Thank you to all the participants and attendees for making this year’s Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance a success.
Some snapshots from the festival:
Pakruojis Wooden Synagogue Hosts Photo Exhibit on Kinder Aktion and Hamas Hostages
The Šiauliai Jewish Community is holding a half-day photography exhibit at the wooden synagogue in Pakruojis on November 20 detailing the painful past of the Jewish people and current events.
The first part of the exhibit is a joint project between the Šiauliai Religious Jewish Community and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kinder Aktion or children’s mass murder operation at the Šiauliai ghetto. It only contains a small number of photographs of victims conserved by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
The second section features the 240 people taken hostage by Hamas and held in the Gaza Strip, including fathers, mothers, children, teenagers, the elderly and the disabled.
Time: 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., Monday, November 20
Place: Pakruojis synagogue, Kranto street no. 8, Pakruojis, Lithuania
Happy Birthday
We wish Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community member Ieva Rafael a very happy birthday. Since the Šiauliai Jewish Community was formed in Šiauliai in December of 1988, Ieva has been an active participant in community life and a member of the board of executives. Along with everything else she’s done for the Šiauliai Jewish Community, she’s also been responsible for the organization’s bookkeeping over its entire existence.
We wish Ieva endless health, happiness, joy, unceasing energy and that all her dreams come true. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Jewish and Other Composers Rarely Heard in Lithuania at This Year’s Darna Festival
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and Cvi Parkas are holding the third annual Darna Festival to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance tomorrow, November 16, with a series of readings and musical performances.
The classical music group Duo Andersson, Julija Andersson on violin and brother Paulius on piano, will present a series of rarely-heard classical and contemporary works by Lera Auerbach, Jewish Lithuanian composer Anatolijus Šenderovas and Philip Glass in the Jascha Heifetz Hall on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. The Darna Festival is free and open to the public.
Darna Festival: Three Extraordinary Photography Exhibits
The Darna Festival happening this Thursday, November 16, to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance will feature three exceptional photography exhibits featuring work by Antanas Sutkus, Andrey Kezzyn and Bartosz Frątczak. All festival events and performances are free and open to the public.
Time: 6:30 P.M., Thursday, November 16
Place: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
Antanas Sutkus is considered one of the top Lithuanian photographers of the 20th century. Andrey Kezzyn over the past decade has been staging theatrical photographs with actors in costume, and is a stage director himself. Bartosz Frątczak lives in Vilnius and is a teacher, philosopher and journalist as well as photographer. From 2014 to 2018 Frątczak photographed Holocaust survivors and family members, and rescuers. From 2017 to 2019 he documented living Polish World War II veterans.
#Atmintis #Memory #AEPJ
Seniors Club Prays for Israel
The Abi Men Zet Zich Seniors Club meets regularly on Wednesdays and last Wednesday fell on the one-month anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel. Many club members have family in Israel and some serve in the military. Our seniors, many of them Holocaust survivors, lit candles and said kaddish for the Israeli soldiers who have died and for the hostages.
Am Yisrael khai.
One Hundred and Two Holocaust Survivors Ask Australians to Denounce Anti-Semitism and Hatred
Photo: Members of the Australian Jewish community participate in a rally in Sydney in late October. Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images
by Daisy Dumas, November 9, 2023
The broader Jewish community in Australia this week marked 30 days since the October 7 Hamas attacks with vigils and candle-lighting ceremonies
More than 100 Australian Holocaust survivors have united to denounce a wave of “senseless and virulent” anti-Semitism that they fear is growing in the country.
The “last witnesses to the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi regime,” many in their 90s, have penned a letter against abusive incidents that have targeted the Jewish community as Israeli retaliations continue after the brutal Hamas attacks and kidnappings of October 7.
“We are witnesses to the anti-Semitic propaganda that turned our friends, neighbors and the general public against us in Europe. We remember the six million Jewish lives lost because of this hatred,” the 102 Australian survivors wrote in the letter published in the Australian on Thursday.
Attendees Sing Israeli Anthem at Art Exhibit Opening
Visitors had the chance to delve into the world of renowned Litvak artist Simon Karczmar and his artist son Natan last Tuesday evening in Vilnius where a new exhibit of works opened at the Old Town Hall.
The artwork features a romanticized take on daily life in the Dievenishok (Dieveniškės) shtetl and the Bohemian life in Paris.
Attendees were unable to escape the present, however–the brutal war and hostages taken–and sang the Israeli national anthem, HaTikva, “The Hope,” in solidarity with all our friends and family in the Jewish homeland.
Am Yisrael khai.
Ąžuoliukas Choir at Concert Celebrating 100th Birthday of Herman Perelstein
The Ąžuoliukas choir performed at an event held by the Kaunas Jewish Community, the Kaunas city municipality and the Kaunas State Philharmonic to celebrate the 100th birthday of the late Herman Perelstein, the founder of the choir, at the Kaunas State Philharmonic on the evening of November 6, 2023. A short video filmed by a member of the audience has been posted to youtube, viewable below of the choir’s performance with Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas’s introductory address.
Shavl Kinder Aktion Remembered
On November 6, 1943, around 725 Jewish children were abducted from the Šiauliai (Shavl) ghetto and sent to their deaths in Auschwitz.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, chairmen from the Šiauliai, Kaunas, Palanga, Panevėžys and Švenčionys Jewish Communities, Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg-Silverstein, German ambassador Cornelius Zimmermann, Lithuanian MPs and members of the Jewish Community and general public and students and teachers came together to mark the 80th anniversary of this atrocity in Šiauliai November 6.
Kaunas Jewish Community Holding Concert to Commemorate Herman Perelstein
The Kaunas Jewish Community is holding a concert to celebrate the 100th birthday of Herman Perelstein, the renowned choir director and professor. The concert and birthday party is being called Šefas, Lithuanian for boss. It happens at 7:00 P.M. Monday, November 6, at the Kaunas State Philharmonic, Ožeškienės street no. 12, Kaunas. It will include a performance by the Ąžuoliukas boys choir Perelstein founded, other performances and recollections from students about the man. It is free and open to the public. The Kaunas Jewish Community thanks the Kaunas city municipality and Goodwill Foundation for making this event possible.
Grosse Aktion Marked in Kaunas
Members of the Kaunas Jewish Community and the general public turned out on the last weekend in October to mark the anniversary of the Grossaktion, the mass murder operation during which around 10,000 Jews were taken from the Kaunas ghetto and murdered at the Ninth Fort in a 25-hour period on October 28 and 29, 1941.
The entire population of the Kaunas ghetto was assembled on Democrat Square inside the ghetto where Gestapo officer Helmut Rauca personally selected many of the victims. Rauca later found refuge in Canada, where he opened a holiday resort on a lake in Ontario. He was never tried.
Simon Karczmar Exhibit Opens
Photo: Left: Simon Karczmar and wife
The Old Town Hall in Vilnius will open an exhibit of paintings by Litvak artist Simon Karczmar (1903-1982) at 6:00 P.M. on Monday, November 6. Originally from Dieveniškės, Lithuania, Karczmar moved to Jerusalem later. The exhibit runs till November 30.
Žemaitaitis Update
Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis came under fire last spring for posting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements on facebook. He was removed from his party and condemned by other political parties, but when he refused to apologize and continued to make similar posts, the ruling coalition sought to impeach and remove him as a member of parliament. The opposition were initially cool towards the idea, but warmed to it after Hamas attacked Israel two weeks ago. The ruling coalition and speaker of parliament filed a complaint with the prosecutor general alleging the MP was sowing ethnic discord against Jews in Lithuania. The prosecutor’s office is calling the MP a “special witness” because he enjoys parliamentary immunity from prosecution. Žemaitaitis says the impeachment commission was formed outside the bounds of parliamentary regulations and is unconstitutional. All sides agree the commission’s initial findings will have to be adjudicated by a court of law, most likely Lithuania’s Constitutional Court, before proceeding to the next stage in the process. This is the latest installment in the on-going saga.
Impeachment Commission No Longer Inviting Remigijus Žemaitaitis to Testify: MP Intentionally Avoiding Attending Meetings
by Gailė Jaruševičiūtė-Mockuvienė, Lrytas.lt, October 23
As Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis continues to fail to appear at meetings of a special interpellation commission, the commission resolved Monday not to send any more summons to the MP.
“We won’t undertake additional measures. We will simply send an access link to all meetings we hold in the future and will provide the member of parliament the chance to connect and explain his position,” commission chairman Arūnas Valinskas said during the commission meeting held Monday.
Valinskas said Remigijus Žemaitaitis’s refusal to present his own explanations could be interpreted as a conscious effort to discredit the commission’s actions, and might include using loop-holes in the parliamentary statute for that purpose.
Šiauliai Ghetto Doctor’s Testimony Recalls Drowning “Illegal” Newborns
Photo: Šiauliai ghetto territory in 1988, unknown photographer, courtesy Ninth Fort Museum.
by Kristina Tamelytė, LRT.lt, October 15, 2023
“A young girl had to be killed so we decided to drown her,” doctor Aharon Pitsk wrote in his diary in 1942. He died just before the Šiauliai [Shavl] ghetto was “liquidated” with surviving ghetto prisoners sent on to Dachau and Stutthof. Šiauliai had a Jewish population of over 8,000 people before the Holocaust and only a few hundred survived.
The Nazis issued an order it was illegal for Jews to procreate so a newborn was a danger to the family, the community and everyone. Unborn children also posed a danger so ghetto officials encouraged and demanded women get abortions. This was considered the lesser evil, the death of one person instead of several. The children who were born were subject to poisoning. This often wasn’t lethal so “a more effective method” was found.
Pitsk called Lithuania “my homeland” in his diary.
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Beigelių krautuvėlė-EN (1)Condolences
With deep sadness we report the death of Ida Vileikienė on October 17. She was born in 1942 in the Šiauliai ghetto. The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends our deepest condolences to her widower Petras, daughter Svajonė and son Donatas.
Kaunas Jews Deeply Worried about War in Israel
Photo from AFP
Kaunas resident Bella Shirin communicates with her relatives in Israel, which has turned into a kind of hell, day and night. She fears for her son, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are now spending most of their time in a hiding place in their apartment.
Eyes without Pity
Shirin returned to Kaunas from Israel seven years ago after experiencing two wars in Israel. She says she has looked into the eyes of an Hamas close-up.
All she saw there, she says, was hatred for Jews.
Condolences
We are deeply saddened to report the death of Ida Vileikienė, a long-time member of the Šiauliai Jewish Community. The Šiauliai Jewish Community sends our deepest condolences to her husband Petras, daughter Svajonė and grandson Donatas.
Šiauliai Jewish Community
Statement by Lithuanian Jewish Community, All 32 Constituent Members, about the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania
When terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 the world witnessed acts of incomprehensible brutality where women, children, the disabled and the elderly were taken hostage and murdered, taken hostage and used as human shields, and publicly tortured and executed.
We say with no reservations at all that Israel is a sovereign state. No one has the right to attack Israel, to invade Israel’s territory and to murder the people of Israel. There can be no justification nor mercy of any kind for the murderers.
Today, 50 years later, the words of beloved Israeli prime minister Golda Meir sound prophetic: we had a secret weapon in the war: there was no alternative. Again Israel is fighting for survival.
This brutal war is especially painful to the members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, there is no Jewish family in Lithuania whose members haven’t been touched by these terrific events. Our close relatives are fighting on the front lines, healing the wounded, rescuing people buried in rubble, helping those who are stuck and who could die. We are extremely proud of them.
Our thoughts and hearts are with our parents, brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren and friends who remain in Israel. With every person fighting for our historical homeland. With everyone who is experiencing the horror and loss.
Unfortunately it isn’t just our relatives in Israel who have found themselves in danger, but also in Lithuania. In the country where we were born, grew up and work, the country which we love, whose citizens we are, anti-Semitism is spreading, not just on the social media and at protests, but from the podium at the Lithuanian parliament, and even children are being attacked: they are being threatened and hurt on purpose. Yesterday a Bolt taxi driver of dark complexion who didn’t speak Lithuanian asked a minor, a child, what his ethnicity was, and when he found out his passenger was Jewish, he refused to take him to school. This is certainly not the only and not the worst incident, but it’s very illustrative of the situation.
These kinds of incidents make our community feel unsafe, but we are concentrated and unified, we are unified both by our thousands of years of history, but also by the future.
We are inn close cooperation with the Lithuanian Police Department and other security structures. Ee are in continual contact with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lithuanian embassy to Israel and international Jewish organizations. We are exchanging information and sharing data.
Despite the shock of it all, we are striving to help Lithuanian citizens stranded in Israel as well, and to help Israeli citizens in Lithuania to fly home. We are providing information, consulting, helping to provide solutions to the unexpected problems which have come up all at once.
We thank Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda, speaker of parliament Viktorija Čmilyte-Nielsen and prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė for the firm support for Israel and the Lithuanian Jewish Community they have expressed. We are very encouraged Lithuania has condemned unequivocally the actions of the terrorists and has stood for the right and just side.
We are extraordinarily grateful to the people of Lithuania as well who have sent us their messages of condolence and support and who are praying for our brothers and sisters taken hostage by the terrorists. At the same time we caution people should assess critically the information they receive and only share news from official Israeli institutions and agencies.
Am Yisral khai. The people of Israel live.
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community