Litvaks – Page 27 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Dybbuk Exhibit in Jerusalem

The Jerusalem Theater Archive and Museum is hosting an exhibit to mark the 100th anniversary of the staging of S. An-sky’s “Dybbuk” at the Habima Theater in Moscow. The exhibit opened August 8 at Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, according to Birobaidzhaner Shtern.

An-sky’s “Dybbuk, or, Between Two Worlds” was written in Yiddish. The Moscow production was translated to Hebrew by Evgeny Vakhtangov and Haim-Nahman Bialik. The Vilner Troupe presented the play in Yiddish in Warsaw in 1920, directed by Dovid Herman. The Polish film “Dybbuk” directed by Michał Waszyński was shot in 1937 and marks the birth of Yiddish cinema. The Hebrew-language production in Moscow, however, is considered special because its success became a kind of calling card for Habima, which in turn eventually became the National Theater of Israel.

Full article in Yiddish here.

2022-08-222022-08-22

Shalom in All the World Events in Klaipėda

The International Festival of Jewish culture “Shalom in All The World” returns to Klaipėda.

This year, the International Festival dedicated to learning about the history, culture, art, and traditions of the Jewish society will be held for the second time and is part of the program of events dedicated to the 770th anniversary of the city of Klaipėda. During the events of the Festival, the aim will be to emphasize the historical roots of the Jewish society in Memel, specifically the contribution of the Jewish residents to the development of the city in that time

Full of events, an enthralling and significant Festival will again invite everyone, regardless of their nationality, religion, beliefs, to meet at the concerts, talks, movie screenings, exhibitions, creative workshops, traditional Jewish dance lessons, excursions.

Youth, adults, families, regardless of age, education, interests are very welcome! All events are free of charge! Be with us and among us!

Full program here.

2022-08-182022-08-19

News from the Panevėžys Jewish Community

Every month the Panevėžys Jewish Community celebrates its members’ birthdays and anniversaries. In July and August we congratulated Diana Narevič and Rimantas Rimkus and Jurijus and Svetlana Grafman on their anniversaries.

We also provided and provide material support to our members.

Despite summer vacations, cultural and athletic events are being held and members are participating in Panevėžys regional events and scouting activities.

In the summer we usually have a large number of guests who care about their family histories. They often talk about their families over a cup of tea at the Panevėžys Jewish Community. One of the newer stories is about a family who emigrated to South Africa, then later between 1900 and 1910 they went their separate ways to Canada, China, England and Israel. They came back to Lithuania to learn about the former shtetl where their forebears once lived.

2022-08-18

Happy Birthday to Semionas Finkelšteinas

We wish a very happy milestone birthday to Semionas Finkelšteinas, modern founder and president of the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club and head of Lithuanian Makabi delegations abroad. We wish you great health, happiness and a continued sharp wit. Mazl tov. Bis 120!

2022-08-17

Lithuanian News Site on Pakruojis Synagogue

Pakruojis Synagogue is a Monument to All the Jewish Houses of Prayer Which Stood in Lithuania

15min.lt, reprinted from a facebook user

It’s believed there were about 500 or 600 different Jewish houses of prayer in our country, although no one knows the exact number. There might have been more than 100 synagogues in Vilnius alone.

Most of Lithuania’s synagogues were wooden, but today we only have about a dozen. On the other hand, no other European state has so many surviving wooden synagogues.

The question of restoring these historically and culturally very valuable wooden buildings is coming up more and more. One wonderful example of a restored wooden synagogue stands in the town of Pakruojis. After walking through its interior and getting a closer look at its careful restoration, I was pleasantly surprised at what had been returned from the ravages of time, people’s neglect and even fires.

Full text in Lithuanian here.

2022-08-16

Father and Trainer Eduardas Šeras Talks of Son Who Won Silver at Maccabiah

I’d like to present a person who, as Lithuanian Makabi president Semionas Finkelšteinas says, performed a small miracle at the recently finished World Maccabiah Games in Israel.

Daniel Šer is the silver medal winner in the junior chess competition. Daniel is 13, but he was playing against 16, 17 and 18-year-olds. A silver medal which just missed becoming gold by a hair, since Daniel collected the same number of points with the gold medal winner from the USA, and according to the rules, a tie like that means other indicators are taken into account, something is always kind of a lottery, and this time it wasn’t in our favor.

It was a great competition, very good results and a very high assessment not just for the medal won, but also because news reached us that the organizers of the competition and the chief referee sent the final results to the International Chess Federation along with the request to present Daniel the title of candidate master for his excellent playing in the competition.

2022-08-152022-08-15

Jerusalem of the North Orchestra Camp

The Jerusalem of the North youth orchestra camp will take place from August 15 to 25 at the Preila Library in Preila on the Curionian Spit in Lithuania under the tutelage of renowned Lithuanian conductor professor Donatas Katkus, Martynas Švegžda von Bekker, Dalia Dedinskaitė, Gleb Pyšniak and Darius Mažintas. The 10-day orchestra workshop will conclude in a joint concert with Vilnius’s St. Christopher Orchestra and the new orchestra made up of young participants, performing a jointly-prepared program of Jewish music.

“The Jewish culture of education means the book, music and sports. It’s not for nothing that the Jewish people have been literate for more than 5,000 years. The Lithuanian Jewish Community is happy the orchestra convened at this camp will perform Jewish music. That there aren’t many Jewish children attending the camp this year is, I think, a tourism mistake. Israeli families would love to vacation in Nida while their children attend camp and learn. There should be greater state support brought to these sorts of private and NGO initiatives. The children and adults who will prepare this concert will learn about Jewish composers. We all know how to talk about tolerance, but not all of us know how practice tolerance through deeds. The LJC and the orchestra are doing tolerance, which is what the state institutions should be doing,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky explained.

2022-08-122022-08-12

Litvak Descendant Jenny Kagan Opens Interactive Holocaust Exhibit in Kaunas

Litvak descendant and artist Jenny Kagan has opened an exhibit telling her family’s story during the Holocaust. The “Out of Darkness” exhibit’s main motif is that of a box, the one in which her parents Joseph and Margaret hid, among the few survivors of the Kaunas ghetto. Through interactive objects and audio/video installations the exhibit tells her family history. She told BNS she wanted to provide exhibit goers with a real emotional experience. She added that while the story is a narrative, she comes from a theatrical background and decided to make the experience a theatrical one. The exhibit was first installed in the atmospheric Viaduct Theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2016.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2022-08-10

Condolences

Izraela Blataitė, honorary citizen of Šarnelė, Lithuania, has passed away in Israel. We extend our heartfelt condolences to her family and loved ones.

2022-08-08

Arkadijus Vinokuras’s Discussion Club on Wins at World Maccabiah Games

The #ŽydiškiPašnekesiai discussion club moderated by Arkadijus Vinokuras will meet on August 10 to discuss the recent victories by Lithuanian Makabi Athletic Club athletes at the World Maccabiah Games in Israel.

The Lithuanian team made one of its best showings ever, winning 6 medals last month.

The club was active in interwar Lithuania from 1920 to 1940. It was originally founded in 1916. In 1926 the club had 83 branches throughout Lithuania, encompassing 4,000 members. It published a newspaper twice per month and had its own sports stadium. The club was reconstituted on January 8, 1989, at a general meeting at the calculator and business machine factory in Vilnius.

Speakers will include Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club president Semionas Finkelšteinas, table-tennis medal winner many times over Rafael Gimelštein and others.

The panel discussion will be held in Lithuanian at the Bagel Shop Café at 5:00 P.M. on August 10.

2022-08-02

Video from Opening of Exhibit of Interwar Litvak Photographers Mausha Levi and Shimon Bayer

The Maironis Museum of Lithuanian Literature and Faina Borovsky organized an exhibit of the photography of interwar Litvak photographers Mausha Levi and Shimon Bayer which opened July 28 at the museum located at the Old Town Square, Rotušės aikštė no. 13, in Kaunas. The exhibit is part of the Kaunas, Capital of European Culture 2022 program. The video below shows the opening of the exhibit, visited by both Gercas Žakas, chairman of the Kaunas Jewish Community, and Robert Gilchrist, US ambassador to Lithuania.

2022-08-022022-08-02

Litvak Descendant Jenny Kagan Comes Back to Kaunas: How Can You Live Here When You Know Any Passerby Might Have Beaten Your Father to Death?

Lithuanian state radio and television has published an interview with Jenny Kagan:

As Margarita Štromaitė, born in Kaunas, wrote in her memoirs, her future husband she met in the ghetto, Juozas Kagan and his mother Mira were rescued by Vytautas Rinkevičius’s family: “Regardless of the deadly danger, which threatened his entire family, he set up a hiding place for us in the attic of the forge. It was where the straw was, separated by an imaginary wall.” Twenty years after the Holocaust Margarita met her only surviving relative, her brother Aleksandras Štromas. In 1965 she and Joseph had a daughter, Eugenia. Or Jenny.

Jenny Kagan will be in Kaunas beginning August 4 for the exhibit “From Darkness” which is part of the Kaunas Capital of European Culture 2022 program, which will present her family history in subtle artistic techniques including text and audio, revealing previously unknown pages from the story of Kaunas.

This is also the story of the humanness and light we require to survive as a civilization. The exhibit will be held at Gimnazijos street no. 4 in Kaunas as part of the Histories Festival of the Kaunas Capital of European Culture 2022 program.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

2022-08-02

Panevėžys Jewish Community Celebrates 30th Birthday

On July 24 members, partners and friends of the Panevėžys Jewish Community gathered to celebrate the organization’s 30th birthday. Chairman Gennady Kofman thanked active members of the community in carrying on Jewish tradition and preserving Jewish heritage and gave special thanks to supporters and partners for their contribution in expanding the Community’s activities.

Community members recalled how the Community was formed and paid respects to its first chairman, the journalist Anatolijus Fainblumas, and others. Sincere words of gratitude went to Righteous Gentile Jonas Markevičius’s son Vidmantas and daughter Janina, who have helped promote the Community as well in the local community. Thanks were given to executive board members Jurijus Grafman and his wife Svetlana. Deep gratitude was expressed for the Lithuanian Jewish Community and its chairwoman Faina Kukliansky.

Chairman Kofman told the 30-year story of the Community. On July 8, 1991, the Panevėžys Jewish Community was officially reconstituted and articles of incorporation filed at the Panevėžys municipality. Goals and duties were set then: “To develop the national consciousness of members, to raise the level of culture and spirituality, to conduct our activities based on exemplary behavior and sincerity, to cooperate with all sorts of democratic organizations and religious confessions,” etc.

2022-08-01

Emannuel Levinas’s Grandson Thinks This Time Best since World War II

Although the war in the Ukraine continues, David Hansel, the grandson of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas with Lithuanian roots, currently visiting Kaunas, thinks things have never been so peaceful as now. He rejects claims of genocide in the Ukraine by either side in the conflict. In an interview with Lithuanian state radio and television, he shared his ideas about the country of Lithuania, where his family members were murdered in the Holocaust. He attended a five-day series of events about his grandfather held in Kaunas by the Emmanuel Levinas Center of the Lithuanian Health Sciences University and by other faculties at that university and a French organization. Although he says he isn’t a philosopher, he felt the duty to protect his grandfather’s legacy. He said he is a practicing Jew, but that it’s based on what he learned from his grandfather.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

2022-07-28

Limmud in the Woods 2022

The annual international Limmud conference will be held August 19 and 20 in the woods of south Estonia. To register, go to the Limmud page here. For more information, check out Limmud’s facebook page here.

2022-07-28

Lithuanian Makabi Athletes Happy with Showing at World Maccabiah Games

from lrytas.lt

Athletes from the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club have concluded competition at the 21st World Maccabiah Games in Israel which ran from July 12 to July 26 with around 10,000 athletes from over 60 countries. Lithuanian Makabi athletes won 6 medals, making these games among the most successful since Lithuanian Makabi was reconstituted. Table tennis player Gerda Šišanovaitė won a gold medal in singles competition and Ignas Šišanovas took silver also in singles matches. Swimmer Michailas Trusovas is coming home with silver in 50-meter freestyle competition. The youngest member of the delegation, 13-year-old Eduardas Šeras, won silver in heated chess matches in the 16- to 18-year-old category.

2022-07-27

Condolences

With deep sadness we report Jakovas Mendelevskis passed away at the age of 91 on July 26. He had been deported from Lithuania by the Soviets and was a member of the minyan at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.

2022-07-27

Lithuanian Makabi Athletes Earn Medals at World Maccabiah

Congratulations to Rafael Gimelstein who took silver in tennis competitions at the World Maccabiah Games taking place in Israel, and to his proud mother Faina Kukliansky. Congratulations also to Alan Rinkevič who won silver in fencing on the international team along with athletes from France and Sweden, and a hearty congratulations to all our other Lithuanian Makabi athletes and trainers who are making such an excellent showing in so many sports.

2022-07-25

Happy Birthday to Gennady Kofman

The entire Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman a terrific milestone birthday. He has done so much to collect and share information about the city’s once numerous Jewish community, and always finds the time and energy to meet and help travellers looking for their roots and to teach school children and the wider community about the Holocaust. Mazl tov. Bis 120!

2022-07-19