A belated happy birthday to Emanuelis Zingeris who marked another year back on October 27. Lithuania’s only Jewish member of parliament, Emanuelis is also a qualified philologist, a signatory to the Restoration of Independence Act back in 1990 and a founder of the Jewish cultural club which became the Lithuanian Jewish Community, as well as serving as chairman in the early years of the latter. We wish you all the very best. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Artist, musician and composer Arkadijus Gotesmanas celebrated his birthday Monday. The entire LJC and chairwoman Faina Kukliansky wish him endless creativity and many more years of productivity in life as well as on the stage. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Writer and thinker Arkadijus Vinokuras celebrated a birthday last week and the entire Community wishes him all the best. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
A very happy milestone birthday to Kaunas Jewish Community member Roza Tulchina! Community members and chairman Gercas Žakas celebrated her birthday with flowers, gifts and well-wishes including greetings from Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
The Lithuanian Jewish Community, uniting 32 domestic and international organizations, urges president of the Republic of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda, to defend the principles embedded in the Lithuanian constitution and to prevent the anti-Semitic forces represented by the political party Nemuno Aušra from becoming part of the new ruling coalition and government.
Nemuno Aušra was founded and is led by Remigijus Žemaitaitis, who was deemed by the Constitutional Court to have breached his parliamentary oath and grossly violated the constitution through anti-Semitic statements and incitement of ethnic hatred. Due to a loophole in the law, he evaded accountability and continues to cynically deny the decision of the highest judicial authority, defaming the judges who made this ruling, and thereby undermining Lithuania’s status as a state under the rule of law on the international stage.
by Daiva Gabrilavičiūtė, LRT.lt, October 26, 2024
“The Yiddish language has become a symbol of Jewish cultural resistance and survival. In spite of waves of historical oppression, the Holocaust and assimilation, Yiddish reflects the resolution, resilience and continuity of the Jewish people,” Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium principal Ruth Reches told Lithuanian state radio and teleivision.
Yiddish appeared about a millennium ago in what is now Germany. Large Jewish communities settled in Eastern Europe. Over time Yiddish became more than the everyday language of communication and was used in Jewish intellectual and cultural life. Books and newspapers were published, songs were written and plays performed in Yiddish.
Before World War II more than 10 million people spoke Yiddish. Most were murdered during the Holocaust. The handful who survived faced Soviet oppression. Others found safe haven on the other side of the Atlantic.
Full article in Lithuanian here.
by Alex Winston, Jpost, October 25, 2024
Veteran Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff talks about his long career and new ongoing battle: fighting Holocaust distortion.
In early September an innocuous facebook message was posted, stating: “After 38 years as director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and 13 years during which I was responsible for Eastern European Affairs as well, I will be leaving the center at the end of this month (September 2024). Looking for new opportunities to continue to combat Holocaust distortion, and antisemitism.”
If the post was intended to serve as a chance to alert potential employers to new employment opportunities, Efraim Zuroff may have been underselling himself slightly.
Zuroff, often referred to as “the last Nazi hunter,” has spent over four decades tracking down war criminals and holding them accountable for their roles in the Holocaust. But as Zuroff reaches the twilight of his career, his focus has shifted toward a more insidious problem–Holocaust distortion.
In his own words, “Holocaust distortion is a new form of antisemitism.” Zuroff’s mission to expose this growing issue, particularly in Eastern Europe, reflects the larger fight against historical manipulation and the dangers it poses for future generations.
Full article here.
by Gercas Žakas, chairman, Kaunas Jewish Community, writing in the newspaper Kauno diena
After Remigijus Žemaitaitis’s party Nemuno aušra [Dawn of the Nieman River] received significant support from voters at the polls in the first round of voting, the Kaunas Jewish Community has been watching to see what the final outcome of elections to parliament will be. We have observed even before the second round of voting how the rhetoric of the political parties has changed regarding Žemaitaitis.
It would be hard to find a more cynical character. A demagogue and a liar. Divisive and slinging mud. His speeches contain many lies and accusations against his opponents and ethnic minorities of imaginary crimes. Now he’s trying to squirm out of the situation, again lyving that he hasn’t said anything bad about Lithuanian Jews. If some party nonetheless does enter into a coalition government with him, it would demonstrate that there are no principles nor values when it comes to the struggle for power. That nothing is sacred.
Read Žemaitaitis’s social media posts. In May of last year he posted on facebook: “For how much longer will our politicians go down on bended knee to the Jews who murdered our people, contributed to the hunting down and torture of Lithuanians and the extermination of our country;” “There was a Jewish Holocaust, but there was a bigger Holocaust of Lithuanians in Lithuania. The murder and torture of Lithuanians, the rape of women and the separation of children from their parents was a pleasant attraction and a joyous moment” and “The Lithuanian nation must never forget the Jews and Russians who contributed so greatly to the destruction of our people.”
The Vilnius Jerusalem of Lithuania Jewish Community posting on https://www.vilniauszydai.lt has taken strong exception to an Al Jazeera television report on a pro-Hamas protest held in Vilnius presumably months ago which included editorial content linking the Palestinian cause to the Lithuanian struggle for independence from the Soviet Union. The Community said it was disgusting and shameful to hold street marches in support of terrorism.
The pro-Hamas website palestina.lt for some reason provided a translation from Arabic (Al Jazeera mainly broadcasts in English) of the report and editorial (translated back into English here):
“There are demonstrations taking place in Lithuania to express solidarity with Palestine. From the beginning of the war in Gaza activists have held many events in public spaces in the capital Vilnius [sic, two at most]. Participants demand an end to the genocide of Palestinians. The demonstrations are being organized by palestina.lt to bring public attention to events in Palestine, to counter the pro-Israeli narrative dominant in the country’s media, to condemn the close relationship Lithuanian politicians have with Tel Aviv and to emphasize there was also oppression, deportations and colonization in the history of Lithuania dating from the Russian Empire’s period of rule (1795) through the Nazi occupation right up until the restoration of independence.”
The Jerusalem of Lithuania Jewish Community countered:
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and remission from sin, the most important holiday on the Jewish calendar, will be observed Saturday. No matter how religious or not, no Jew risks travelling, bathing or eating during Yom Kippur. The holiday must be observed correctly, so the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Bnei Maskilim progressive Judaism community invite you to observe the holy day together with us and Rabbi Hanoch Fields from the United States.
Program of events at the LJC in Vilnius:
October 11
6:30 P.M. Kol nidrei
October 12
10:00 A.M. Torah reading
5:00 P.M. Yizkor
5:15 P.M. Neila
6:30 P.M. Blowing of the shofar
7:00 P.M. End of fast, shared feast
Registration required. To register, contact viljamas@lzb.lt
Senior citizens and elderly members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community gathered for a different kind of Rosh Hashanah celebration at the LJC in Vilnius on the weekend.
With the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 invasion and mass murder of Israelis last year, there was less of the usual music and fun and more prayers in Yiddish and Hebrew performed by Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom. The cantor’s wife Natalja Cheifec spoke about the history and traditions of Rosh Hashanah and the role of the woman in the Jewish family.
Šiauliai Jewish Community members are planning to leave the Šiauliai Jewish Community building at 10:00 A.M. on Sunday, October 6, to reach the town square in Žagarė where a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust will be held. Everyone is invited to attend.
The western Lithuanian town of Vilkaviškis is to unvei a public sculpture Friday commemorating native Sonia Gaskell, a world-class ballerina who went on to teach ballet in Paris and the Hague, according to Lithuanian state television LRT. Gaskell was born in Vilkaviškis on April 14, 1904, and died in Paris on July 9, 1974.
The statue by sculptor Lukas Šiupšinskas is located in a square in front of the Vilkaviškis Children’s and Youth Center near where Gaskell is believed to have been born. She was originally named Sarah. Vilkaviškis reportedly also has a small museum dedicated to the details of her rather amazing life which includes making aliyah to Palestine and returning to Europe before the Holocaust. Vilkaviškis, aka Vikovishk, had a Jewish population which hovered at about 50% compared to the Christian population, sometimes reaching 60% and falling back to 45% just before the Holocaust. William Shatner’s maternal grandmother was born in Vilkaviškis, as were Aharon April, Jonas Basanavičius, Vincas Kudirka, Miriam Markel-Mosessohn and Galina Shurepova.
Earlier LRT reporting in Lithuanian on Sonia Gaskell here.
Traditionally there is a commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust in Švenčionys held the first Sunday in October. We remember the Jews tortured and murdered, and those imprisoned in the ghetto set up in the town square and later murdered at nearby Platumai village. You are invited to attend the commemoration this year on October 6.
Program:
11:00 A.M. – 11:30 A.M. Remembering the victims in a gathering at the Menorah statue in the central park
12:30 P.M. Paying respects to the victims at the mass murder site in Platumai village approximately 13 kilometers to the west of Švenčionys
Photos by Miglė Zakarauskaitės and Aušra Jonušytė
Local residents and politicians commemorated Lithuania’s Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews September 23 at a monument to Holocaust victims at the Jewish cemetery there and visited an older Jewish cemetery in the once-thriving shtetl, laying stones gathered from streets in the town.
The same day the public library housed in the restored synagogue held a lesson on Jewish life in Kupiškis for students in grades 1 through 4.
Panevėžys Jewish Community members and local politicians, educators and residents gathered at the foot of the Sad Jewish Mother monument on Memory Square in the town center to mark the Lithuanian Day of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews on September 23.
The Panevėžys ghetto was liquidated, meaning prisoners were mainly murdered, or sent to other ghettos and concentration camps, on August 15, 1941. That day 13,500 Jewish prisoners there were shot in nearby forests.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community, Lithuanian politicians and foreign ambassadors marked the Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews September 23 at the Ponar Memorial Complex outside Vilnius.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky spoke at the event, saying among other things: “I have several requests by the Lithuanian Jewish Community. First, I want to know the names of the people who were murdered here. And throughout Lithuania as well, where 400, 500, 600 Jews were murdered in every town. Where are their names? … The Lithuanian Jewish Community also wants to know the names of the murderers. Many years ago now we were promised they would be made public, but they remain unknown to us. I am convinced it has to be made very clear who was a murderer and who was a rescuer. So I would like to ask sincerely the lists of those are known now at least be made available to us.”
Also attending and speaking were Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris, Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein with Israeli embassy chargé-d’affaires Erez Golan, German ambassador Cornelius Zimmermann, US ambassador Kara McDonald, speaker of Lithuanian parliament Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė and others. Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom performed kaddish. Vilnius Religious Jewish Community chairman Simas Levinas also participated.
A Holocaust commemoration was held September 23 in Pabradė, a town in eastern Lithuania on the border with Belarus. September 23 is Lithuania’s Day of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews. The event was held under the umbrella of the Memory Road civic initiative in cooperation with the Švenčionys Jewish Community, the Pabradė Municipal Culture Center, the Pabradė aldermanship and 6th, 7th and 8th graders from the Rytas Gymnasium in Pabradė under the tutelage of history teacher Danguolė Grincevičienė.
Participants walked the path along which Jews were marched to their deaths to the mass murder site there. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro and history teacher Danguolė Grincevičienė spoke to the students about the former Jewish community there.
A ceremony was held in Nemenčinė (Nementchin, Niemenczyn) just north of Vilnius Friday at the site of the former synagogue to remember the approximately 500 Jews from that once-thriving shtetl murdered in the Holocaust.
Those attending the ceremony included Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, Tammy Nguyen representing the US embassy, Lithuanian MP Rita Tamašunienė and Vilnius regional administration mayor Robertas Duchnevičius, among others. Students from the Sholem Aleichem school in Vilnius staged brief presentations. The participants proceeded on to the mass murder site several kilometers away where Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom prayed for the victims.
In deep sadness we report the death of Fania Brantsovskaya on September 22 in Vilnius. She was born in 1922.
Fania was a Jewish partisan who originally served as a courier. Several films have been made about her life. She was one of only a handful of Jewish partisans who remained in Lithuania after the Holocaust. In her later years she continued to speak out publicly and teach younger generations about what happened in Lithuania.
Our deepest condolences to her family and many friends.