill, which made use of the term “Polish death camps” or the attribution of any Holocaust crimes to the Polish state, a criminal offense punishable by two years in prison. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded that “Israel would not tolerate Holocaust distortion,” the first public denunciation by an Israeli leader of the systematic efforts being made for decades by many of the new democracies of Eastern Europe to whitewash the crimes of their nationals during the Shoah.

2019-03-182019-03-18

Limmud 2019 in Druskininkai

The Limmud tradition is about Jewishness and identity. Once per year the LJC organizes the traditional Limmud conference so members can come together, celebrate Sabbath together, take in many interesting lectures. Limmud comes from the Hebrew word “to learn.”

LJC programs director Žana Skudovičienė, veteran Limmud organizer, says this tradition demands a lot of work, energy and ingenuity.

This year our Lithuanian Limmud was held at the Europe Royal Hotel in the southern Lithuanian spa town Druskininkai with heavy attendance by LJC members and guests and young families with toddlers. Skudovičienė said some of the parents had themselves attended Limmud as children decades ago.

This year’s Limmud seemed more intimate than in former years, according to attendees, with Jews gathering from all over Lithuania, less formal speeches and more music, dance and fun–with a real spirit of yidishkayt.

2019-03-182019-03-25

List of Speakers and Performers for Limmud 2019

Speakers and performers to include:

Ilya Kalmanovskiy, journalist, teacher, educational program enthusiast and moderator (Moscow)

Boruch Gorin, journalist, writer, editor of Lekhaim magazine (Moscow)

Juriy Tabak, religious studies expert, translator, author (Moscow)

Aleksandr Dukhovny, senior rabbi of progressive Jewish congregations (Kiev)

Sasha Galitsky, artist, author (Israel)

Regina Pats, cinema expert, to speak on new program of Israeli films (Tallinn)

Dr. Lara Lempertienė, scholar, director of Lithuanian National Library’s Judaica Studies Center

2019-03-152019-03-15

Monument to Icchokas Meras Unveiled in Kelmė

A statue was unveiled to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the death of Icchokas Meras. The ceremony and monument were the work of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, the Lithuanian Jerusalem Vilnius Jewish Community, the Jakovas Bunka support fund and the Kelmė regional administration. It took place on March 13 at Icchokas Meras Square in Kelmė. Students and teachers from the neighboring Jonas Graičiūnas Gymnasium, Kelmė municipal representatives, fans of Meras’s work and visitors from Vilnius, Kaunas, Šiauliai and Panevėžys and members of those Jewish communities attended.

Feliks Dektor arrived from Israel for the ceremony. He translated to Russian Meras’s novels “Ant ko laikosi pasaulis” and “Lygiosios trunka akimirką” as well as a collection of short stories called “Geltonas lopas,” some of the first literary works about the Holocaust to be published in the Soviet Union.

MP Emanuelis ZIngeris was unable to attend but sent a message which was read out loud:

“Icchokas Meras his entire life spoke for the silenced ghettos of Kelmė, Vilnius, Kaunas and Šiauliai. In his work he didn’t stand for the isolation of the ghetto, rather he scaled to the heights and plumbed the extraordinary depths of humanity. In Soviet times everyone looked forward to the appearance of his novels and stories in the magazines Pergalė and Nemunas. This was a protest hurled against the Soviet reality. Because Icchokas Meras was and remained a Lithuanian writer who modernized the language of Lithuanian prose and invented new ways to express himself.

2019-03-142019-03-21

Lithuanian President Visits YIVO

Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė visited YIVO in New York City March 13.

The YIVO institute was founded in Vilnius in 1925, collecting a large library of books and documents, Yiddish literature and material on Jews in Central and Eastern Europe. It moved to New York in 1939 when founder Max Weinreich was caught in Denmark as Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1 of that year. The New York branch became the headquarters as the Nazis looted YIVO archives in Vilnius.

YIVO director Jonathan Brent met the Lithuanian leader and spoke to her about the Strashun collection and important documents YIVO conserves.

The Lithuanian president said she was impressed by the collections demonstrating the priceless Litvak heritage and also by the courage and nobility of the people–Lithuanians and Jews–who saved the important documents.

Full press release in Lithuanian here.

2019-03-132019-03-20

Work Continues on the Žemaičių Naumiestis Synagogue

Work to restore the synagogue in Žemaičių Naumiestis, Lithuania, began in 2018 and on March 6, 2019, the work to date was surveyed.

The Šilutė regional administration allocated almost 100,000 euros for the renovation work.

Photos from before work began

The town had a large Jewish population before the Holocaust who built this brick synagogue in 1816. In the Soviet era the synagogue was used as a Palace of Culture.

2019-03-132019-03-19

American Zionist Movement Biennial Assembly Held in New York

The American Zionist Movement held their once-every-two-years assembly in New York on March 10 and 11, 2019. This assembly’s theme was Unity and Community: Bringing Together the Many Voices of Zionism.”

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky was invited to speak about the Zionist movement in Lithuania.

LJC chairwoman Kukliansky with AZM executive director Herbert Block

2019-03-132019-03-18

Success Story: Bakery Making Forgotten Treats Has Special Aura

by S.Viltrakytė-Varkalienė, Lietuvos rytas

“The cult of food is very useful for us, but that doesn’t mean that when we opened everyone came to buy bagels,” Bagel Shop projects director Dovilė Rūkaitė said at the café’s third birthday party.

Although the café depends on support from the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Rūkaitė said she has no doubts that the kosher food outlet is very much a success story. Interest in traditional Jewish cuisine has raised the idea of a restaurant as well. Although no opening date has been announced, preparations are taking place behind the scenes.

For now you can try kosher find in the humble café inside the Lithuanian Jewish Community. You won’t find a filling lunch here, the kitchen is too small for the five-person collective to make such things. But you can sample shakshuka, soup, salads, bagels and cakes.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2019-03-13

Celebrating Lithuanian Freedom

On March 11, 1990, many Lithuanian Jews became witnesses to an important and unforgettable event when the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic almost unanimously (of 130 delegates 6 abstained, none voted against) the act for the restoration of Lithuanian independence. The Republic of Lithuania submerged by foreign powers in 1940 had resurfaced. This allowed for the restoration and work of the Lithuanian Jewish Community as well. Happy Independence Day!

2019-03-11

News from the Noreika Trial

The Vilnius District Administrative Court began deliberation of a case Grant Gochin filed against the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania Tuesday, March 5. Gochin, a Lithuanian citizen and member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, is seeking remedy for the Genocide Center’s “historical finding” exonerating Lithuanian Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Noreika. Gochin wants the Center to reconsider its exoneration in light of newly discovered documents which he says the Center has ignored.

Active LJC member Geršonas Taicas attended the trial and shared his impressions, translated below.

§§§

“The plaintiff’s attorney read quickly a 25-page document presented which lists new historical facts about Noreika’s crimes. …

2019-03-072019-03-13