Litvaks – Page 35 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Synagogue in Žiežmariai Opens Doors

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Kaišiadorys city municipality invite the public to visit the restored synagogue in Žiežmariai, Lithuania, September 17.

As part of the European Days of Jewish Culture, the LJC is sponsoring the event in Žiežmariai to discuss the public utilization of Litvak heritage sites and the relationship between the local community and this synagogue specifically.

The event will be moderated by Martynas Užpelkis, the LJC’s heritage specialist.

Participants will include LJC chairwoman Faina, Kukliansky, Kaišiadorys mayor Vytenis Tomkus, Lithuanian heritage expert and historian Diana Varnaitė, Kaišiadorys Museum director Olijardas Lukoševičius and others.

The event begins at the synagogue at 2:00 P.M. on September 17.

2021-09-16

President’s Office to Hold Concert Commemorating 80th Anniversary of Holocaust in Lithuania

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is pleased to announce a concert by St. Christopher chamber orchestra from Vilnius and other classical, jazz and folk performers to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

Program:

Premiere of Symphony from the Jerusalem of the North by composer Jievaras Jasinskis
Special guest: Israeli multi-instrumentalist Yaron Cherniak

The concert begins at 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, September 23, in the courtyard of the President’s Office at Daukanto street no. 3 in Vilnius (gate opens at 6:00 P.M.).

Prior registration before September 20 and proof of vaccination(s) at the gate required. Register here.

2021-09-16

Invitation to Remember and Honor the Large Jewish Community of Švenčionys Murdered in the Holocaust

It has become a tradition now to meet on the first Sunday in October at the Menorah in the park in Švenčionys to remember and honor the large Jewish community of Švenčionys who had their own culture and traditions, and to remember their tragic fate.

I am please to invite everyone to attend the Holocaust commemoration at the Menorah statue in the Švenčionys city park marking the boundary of the Švenčionys ghetto. The commemoration starts at 11:00 A.M. on October 3, 2021.

Program:

2021-09-152021-10-12

Courage of Rescuers Lesson to Us All

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda held the annual ceremony at the President’s Office September 14 to award rescuers of Jews from the Holocaust and their descendants the Lithuanian Order of the Life-Saver’s Cross.

“Every September as we mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, we pay respect to memory of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens murdered during World War II. We also honor the rescuers of Jews, those people who dared oppose the occupational regime without regard to the mortal danger this posed to them and their families,” he said at the ceremony.

The Lithuanian president recalled the historical context in which these rescuers operated, with anti-Semitism dripping from the pages of the press, the mass murder of Jews underway. Despite this, they dared hide the condemned Jews and resist the occupational regime.

2021-09-142021-09-14

Concerts Celebrate Litvak and Israeli Composers

Vilnius’s St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra has concerts scheduled for September 16 at St. Kortyna’s Church in Vilnius, September 17 at the renovated synagogue in Žiežmariai and September 18 at the Red Synagogue in Joniškis to showcase the music of Litvak and modern Israeli composers and their ties with Lithuania.

More information in Lithuanian available here.

2021-09-10

Alytus Marks 80th Anniversary of Onset of Holocaust

Wednesday the city of Alytus south of Vilnius marked the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust with a procession before noon from the Old Town to a mass murder site in the Vidzgirdas Forest.

A commemoration ceremony was held at the memorial at the Holocaust site.

Jewish community members from Kaunas and Vilnius, Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, MPs, local government officials, foreign ambassadors, students from schools in the area and local residents participated.

Following the ceremony the renovated synagogue building on Kauno street was opened as the new home of the Alytus Audio-Visual Arts Center with a concert by Rakija Klezmer Orkestar.

2021-09-10

Concert to Commemorate Holocaust Victims and Vilnius Ghetto Liquidation

I am very glad that Litvak Leopold Godowsky’s sonnets 1 and 2 will reach the wider world. I would like to inform you my concert on September 23 at the Gaveau in Paris will be dedicated to Holocaust victims and to the date September 23, 1943, the date of the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto. Please find the program attached.

Sincerely yours,
Mūza Rubackytė

2021-09-10

Holocaust Mass Murder Memorial Vandalized

While Lithuanians and Litvaks spent much of June, July, August and now September of this year marking the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust in locations around the country, vandals attacked a Holocaust memorial in the Kretinga region for the second time in two years.

The memorial marks the spot where about 700 local Jews were murdered in 1941. Kretinga alderwoman Sigita Riepšaitė said the monument was first attacked two years ago just four months after it was erected, and that the cost of repairs was roughly half the total cost for the monument to begin with, which was around 900 euros.

Lithuania’s LNK News reported the alderwoman had made a police report regarding the metal plaque attached to a large stone at Kviečiai village in the Girėlė Forest. Riepšaitė said the police were taking the report seriously at least partially because this is a repeat crime.

2021-09-092021-11-18

New Jewish Calendar Available

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is happy to announce our annual Jewish calendar has been printed and is ready for distribution. This year’s calendar, for the year 5782, features the communities and people who lived in Lithuania before the Holocaust, with period photography from shtetls across the country. The format this year is smaller and hopefully more convenient and functional but contains the features from past years, including local times for Sabbath, fasts and holidays. It will be made available to the public starting Thursday, September 9, at the Bagel Shop Café.

2021-09-07

Molėtai Marks 80th Anniversary of Holocaust with Commemorative March, New Monument

The Lithuanian city of Molėtai, located about 60 miles north of the capital Vilnius, marked the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust on August 29. On that date in 1941 more than half the population of Molėtai, the local Jewish community, was murdered.

Five years ago a large Jewish commemorative march was held in Molėtai, attracting international attention. Tzvi Kritzer, the organizer of that event, was made an honorary citizen of Molėtai by the local municipality.

This year’s event began with the unveiling of a monument at the site where the town’s four synagogues once stood. The monument is a commemorative plaque affixed to a large field stone in the town center with a silhouette of the former synagogues and inscriptions in several languages saying this is where the synagogues once stood. Saulius Pilinkus, an art historian who was directing this event, called upon Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Molėtai regional administration mayor Saulius Jauneika, screenwriter and cartoonist Ilja Bereznickas and the creator of the plaque, Aurimas Širvys, to help in the unveiling.

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, administration mayor Saulius Jauneika and Molėtai Regional History Museum director Viktorija Kazlienė both said Molėtai is striving to restore historical memory.

2021-09-032021-10-01

European Day of Jewish Culture Events Program

The Lithuanian Jewish Community again marks the European Day of Jewish Culture with a series of events on Jewish culture and the Litvak legacy to contributions to Lithuanian history and culture.

The theme this year is dialogue.

Please register, space is limited.

2021-09-02

Vilnius City Council Says Palace of Sports Reconstruction Must Go On

Photo by Saulius Žiūra

In response to a Government decision not to go forward with plans to reconstruct the Palace of Sports in Vilnius, the Vilnius City Council adopted a resolution today [August 25] urging the Government and other state institutions to continue with the reconstruction project to build the Congress Center [convention center] meeting international standards and important to the nation as a whole.

Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius tabled the resolution and said: “It is very important for Vilnius that the central part of the city be vital, and the renovated facility would allow for exploiting the potential of conference tourism. There is a real lack of a conference center in Vilnius. Maybe the Government has a different vision, but I would highly urge to continue the project which the capital, business and all of Lithuania need.”

The city council pointed out the capital has set for itself the goal of building a conference venue in its general plan and other strategic documents which could appear following reconstruction of this protected building with unique architecture.

2021-08-272021-09-10

Five Years On Molėtai Marches Again

Five years ago Marius Ivaškevičius wrote of the need to remember the exterminated Jewish community of Molėtai, a town about 60 miles north of Vilnius. His call to mobilize with a march through the town became the second-most popular item ever on this website (the most popular being a reprint of an article about the South African Jewish community which continues to attract hits years later). The march itself was a watershed moment in Lithuanian Holocaust consciousness, drawing ethnic Lithuanians from around the country and the world together with Lithuanian Jews and Jews from South Africa, Uruguay, Great Britain, the USA and other countries. Several thousand people turned up on the town square and listened to the different speeches before marching to the mass murder site across town there.

The march was covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Jerusalem Post and other publications.

The march is to be repeated this year. August 29 is the date all Jews from Molėtai were murdered. On that “Day of Wrath” they were marched under armed guard two kilometers from one of the synagogues to the killing ground.

2021-08-262021-09-03

A Lecture and a Prize

Jon Seligman of the Israeli Antiquities Authority delivered a lecture called “The Great Synagogue of Vilnius: Finds from the Past and a Vision of the Future” in the evening on August 24 in the Jascha Heifetz hall on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky made use of the occasion to present the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History commemorative medallion to Jon Seligman for his work keeping Litvak traditions, learning and the Litvak cultural legacy alive.

2021-08-26

The Great Synagogue of Vilnius: Finds from the Past and a Vision for the Future

At 6:00 P.M., August 24, Israeli Antiquities Authority department of digs and research director Jon Seligman will deliver a lecture called “The Great Synagogue of Vilnius: Finds from the Past and a Vision for the Future” at the Lithuanian Jewish Community located at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. The lecture will be in English and is open to the public.

Archeological investigation resumed this year at the synagogue site on August 9 and the team of archaeologists including Seligman have begun fully uncovering the remains of the bima and aron kodesh there. They plan to uncover the main floor and the southeast and northwest wall sections as well.

Event announcement here.

2021-08-172021-08-17

Condolences

Moishe Gegužinskis passed away in Frankfurt at the age of 97 on June 7. He was born in Kaunas in 1924. He was part of the resistance in the Kaunas ghetto and was deported to Dachau. He came back to Lithuania after liberation and lived and worked in Vilnius. He published his memoirs in Yiddish called “My Memories: The Tragic and Tumultuous Life Path of a Litvak.” He went to live in Germany in 1997. Our deepest condolences to his immediate family and many friends and relatives.

2021-08-12

Ceremony to Unveil Plaque Commemorating Jascha Heifetz

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to attend the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the 120th anniversary this year of the birth of Vilnius native and violin master Jascha Heifetz. The unveiling will take place at 5:00 P.M. on August 19 in the foyer on the third floor at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. Event will take place in full conformity with whatever healthcare rules are in place at the time for public gatherings.

2021-08-10

News from the Kaunas Jewish Community

I am endlessly grateful for the friendship and fruitful cooperation from the very beginning with the Kaunas 2022 team (and especially the Memory Bureau team) and I am thankful for the honor bestowed me as a member of the consultation committee for the Litvak Forum to take place in 2022.

I am so very glad because it is always pleasant to communicate with open, tolerant people who are hungry for knowledge and who are striving to insure our society might also become more open, more tolerant and more accepting.

I am glad because we are joined in a common goal: to encourage recognition of the multicultural history of our city and to appreciate what we have, while not averting our gaze from painful episodes.

2021-08-09

Panevėžys Jewish Community Receives Visitors

With virus restrictions eased, the Panevėžys Jewish Community received some foreign visitors interested to learn more about their relatives, their biographies and their fate.

Yeir and his wife, both from Israel, visited us on July 25. He’s the great-grandson of famous Panevėžys rabbi Rabinovitch, the ilui who lived and worked here for more than 20 years. Yeir was keen to learn more about religious life in Panevėžys in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He experienced the city and visited Jewish heritage sites here.

According to archive documents from 1857, eight synagogues in Panevėžys are mentioned, with a few more synagogues located in private residences. Religious life in Panevėžys is the subject of a forthcoming book called “Žvilgsnis į praeitį: Panevėžio žydų istorija ir palikimas” [A Glimpse into the Past: The History and Legacy of the Jews of Panevėžys], already printed and soon to be launched.

2021-08-09