A bas-relief commemorating Herman Perelstein, the founder of the Ąžuoliukas choir, will be unveiled at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic in Vilnius at 5:00 P.M. on June 15.
Happy Birthday to Fruma Kučinekienė
A very happy birthday to Fruma Kučinekienė in Kaunas, beloved by the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community. She lost her entire family to the Holocaust and yet has endured and lived a meaningful and even happy life. We wish you the very best health, many happy moments with friends and many more milestone birthdays to come. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Condolences
Dovydas Leibzonas passed away Monday, June 5, at the age of 88. He was born in 1936. He was a member of the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners and a Lithuanian Jewish Community Social Center client. Our deepest condolences to family members and friends.
News from Meeting of Young Scouts, Parents
On May 29 scout leader Adomas Kofmanas, young Jewish scouts and a number of their parents all got together for a meet outdoors with games and a barbecue by outdoorsman Audrius Vainonis. Plans for this summer were also a main topic of discussion, including the world jamboree scheduled for July 8 to 16 in western Lithuania called Tarp trijų vandenų [Between Three Bodies of Water]. So far over 2,000 scouts from around the world have registered for the big jamboree and of course Jewish scouts and their parents are invited to attend. The young people are getting close to restoring the pre-Holocaust Lithuanian Jewish scouting movement with closer cooperation with the Scouts of Lithuania organization. For more information on any of these topics or others, please write skautai@lzb.lt.
Nechama Lifshitz Young Jewish Vocalists Contest
Vocalists aged 10 to 35 are invited to register for the Nechama Lifshitz Vocalist Contest to be held in Vilnius in September. The goal of the competition is to inspire creativity and talent in the younger generation, to popularize vocal Jewish music and to discover talented young Jewish performers and song writers. The contest is named after renowned singer Nechama Lifshitz who was born in Kaunas and was sometimes called the Jewish nightingale. She became famous throughout the Soviet Union and the world.
Register here: https://www.competition.lt/registracija/
Litvak Literature Conference “Litvak Literature: A Remarkable Direction in the Lithuanian Cultural Inheritance”
The International Publishers Association and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to an academic and practical conference on the significance of Litvak literature on the Lithuanian cultural heritage. Besides presentation by individual scholars and thinkers there will also be readings of texts and some more personal commentaries. The conference will be conducted in Russian and is free and open to the public.
Jewish Discussion Club to Meet Outdoors
The #ŽydiškiPašnekesiai Jewish discussion group led by author and actor Arkadijus Vinokuras is to discuss Jewish cuisine at the Israeli street food kiosk located in the former Cvirka scquare across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius at 5:00 P.M on Thursday, June 8. The panel is scheduled to include Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Vilnius Religious Jewish Community chairman and Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom, lecturer Natalja Cheifec, Cvi Parkas Israeli food kiosk director Rafaelis Gimelšteinas, a professor of communications from Vilnius University who has written several books about the history of cooking.
The outdoor discussion is free and open to the public and will be streamed live on facebook as well. It will be conducted in Lithuanian.
Vilnius Jewish Public Library to Screen J’Accuse
The Vilnius Jewish Public Library is to screen the film J’accuse with Lithuanian subtitles at 5:30 P.M. on June 19. Author Silvia Foti featured in the film is scheduled to attend the screening and discuss the film and the Holocaust in Lithuania with the audience.
More information available here.
Seventh Graders Flood Community in Preparation for Bar and Bat Mitzvah Ceremonies
While the Lithuanian Jewish Community is never empty and devoid of activity, over the last few days the halls, corridors and every nook and corner have seen a flood of seventh graders from the Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium preparing for their bat mitzvah and bar mitzvah ceremonies. Besides reading portions from the Torah, their classmates have been planning a program of events for several months now, and are preparing for the ceremonies down to the last detail. Bar and bat mitzvahs are coming-of-age rituals ushering Jewish young people into adulthood. In this case Rabbi Nathan Alfred from the United States is presiding over the ceremony. The young people have to demonstrate in public their ability to read from the Torah in the original language to show they are ready to engage in religious and public life. The tradition has grown up of turning the ceremony into a kind of party with gifts, the utterance of good wishes and applause. The Lithuanian Jewish Community is proud to welcome the next generation into the community and adulthood.
Condolences
Mirjam Abelovičienė has died at the age of 70. She was born in 1954. A member in long standing of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, she formerly worked at the Vilna Gaon State Jewish History Museum. Our deepest condolences to her son Jakovas and her many friends and relatives.
Spiritual Leader of Lithuanian Haredim Dies at 100
Netanyahu mourns the loss of “a great scholar and leader” ahead of what is expected to be one of Israel’s largest funerals ever.
Israeli spiritual leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein died Tuesday at the age of 100 in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak.
He was the head of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, where a funeral procession was scheduled to depart in the afternoon. Hundreds of thousands are expected to participate.
Edelstein became the leader of the Lithuanian stream of Ashkenazi Orthodox Judaism following the passing of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky in Bnei Brak on March 18, 2022. He was also president of the Council of Yeshivas, an organization that supports Lithuanian-style yeshivas in Eastern Europe, and the president of the Council of Torah Elders of the Ashkenazi haredi political party Degel HaTorah.
Jewish Orphanage Commemorated in Kaunas
A commemorative plaque was unveiled on an important Jewish site in Kaunas from the period before and between the two world wars. The former orphanage building is located at the intersection of Gruodis and Smolensk streets in Lithuania’s second city which served as the provisional capital in interwar Lithuania.
The orphanage was for boys aged 7 to 18 who were left parentless or found themselves in dire circumstances. The orphanage opened in 1905 as part of a network of Jewish orphan houses. It was called Jewish Sirot House, but was better known as the Yitzhak Spector Orphanage, being tied in with the synagogue as an institution of education, primary education for the youngsters and evening classes for older people.
The commemorative plaque was the fruitt of efforts by the Benayahu and Blumenthal families in Israel to commemorate this historical institution. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, representatives from the Israeli embassy to Lithuania and from the city of Kaunas and guest from overseas. Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom performed a prayer.
Kaunas Jewish Community Honors Rescuers
Photo: Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, by Regimantas Zakšenskas.
Last week the Kaunas Jewish Community invited several dozen people–rescuers of Jews and relatives of rescuers–to the Višta Puode restaurant to remember their courageous acts during the Holocaust. They were treated to a meal and concert.
Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas conducted the event which included moving stories by the participants. Lithuanian Conservative MP Paulė Kuzmickienė was present at the event and Žakas thanked her for her initiative in the Lithuanian parliament naming March 15 the official day for commemorating those who rescued Lithuanian Jews from the Holocaust.
Community Celebrates Shavuot
The Lithuanian Jewish Community held three different events to celebrate Shavuot or Shavuos, the Feast of Weeks, last Sunday. At the riverside north of Vilnius parents and children played games and the children learned how to barbecue and roast marshmallows, and sampled some more traditional dishes. At the same time Julija Potašnik taught Israeli dance at Cvirka Park across the street from the Community. Later more than a 100 people attended a concert performed by Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh featuring the Community’s younger singers and dances. The concert was followed by holiday food and drink.
Vilnius, Vilne, Wilno: One City, Many Stories
Professor Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, a specialist in art and visual representation in Lithuania and Eastern Europe focusing on the late 19th and 20th centuries from the Lithuanian Cultural Research Institute as well as the Vilnius Art Academy, will give a presentation called “Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne, 1918-1948: One City, Many Stories. Exhibit and Its Context” as part of the lecture series “Topical Art Research: The Newest Revelations from Lithuanian Art Research, Dedicated to the 700th Anniversary of the Founding of Vilnius” at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, May 30, at the Lithuanian National Art Gallery in Vilnius.
“Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne, 1918-1948: One City, Many Stories” is also the name of a museum exhibit which opened in Cracow, Poland, on May 23, 2023, and will travel to Lithuania and go on public display on November 9 at the the Lithuanian National Art Gallery in Vilnius.
Jankevičiūtė plans to discuss in her presentation the motivations which led to the creation of the exhibit, its structure, content and possible significance for Lithuanian and Polish art culture, especially the visual arts. She says the period chosen for her discussion was a time of true cultural ferment, that the city then on the borderlands was reminiscent of Lvov and Trieste for its multicultural identity and dynamism, with increasing and decreasing shifts in its population. Despite its interesting and unique identity, Vilnius hasn’t found a place on the art culture map of Poland or Europe, and only closed groups of people in Lithuania and Poland are interested in this period in the city, she claims. Usually they are people with a personal connection to the city.
The professor calls this exhibit the first attempt to integrate the art of Vilnius in the period between the two world wars into the wider history of the region’s culture and to provide a credible visual reconstruction of Vilnius art and its artistic life. She says the exhibit integrates the work of artists from the Jewish community.
Avoiding a Third Wife in Lithuania
“If I lived in Lithuania, I would be an active member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, at least in order to avoid a third marriage,” a guest from the United States visiting the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius while on a tour of Litvak heritage sites said.
The old joke goes like this: in Lithuania, a man must marry three times: a Polish woman, a Jewish woman and a Lithuanian woman. The first wife is to show him what true passion is. The second wife teaches him how to treat money, and the third wife will tend his grave beautifully.
The group from the Taube Center for Jewish Life and Learning are visiting Jewish heritage sites in Lithuania and Poland.
News from the Panevėžys Jewish Community
Last week Baruh Yorex from the city of Kiryat Ono in Israel visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community. He is a high-ranking officer in the reserves of the Israeli army. He has Litvak roots and grandmother and grandfather named Jurotewski came from Poland.
A big fan of Tel Aviv’s Maccabi, Yorex used to play for the basketball team. Now he’s cheering on his three sons on the team, and was in Kaunas for the Euroleague championship last week.
He met with Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman and showed great interest in the Litvak legacy. While looking at period photographs in the Community’s archives, he was thrilled to learn almost every Lithuanian city and town had its own Makabi association before the Holocaust, with local tennis, soccer, gymnastics and basketball teams, as well as other kinds of athletics teams. Yorex was also delighted to see how active the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club is today, with members participating at international sporting events.
Israeli Journos Fail to Fight Latvian, Lithuanian Holocaust Distortion
Photo: Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a news conference with then-Latvian prime minister Maris Kucinskis in 2018. Photo credit: Ints Kalnins/Reuters.
Israel Has Failed to Fight Latvia, Lithuania’s Holocaust Distortion
A number of acclaimed films have shone a spotlight on the Holocaust in the Baltics. But Latvia and Lithuania have responded with Holocaust distortion.
by Efraim Zuroff, Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2023
During the past half year, three new documentary films devoted to the Holocaust in the Baltics, and especially in Lithuania, have been screened in numerous venues all over the world, except in Lithuania and Latvia, which are the subjects of these films.
One, titled When Did the Holocaust Begin, was produced by the BBC and focuses on the use of new forensic archeological technology to discover unknown mass graves of Holocaust victims in western Lithuania, where indeed the systematic mass murder of European Jewry began following the Nazi invasion of Lithuania, on June 22, 1941.
Sunday Spent Cleaning Up Jewish Cemetery
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenbergu Silverstein and her family and US ambassador to Lithuania Robert Gilchrist spent last Sunday cleaning up the old Jewish cemetery in Paberžė, which is located about 20 kilometers north of Vilnius. They collected garbage, raked up leaves, cleaned off lichen and washed headstones. Kukliansky thanked the volunteers as well as Paberžė alderwoman Agata Puncevičienė who has worked hard to commemorate those buried there. There are over 260 historical Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, but most of them are in ruins, neglected and full of garbage. The Jews of Paberžė along with Jewish communities across Lithuania were murdered by Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators during the Holocaust. Chairwoman Kukliansky said we can all do something to honor their memories.
Happy Birthday to Fania Brancovskaja
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky visited Jewish partisan Fania Brancovskaja at home to personally give the Community’s greetings on two special occasions: Fania’s birthday on May 22 and Victory Day, marking the end of the Holocaust in Europe. Fania Brancovskaja was a Jewish partisan who fought the Nazis in Lithuania. Since the end of the Holocaust Fania has devoted her life to keeping the memory of the victims alive and teaching the new generations about what happened. Mazl tov. Bis 120!