The Judaica Research Institute at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library in Vilnius will host a seminar to celebrate the life of Litvak writer Grigoriy Kanovitch on Wednesday, May 15.
Time: 11:00 A.M., Wednesday, May 15
Place: Events hall, Martynas Mažvydas National Library, Vilnius
Last Wednesday Lithuanian Jewish Community programs director Žana Skudovičienė invited so-called was children, now senior citizens, to a commemoration and celebration of the surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies in 1945.
As in past years, the LJC invited Holocaust victims and our veterans to celebrate the end of the Holocaust in early May, on Victory Day, celebrated on May 8 and 9.
Participants lit candles in memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the victims of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 and in hope for the safe return of Hamas’s Israeli hostages.
Liba Britanishkina and Samuil Retznik, both now in their nineties but still extraordinarily active, and our centenarians Jewish partisan Fania Bratzovskaya and Aleksandr Asovski, were singled out for special attentions and presented gifts and flowers by LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky who visited them personally.
Archaeological digs have resumed at the Great Synagogue site in Vilnius this summer. With no local press coverage the team of archaeologists placed blinds around the eastern edge of what was a school and are excavating the fill used to protect the discovery of the bimah made several years ago. In past years South African Litvak Jon Seligman from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Hartford University and biblical archaeologist Richard Freund led the dig. Richard Freund passed away in 2022 at the age of 67.
While air-raid sirens blared in Israel to mark the Israeli Holocaust remembrance day Yom haShoah, in Lithuania a cantor performed kaddish for the dead. Beyond remembering the victims, the day also commemorates the Jewish heroes, the partisans who took up arms against the Nazis in World War II, as well as the prisoners of the ghettos who undertook spiritual resistance, creating literature, art, plays and music, in part laying the foundation for the future Jewish state. This commemorative day has never been more important and meaningful than it is today, where we see daily outbreaks of anti-Semitism around the world. Thank you to everyone who took part in our humble commemoration.
#IzraelioAmbasadaLietuvoje #JAVambasadaLietuvoje #NyderlandųKaralystėsAmbasada #PrancūzijosAmbasadaLietuvoje #VilniausŠolomoAleichemoORTgimnazija
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 Ilan Club for children ages 7 to 12 is open again every Saturday, passing on Litvak traditions, offering a place for meeting like-minded friends and loads of fun activities. The club will now be open starting at 12:00 noon on Saturdays at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Contact Žana Skudovičienė for more information at zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
A plaque commemorating Herman Perelstein was unveiled in Kaunas Wednesday. He was the celebrated founder of the Ąžuoliukas boys’ choir and would’ve celebrated his 100th birthday last year. Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, the makers of the plaque and a representative from the city of Kaunas spoke at the unveiling ceremony.
The Kaunas Jewish Community invites you to a ceremony to unveil a plaque commemorating Herman Perelstein this Wednesday.
Last year we celebrated the 100th birthday of the amazingly talented teacher and professor Herman Perelstein. His Ąžuoliukas boys and young men’s choir became and is a Lithuanian cultural phenomenon.
The plaque commemorating this Lithuanian musical legend was made by Gediminas Pašvenskas and will be located on the building where Perelstein lived, which now houses the Museum of the Amsterdam School, at Vytauto prospect no. 58 in Kaunas. The unveiling ceremony will include a performance by the Varpelis boys’ choir. Everyone is welcome.
Time: 12:00 noon, Wednesday, April 24
Place: Vytauto prospect no. 58, Kaunas
The fourth Nechama Lifshitz Song Contest is to be held from October 27 to 30 in Vilnius with vocalists between the ages of 10 and 35 competing. As in past contests, there will be two categories for competition: classical music for singers aged 10 to 20 and popular music for ages 10 to 35.
Applications may be made till July 1. For more information and to register, see here: https://www.competition.lt/registracija/
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.
Wednesday evening the 80th anniversary of the Kinder Aktion in the Kaunas ghetto was marked in the Slobodka neighborhood of Kaunas where the ghetto gates once stood. Around 1,700 children and elderly were rounded up and murdered.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said the records for prisoners in the Kaunas ghetto had been lost and it wasn’t known exactly how many people were imprisoned there and murdered.
Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas recalled some children were smuggled out of the ghetto in bags of potatoes.
This week will mark the tenth anniversary of the death of long-serving chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Simon Alperovitch. Come pay your respects, share your memories and take a look at the documentary film “Aš kažkaip laimingas žmogus” [Somehow I’m a Happy Man] made by Junona Berznicki and Gintarė Zakarauskaitė.
Time: 1:00 P.M., Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Place: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
For more information, contact Žana at (+370) 678 81514 or zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
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.
Faina Kukliansky and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community wish Josif Burshtein a very happy birthday. Formerly chairman of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community, Josif remains an extremely active and important member of the Community and a member of the LJC executive board. We wish you great health, strength, happiness and the joy of life. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
March 13, 2024
As part of his visit to Paris Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda attended Tuesday in Boulogne-Billancourt the unveiling ceremony of the renewed plaque to Jacques Lipchitz, a Litvak and one of the most prominent cubist sculptors.
At the ceremony Nausėda said despite the fact he lived and worked in Paris, Lipchitz never forgot Vilnius, Lithuania or Lithuanian artists, to whom he referred to his letters as his “dear fellow countrymen,” and whom he mentored and supported when they fled to the West.
“Today we remember Lipchitz with gratitude as ‘the sculptor from Lithuania,’ a great artist who drew on his roots, his love for Lithuania and Lithuanian folk-art to create timeless masterpieces for the whole of humanity,” Nausėda said.
Full press release here.
The Kupiškis regional government staged an event to remember local Righteous Gentiles on March 14, the day before the official Lithuanian day of remembrance, called “Remembering the Rescuers of Jews from the Kupiškis Region.” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman and Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein attended.
Also attending were Virginija Bunevičiūtė, assistant for cultural projects at the Israeli embassy, and the Lithuanian prime minister’s advisor on cultural affairs Gabrielė Žaidytė, grandson of Righteous Gentiles Vidmantas Markevičius and others.
Participants visited the graves of Markevičius’s grandparents Elena and Juozapas and he spoke about their lives there. On October 10, 1991, they met Sholom Sherenzon, whom they had rescued from the Holocaust, in Israel.
Lithuania marked the Day of Rescuers of Lithuanian Jews on March 15, added to the list of Lithuanian commemorative dates in late 2022. The Nalšia Museum held an event to celebrate this day.
Museum director Nadežda Spiridonovienė led the event and in her opening speech spoke about the facts of the Holocaust in the Švenčionys region and the title of Righteous Gentile awarded by the Yad Vashem Institute to non-Israelis who rescued people from the Holocaust.
Lithuania’s parliament chose March 15 as the day of remembrance in honor of Ona Šimaitė, the first Lithuanian to be awarded the title of Righteous Gentile on March 15, 1966.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the #ŽydiškiPašnekesiai discussion club will hold a discussion on the unusual topic “Why are Lithuanians ashamed of their Righteous Gentiles?” at 5:00 P.M. on Thursday, March 21.
This is a question which Lithuanian politicians, public figures, media and the Church have been avoiding for 33 years now. While the LJC has been calling for years for monuments to commemorate rescuers of Jews at appropriate locations in Vilnius, there has been little or no support for this from outside the Community. Will this ever change?
The discussion will touch upon another topic as well: what went into forming the morality of those who chose to rescue Jews from the Holocaust? After all, most Lithuanians remained passive observers.
Participants include historian Egidijus Aleksandravičius, historian and former minister of culture Darius Kuolys and LJC chairwman Faina Kukliansky. Arkadijus Vinokuras will moderate.
Time: 5:00 P.M., Thursday, March 21
Place: Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
The discussion will be streamed live via facebook: https://shorturl.at/cnzS3