Litvaks

Darna Festival to Celebrate International Day of Tolerance

Darna Festival to Celebrate International Day of Tolerance

The Lithuanian Jewish Community in concert with the Cvi Park enterprise again invite you to the Darna Festival of live music, poetry and photographic exhibits to celebrate UNESCO’s International Day of Tolerance.

The program includes an exhibit of photographs by Antanas Sutkus, Bartosz Frątczak and Andrey Kezzyn, snacks and drinks with live music at the Cvi Parkas kiosk in Petras Cvirka Square across the street from the LJC, a performance by students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, a performance by Australian vocalist and musician Skye Magnus, Algis Davidavičius speaking on the topic of tolerance, poetry by Indrė Valantinaitė, piano music by Darius Mažintas and Duettissimo with Glebas Pyšniakas playing cello and Dalia Dedinskaitė on violin.

Cvi Parkas will serve vegetable dishes and desserts, natural wine and craft beer for customers. The event itself is free and open to the public. It starts around 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, November 16, on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.

Attendees Sing Israeli Anthem at Art Exhibit Opening

Attendees Sing Israeli Anthem at Art Exhibit Opening

Visitors had the chance to delve into the world of renowned Litvak artist Simon Karczmar and his artist son Natan last Tuesday evening in Vilnius where a new exhibit of works opened at the Old Town Hall.

The artwork features a romanticized take on daily life in the Dievenishok (Dieveniškės) shtetl and the Bohemian life in Paris.

Attendees were unable to escape the present, however–the brutal war and hostages taken–and sang the Israeli national anthem, HaTikva, “The Hope,” in solidarity with all our friends and family in the Jewish homeland.

Am Yisrael khai.

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Ąžuoliukas Choir at Concert Celebrating 100th Birthday of Herman Perelstein

Ąžuoliukas Choir at Concert Celebrating 100th Birthday of Herman Perelstein

The Ąžuoliukas choir performed at an event held by the Kaunas Jewish Community, the Kaunas city municipality and the Kaunas State Philharmonic to celebrate the 100th birthday of the late Herman Perelstein, the founder of the choir, at the Kaunas State Philharmonic on the evening of November 6, 2023. A short video filmed by a member of the audience has been posted to youtube, viewable below of the choir’s performance with Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas’s introductory address.

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Shavl Kinder Aktion Remembered

Shavl Kinder Aktion Remembered

On November 6, 1943, around 725 Jewish children were abducted from the Šiauliai (Shavl) ghetto and sent to their deaths in Auschwitz.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, chairmen from the Šiauliai, Kaunas, Palanga, Panevėžys and Švenčionys Jewish Communities, Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg-Silverstein, German ambassador Cornelius Zimmermann, Lithuanian MPs and members of the Jewish Community and general public and students and teachers came together to mark the 80th anniversary of this atrocity in Šiauliai November 6.

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Kaunas Jewish Community Holding Concert to Commemorate Herman Perelstein

Kaunas Jewish Community Holding Concert to Commemorate Herman Perelstein

The Kaunas Jewish Community is holding a concert to celebrate the 100th birthday of Herman Perelstein, the renowned choir director and professor. The concert and birthday party is being called Šefas, Lithuanian for boss. It happens at 7:00 P.M. Monday, November 6, at the Kaunas State Philharmonic, Ožeškienės street no. 12, Kaunas. It will include a performance by the Ąžuoliukas boys choir Perelstein founded, other performances and recollections from students about the man. It is free and open to the public. The Kaunas Jewish Community thanks the Kaunas city municipality and Goodwill Foundation for making this event possible.

Grosse Aktion Marked in Kaunas

Grosse Aktion Marked in Kaunas

Members of the Kaunas Jewish Community and the general public turned out on the last weekend in October to mark the anniversary of the Grossaktion, the mass murder operation during which around 10,000 Jews were taken from the Kaunas ghetto and murdered at the Ninth Fort in a 25-hour period on October 28 and 29, 1941.

The entire population of the Kaunas ghetto was assembled on Democrat Square inside the ghetto where Gestapo officer Helmut Rauca personally selected many of the victims. Rauca later found refuge in Canada, where he opened a holiday resort on a lake in Ontario. He was never tried.

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Simon Karczmar Exhibit Opens

Simon Karczmar Exhibit Opens

Photo: Left: Simon Karczmar and wife

The Old Town Hall in Vilnius will open an exhibit of paintings by Litvak artist Simon Karczmar (1903-1982) at 6:00 P.M. on Monday, November 6. Originally from Dieveniškės, Lithuania, Karczmar moved to Jerusalem later. The exhibit runs till November 30.

Šiauliai Ghetto Doctor’s Testimony Recalls Drowning “Illegal” Newborns

Šiauliai Ghetto Doctor’s Testimony Recalls Drowning “Illegal” Newborns

Photo: Šiauliai ghetto territory in 1988, unknown photographer, courtesy Ninth Fort Museum.

by Kristina Tamelytė, LRT.lt, October 15, 2023

“A young girl had to be killed so we decided to drown her,” doctor Aharon Pitsk wrote in his diary in 1942. He died just before the Šiauliai [Shavl] ghetto was “liquidated” with surviving ghetto prisoners sent on to Dachau and Stutthof. Šiauliai had a Jewish population of over 8,000 people before the Holocaust and only a few hundred survived.

The Nazis issued an order it was illegal for Jews to procreate so a newborn was a danger to the family, the community and everyone. Unborn children also posed a danger so ghetto officials encouraged and demanded women get abortions. This was considered the lesser evil, the death of one person instead of several. The children who were born were subject to poisoning. This often wasn’t lethal so “a more effective method” was found.

Pitsk called Lithuania “my homeland” in his diary.

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Condolences

With deep sadness we report the death of Ida Vileikienė on October 17. She was born in 1942 in the Šiauliai ghetto. The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends our deepest condolences to her widower Petras, daughter Svajonė and son Donatas.

Quiz Series: Israeli Victories

Quiz Series: Israeli Victories

This Sunday’s semi-regular quiz will be dedicated to hope. For the second week Israel is at war with the Hamas terrorist organization. Although many expect victory for Israel, many also expect it to be long in coming. This illustrates well the millennia-long history of the Jews which has been victorious but also very painful.

We invite everyone to come take part in the quiz, but also to spend some time together and talk. As usual, actor, writer and journalist Arkadijus Vinokuras will be master of ceremonies. The event will be streamed on facebook.

Time: 2:00 P.M., Sunday, October 22
Location: Bagel Shop Café

Fayerlakh Fundraiser for Israel

Fayerlakh Fundraiser for Israel

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh invite you to a concert including performances by Rafailas Karpis with Darius Mažintas, Arkadijus Gotesmanas with Michailas Bolšunas and students from the Sholem Aleichem school.

All funds collected will go to Israeli victims of the brutal war underway through the agency of the Litvak community in Israel.

Time: 3:00 P.M., Sunday, October 29
Location: the dance theater at the Mykolas Konstantinas Čiurlionis Art School, Kosciuškos street no. 11, Vilnius

To register or find out more, contact Larisa Vyšniauskienė by calling+370 687 79309.

Direct donations for victims of the war in Israel may be made through the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s bank account LT097044060000907953 by indicating “MES KARTU” in the line or window for showing the purpose of the bank transfer.

Condolences

We are deeply saddened to report the death of Ida Vileikienė, a long-time member of the Šiauliai Jewish Community. The Šiauliai Jewish Community sends our deepest condolences to her husband Petras, daughter Svajonė and grandson Donatas.

Šiauliai Jewish Community

 

Statement by Lithuanian Jewish Community, All 32 Constituent Members, about the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania

Statement by Lithuanian Jewish Community, All 32 Constituent Members, about the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania

When terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 the world witnessed acts of incomprehensible brutality where women, children, the disabled and the elderly were taken hostage and murdered, taken hostage and used as human shields, and publicly tortured and executed.

We say with no reservations at all that Israel is a sovereign state. No one has the right to attack Israel, to invade Israel’s territory and to murder the people of Israel. There can be no justification nor mercy of any kind for the murderers.

Today, 50 years later, the words of beloved Israeli prime minister Golda Meir sound prophetic: we had a secret weapon in the war: there was no alternative. Again Israel is fighting for survival.

This brutal war is especially painful to the members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, there is no Jewish family in Lithuania whose members haven’t been touched by these terrific events. Our close relatives are fighting on the front lines, healing the wounded, rescuing people buried in rubble, helping those who are stuck and who could die. We are extremely proud of them.

Our thoughts and hearts are with our parents, brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren and friends who remain in Israel. With every person fighting for our historical homeland. With everyone who is experiencing the horror and loss.

Unfortunately it isn’t just our relatives in Israel who have found themselves in danger, but also in Lithuania. In the country where we were born, grew up and work, the country which we love, whose citizens we are, anti-Semitism is spreading, not just on the social media and at protests, but from the podium at the Lithuanian parliament, and even children are being attacked: they are being threatened and hurt on purpose. Yesterday a Bolt taxi driver of dark complexion who didn’t speak Lithuanian asked a minor, a child, what his ethnicity was, and when he found out his passenger was Jewish, he refused to take him to school. This is certainly not the only and not the worst incident, but it’s very illustrative of the situation.

These kinds of incidents make our community feel unsafe, but we are concentrated and unified, we are unified both by our thousands of years of history, but also by the future.

We are inn close cooperation with the Lithuanian Police Department and other security structures. Ee are in continual contact with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lithuanian embassy to Israel and international Jewish organizations. We are exchanging information and sharing data.

Despite the shock of it all, we are striving to help Lithuanian citizens stranded in Israel as well, and to help Israeli citizens in Lithuania to fly home. We are providing information, consulting, helping to provide solutions to the unexpected problems which have come up all at once.

We thank Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda, speaker of parliament Viktorija Čmilyte-Nielsen and prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė for the firm support for Israel and the Lithuanian Jewish Community they have expressed. We are very encouraged Lithuania has condemned unequivocally the actions of the terrorists and has stood for the right and just side.

We are extraordinarily grateful to the people of Lithuania as well who have sent us their messages of condolence and support and who are praying for our brothers and sisters taken hostage by the terrorists. At the same time we caution people should assess critically the information they receive and only share news from official Israeli institutions and agencies.

Am Yisral khai. The people of Israel live.

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

Event to Mark 80th Anniversary of Kinder Aktion in Šiauliai Ghetto

Event to Mark 80th Anniversary of Kinder Aktion in Šiauliai Ghetto

On November 5, 1943, the Kinder Aktion, one of the most brutal Holocaust crimes perpetrated in Lithuania, was carried out in the Šiauliai ghetto. The mass murder operation aimed at Jewish children took 725 of them and they were sent to Auschwitz in cattle cars where they were murdered. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Šiauliai City and Šiauliai Regional Jewish Communities invite you to remember and commemorate the victims of this crime.

The event begins at 12:00 noon on November 5 at the stone monument on the corner of Trakų and Ežero streets marking the location of one of the former gates to the ghetto. At 12:30 P.M. a procession leads from there to the Chaim Frankel villa. At 1:00 P.M. there will be a ceremony at the villa to remember the children murdered. The villa is located at Vilniaus street no. 74 in Šiauliai. This will include the opening of a joint exhibition by the Šiauliai City Jewish Community and Yad Vashem museum of photographs of the child victims of the Kinder Aktion.

Please note: Those wishing to attend the commemoration on November 5 are asked to register by sending an e-mail to info@lzb.lt.

We Stand with Israel Meeting in Šiauliai

We Stand with Israel Meeting in Šiauliai

Šiauliai Jewish Community chairman Sania Kerbelis said he was grateful so many people responded to the call to attend a gathering to show support for Israel on October 9, even though the meeting was only announced a few hours before it took place.

“We are all suffering, we all have relatives in Israel, many of us have relatives in the army who are engaged in combat. We are all worried about our loved ones and the cities are being shot up. The deaths are senseless. We are calling constantly and they keep trying to calm us down, but you know what is really going on. I was in Israel in May and we got caught in the fighting then, several hundred rockets were shot from Gaza. There were casualties but the [Iron] Dome protected many locations. But this time they also crossed the border, slaughtered people, slaughtered children. It associates in my mind that we’re preparing on November 5 to mark the Kinder Aktion. We keep saying ‘Never again.’ Usually other people, non-Jews, think subconsciously ‘never again’ [means ‘no more’] of something, but Jews subconsciously have it that after the Holocaust these kinds of things should be impossible in the civilized world now. Yet they are happening,” Sania Kerbelis said.

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Intellectual Heritage of Vilner Jews

Intellectual Heritage of Vilner Jews

The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities invite you to attend an international conference called “The Intellectual Heritage of the Jews of Vilnius” on October 10 and 11 at the Lithuanian Academy located at Gedimino prospect no. 3 in Vilnius.

According to the Lithuanian Academy’s press release:

“Thanks to the support of the Research Council of Lithuania, we were able to invite such world-renowned experts in Jewish history and culture as Israel Bartal, David Fishman, David Roskies, Benjamin Brown, Alex Lubotzky, Marcin Wodzinski, Jon Seligman, Avner Holtzman, Tsvia Walden, Mordechai Zalkin and others.

“The conference will also feature presentations by prominent Lithuanian scholars: Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Lara Lempertienė, Jurgita Verbickienė and doctoral student Saulė Valiūnaitė.”

A program is available in English here.

For more information, visit the Lithuanian Academy’s website here.

Discussion Club on Sukkot and Other Jewish Holidays: How Do They Compare with Lithuanian Holidays?

Discussion Club on Sukkot and Other Jewish Holidays: How Do They Compare with Lithuanian Holidays?

The 15th of Tishrei, which fell on Friday, September 29 this year, is when Sukkot, one of the more important Jewish holidays, begins. Jewish families pitch a tent or build a booth where every day, except on the Sabbath, they “dwell,” meaning they spend some time at the table inside, or spend the night in warmer climes. This is meant to remind us of the 40 years the Hebrew people dwelt in the desert following the exodus from Egypt living in tents.

The ŽydiškiPašnekesiai discussion club led by writer and journalist Arkadijus Vinokuras is inviting participants to come inside the traditional sukka this Wednesday, October 4, to talk about the Jewish holidays in the fall season.

“Sukkot is a week-long Jewish holiday which is celebrated five days after Yom Kippur. Sukkot celebrates the harvest and recalls God’s miraculous protection to the children of Israel after the exodus from Egypt. We celebrate Sukkot in a booth called a sukka decorated with vegetation and by handling the four species of vegetation,” Vinokuras said.

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