The Cvirka Park Israeli street food kiosk and performance space across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community will host a picnic this Sunday with food and beverages on sale, chess matches, badminton and ping-pong. Čižas, Puppystyle, Kajus, Zemenu, Herman Drowning and Ryo Ishimoto.will perform music. So far the weather looks good.
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
The Jonas Šliūpas Museum and the Palanga Jewish Community invites you to a day of Jewish culture this Sunday with circus and drama director, street-theater creator and comedian Adrian Schvarzstein from Argentina and Lithuania’s historical dance expert and choreographer Jūrate Širvytė who will present the street-play Arrived.
Arrived was born in Sri Lanka in 2015 and was first performed in Lithuania in 2017 under the title Malina.
Actor and comedian Schvarzstein will follow the play up with a discussion on Yiddish humor at the Jonas Šliūpas Museum. In between the play and the discussion the Palanga Jewish Community and the Bella Toscana bakery are promising to provide Jewish culinary heritage treats to attendees. All events are free.
Time: 2:00 P.M. to 3:30 P.M., September 1.
Location: The street-play begins at the Ramybė Café at Vytauto street no. 54, followed by Litvak treats in the courtyard of the Jonas Šliūpas Museum at Vytauto street no. 23a and the discussion at that same location in Palanga.
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.
Dear readers,
Happy Shavuot!
Today Jews around the world celebrate Shavuot, one of the most important holidays on the Jewish calendar for centuries, with not one but several significant meanings.
The first is the religious one which tells the story of how seven weeks after the Hebrews left Egypt, God gave the gift of the Torah to Moses and the entire Jewish people, the sacred text in the form of the Pentateuch with 613 mitzvot, or laws. Shavuot is also called the Feast of Weeks. Traditionally Jews do not sleep on this night and spend it studying Torah, intoning the morning prayer when dawn breaks.
This is an especially important holiday because God’s Ten Commandments have determined the whole course of human morality and civilization. Having received the oral Torah, only a portion was written down, with the rest inscribed only 1,500 years later, after the destruction of the Second Temple.
Shavuot is also the celebration of the first harvest, featuring abundant dairy products and homes decorated with flowers. Traditionally Jews make pancakes with curds and cheesecake, and eat ice cream, drink milk shakes and consume other treats.
Have a delicious holiday!
The Women’s Club is meeting again this Friday, this time with a male cook in the kitchen. Viljamas Žitkauskas will demonstrate his special breakfast-making techniques with an emphasis on Israeli cuisine.
Registration is required by sending an email to zanas@lzb.lt or by calling (+370) 678 81514.
Time: 7:00 P.M., Friday, May 10
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
As always, members of the Kaunas Jewish Community celebrated Passover in fellowship and fine company, in high spirits to the sound music, eating matzo and all the other great dishes provided by the kitchen staff of the Višta Puode restaurant in Kaunas. As in prior years, they also held a quiz to test members’ knowledge of Passover traditions.
The Panevėžys Jewish Community’s traditional Passover celebration was overshadowed this year by the estimated 120 Israeli hostages left alive in Gaza.
All Passover traditions were adhered to, including reading of the Haggadah, the story of the liberation of the Hebrews from the Egyptian yoke and their desert journey to the Promised Land.
Why is this night like no other? Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman explained why we eat matzo, bitter herbs and the other traditional symbolic dishes.
One Panevėžys Jewish Community homemaker treated celebrants to her homemade gefiltefish which was much appreciated.
This Passover was more bittersweet than usual with Community members praying for the quick release of the Jews taken hostage by the barbaric Hamas terrorists who murdered around 1,200 Israeli civilians on October 7, many of them women and children, claiming they were enemy combatants.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and Bnei Maskilim invite you to come and usher out Passover week together with a Mimouna celebration, led by Rabbi Nathan Alfred. Besides leading the ceremonies, Rabbi Alfred will also deliver a lecture on Jewish love in English.
The cost is 10 euros per person, children ten and under are free. For more information and to register, send an email to viljamas@lzb.lt or call (+370) 672 50699.
Time: 7:00 P.M., Tuesday, April 30.
Place: Nykštukas Restaurant, Verkių street no. 27, Vilnius
Dear reader,
Passover is one of the most important and most beautiful weeks on the Jewish calendar when we celebrate liberation from slavery and our becoming a free and proud people.
Every year we sit at the Passover table, eat the traditional foods, drink sweet wine, take joy in life and read the Haggadah and passages from the Song of Songs. The main thing is being together with family and that no one, whether rich or poor, be left unfed, if there is a way to invite him to our table. This is how it always has been, year after year and century after century.
Over the eight days of the holiday, we symbolically refrain from eating leavened food and we take joy in our freedom and in our historical homeland, Israel, which no one will ever be able to take away from us, not with rockets nor with drones.
We wish everyone freedom and dignity just as we wish these for the Jewish state, and we pray for the hostages still held in captivity.
Hag sameakh. Am Yisrael khai!
On May 1 the outdoor Israeli street food kiosk Cvi (Tzvi) Park will reopen for the warmer seasons serving fresh and healthy food to customers. Located at Petras Cvirka Square (now missing its statue to the Soviet-era Lithuanian writer Petras Cvirka and with no new official name) across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius, the outdoor café will offer humous, falafel, excellent coffee, wine and other foods and refreshments. They also plan this year to set up ping-pong tables and chess boards, and provide for other leisure-time sporting activities. Along with the usual program of concerts, DJs, dance, meetings, holidays, lessons and quizzes. Check it out starting May 1.
Fresh Passover matzo bread has arrived. A one-kilogram box of matzo bread costs 10 euros, the 450-gram box 5 euros and matzo flour 5 euros as well. Purchase can be made at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius between 10 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. on weekdays.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites everyone to Shabbat haGadol, the Great Sabbath, the last Sabbath before Passover, an evening full of tradition which will serve as preparation for the Passover celebration.
Over the course of the evening, under the tutelage of Viljamas Žitkauskas, we will go over the main parts of the seder, learn about keara, the Passover seder plate, read the Haggadah and enjoy the Sabbath meal in pleasant company.
Registration required by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt. The cost is 5 euros per person with children 3 and under free.
Time: 7:00 P.M., Friday, April 19
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
Fania Lewando was a legend of interwar Vilnius, an exceptional personality, an innovator, an excellent cook and an entrepreneur, inspiring thousands of fans even after her death.. An event organized by the Polish Institute and the Lithuanian Jewish Community and held last week was dedicated to her.
A detailed account based on years of research by Magdalena Maślak, a cultural historian and the curator of the Pauline Museum of Jewish History in Poland, painted a vivid portrait of the unusually strong personality of Fania Lewando, and Alessia di Donato, a chef from Rome, an expert in Ashkenazi and Sephardic cuisine, prepared risotto with white wine according to one of Lewando’s recipes and revealed all the intricacies of her vegetarian cuisine.
“I am often asked why I became interested in Fania Lewando’s recipes. In fact, I admire not only her dishes, but also her personality. She was an extraordinary woman, brave, active, full of ideas ahead of her time,” says the Italian, who has been living and working in Poland for ten years.
You’re invited to attend an evening of discussion, demonstration and sampling of the recipes of interwar vegetarian restaurant owner and cook Fania Lewando. Lewando operated a restaurant in Vilnius with a cult following in the period between the two world wars. Artists and the city elite frequented her establishment. Chef Alessia di Donato originally from Rome will provide samples of dishes made according to the recipes Lewando left us in her cook book. Cultural anthropologist Magdalena Maślak from Poland will also tell stories about Lewando.
Registration is required by sending an email to info@lzb.lt. Everyone is invited to attend.
Time: 5:00 P.M., Thursday, April 11
Place: Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
Women are invited to the Women’s Club meeting this Friday where we’ll prepare for Passover which is coming soon. We’ll talk about traditions from over the millennia and from more recent times and we’ll learn how to make Litvak matzo kneydlakh and a huge matzo cake.
Time: 6:30 P.M., Friday, April 12
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
Registration required. Send an email to zanas@lzb.lt or call (+370) 678 81514.
We hope to see you there.
There are many holidays throughout the year we celebrate at home with close family members, but Purim isn’t one of them. The point is to go out, celebrate, enjoy life and have fun. On Sunday the Lithuanian Jewish Community and Bnei Maskilim held a public Purim celebration in Vilnius with costume play, a reading from the Book of Esther, holiday treats and much sincere conversation.
An audience of more than 400 from the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium celebrated Purim at the Legendos music club in Vilnius Friday. The selection of costumes was fantastic and there was a program entertaining to young and old alike with song and dance by the students, a drumming concert which involved all assembled, imaginative tricks by master-of-ceremonies Michailas Frišmanas and delicious food.
Thank you to the entire student body and staff of Sholem, LJC executive director Michailas Segalas and everyone who sang, danced, beat drums, laughed and took part in this unforgettable evening of celebration.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to come and celebrate Purim this Sunday with event programs for young and old.
The Dubi Club for children aged 3 to 7 will stage a great program with skits, games, songs and other fun activities.
At the same time Bnei Maskilim invites you to a reading of the Book of Esther, tzedakah and mishloach manot, and the traditional potluck feast.
Everyone is welcome.
Time: 12:00 noon, Sunday, March 24
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
Don’t forget your masks and costumes!
Please note: registration is required for the Bnei Maskilim event. Please send an email to viljamas@lzb.lt.
Dear members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community,
Greetings on the up-coming holiday of Purim. We kindly invite you to come celebrate it together with us at the Panevėžys Jewish Community starting at 2:00 P.M. on March 24. Please indicate your intention to attend (because we need to know how much of what kinds of food to purchase) by sending an email or by calling.
Chairman: +370 61120882, genakofman@yahoo.com
Administrator: +370 61017608