Lietuvos žinios
For centuries the Jewish community was an inseparable part of Lithuania, but this isn’t completely understood now. The legacy of the once-thriving Jewish communities is not receiving the attention it’s due. Lietuvos žinios spoke with Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon about whether Lithuania is a friendly country for Jews, how our mutual understanding is evolving and what still needs to be done to improve relations.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky received the following thank-you note from the granddaughter of a Lithuanian woman who rescued Jews from the Holocaust.
Hello,
My grandmother Stasė Minelgienė (a recognized Righteous Gentile) asked me to thank you for the card [debit card] which she received as a gift. She also asked me to wish you a nice day, good health and the highest success.
Respectfully,
Her granddaughter,
N. Žvirblytė
The Destinies program of evening cultural events celebrated the birthday of Lithuanian musician and composer Dr. Leonidas Melnikas last Thursday, May 11.
The evening began at the Jascha Heifetz hall at LJC headquarters in Vilnius with the airs of a tango, an overflow crowd and the birthday boy smiling on stage. Leonidas Melnikas is a piano player, organ player, musicologist, a tenured doctor, the head of his cathedral at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater, chairman of the academy’s senate and professor. He’s also a member of the board of directors of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. He turned 60 Thursday.
The birthday celebration was part of the Destinies program of evening cultural events initiated and organized by LJC deputy chairwoman Maša Grodnikienė, who used the occasion to honor the memory of Melnikas’s father Isaiah Melnik, who would have turned 110 that same day. He was a well-known pharmacist at the Vilnius Central Pharmacy (on what is now Gedimino prospect) and at the Žvėrynas Pharmacy in Vilnius, where he made his own preparations in his time. He survived both Stutthof and Dachau. He was beloved by all and was a calm and warm person who enjoyed attending all sorts of concerts. His son Leonidas’s musical career began when his mother took him to the Ąžuoliukas school. His first teacher was the famous pianist Nadežda Duksdulskaitė. “My entire childhood was illuminated by my parents, the very best, the very wisest people, and family remains extremely important to me,” Melnikas said of himself before embarking on a performance of tango melodies with violinist Boris Traub, cellist Valentinas Kaplūnas and accordion player Gennady Savkov.
The Judaica Studies Center of the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library was officially established May 3, 2017, but will only open to the public May 22 and May 23 with several events and exhibitions.
The Center’s main function is to further research on the Jewish documentary heritage, carrying out educational and informational projects and publicizing the results. The Center is an open enterprise and aimed at educational cooperation. According to its mission statement, the Center actively publicizes information about the Jewish textual heritage at its events, in the national and international media and on the internet, and also conserves collections of modern Judaica publications.
Program:
May 22
1:00 P.M. Opening ceremony (foyer, fifth floor)
2:00 P.M. Launch of exhibit People and Books of the Strashun Library (exhibit hall, third floor)
May 23
1:00 P.M. Samuel Kassow (USA) lecture Uniqueness of Jewish Vilna (conference hall, fifth floor)
2:30 P.M. Presentation The Vilnius YIVO Project (conference hall, fifth floor)
Full announcement in Lithuanian at the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library web page here.
Vida Pulkauninkienė, coordinator of the Tolerance Education Center at the Dukstyna Primary School in Ukmergė (Vilkomir), and a group of students from the Center visited the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas May 15. They viewed the memorial exhibit there, a chronicle of events in Kaunas from 1939 to 1940, a virtual exhibit of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara’s deeds in Lithuania and an audio-visual exhibition about the daily life of Jewish refugees in Lithuania. They also learned about how Jews saved themselves, travelling to Kobe, Japan, on the visas Sugihara issued, then on to the USA, New Zealand and other countries.
Museum director Simonas Dovidavičius led the tour.
The group also visited the site of the former Slobodka ghetto in Kaunas, guided by Daiva Žemaitienė, also a Tolerance Education Center coordinator.
The Ukmergė Jewish Community set up the field trip as part of a continuing education project with financial aid from the Goodwill Foundation.
Following renovation, the wooden synagogue in Pakruojis, Lithuania, is to open its doors to the public Friday. The synagogue is to house the Pakruojis Regional Juozas Paukštelis Library. The women’s gallery and a permanent exhibition will remind visitors of Jewish life and history in the region. The Pakruojis synagogue was built in 1801 and is believed to be the oldest surviving wooden synagogue in Lithuania. It was renovated and painted in 1885.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
LitvakSIG delegation visit Tolerance Center, Vilna Gaon Museum, Carol Hoffman third from left
The Litvak genealogical web site LitvakSIG‘s board of directors have recently been travelling around Lithuania as part of their important work. The board currently includes nine members: Amy Wachs, Barry Halpern, Carol Hoffman, Dorothy Leivers, Garri Regev, Jill Anderson, Phil Shapiro, Ralph Salinger and Russ Maurer. Six of the nine board members visited Lithuania this past week to meet with archivists and members of the Vilnius and regional Jewish communities. We managed to interview Carol Hoffman at the Bagel Shop Café in Vilnius last Sunday.
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Tell us something about yourself.
My names is Carol Hoffman. I was born and raised in the United States. My father was born here in Lithuania in 1892 in Kapčiamiestis, in Yiddish it’s Kopcheve. My mother was born in the United States but her mother was born in Kapčiamiestis, in Kopcheve, in about 1858. So my entire family from my mother’s side and from my father’s side are Litvaks.
So, my entire family are Litvaks, they’re from the same place, from the same shtetl, and I was raised with a strong sense of being my brother’s keeper. I came to Israel in 1972 with three young children and a husband and we settled in the northern part of Israel. I worked as a librarian and a teacher of computer science in the university for many, many years, and I retired seven years ago when began working full-time as a volunteer for LitvakSIG. This is my seventh or eighth or ninth trip to Lithuania, I’m not sure. My first trip was in 2000. I had never been here. I met Regina Kopelevich on the border and we went to … Kopcheve and then to Vilnius. So I feel the strong sense of roots.
Litvak Cemetery Catalogue MACEVA 2016.
This Newsletter contains an overview of activities of Litvak Cemetery Catalogue MACEVA in 2016.
Švenčionys (Svintsyán). It is believed that this cemetery was established during the 15th century. This is one of the oldest and largest cemeteries of Lithuanian Jewry, encompassing an area of 39670.00m2. We had expected to find approximately 2000 graves. Our work with students has found closer to 3,000 surviving graves. Approximately 1200 tombstones still have full, or partially legible inscriptions.
Prior to World War II, the cemetery was larger, it was devastated during the war and beginning in 1941, locals began to plunder stone monuments for construction material. Many tombstones were damaged and uprooted, black marble tombstones were considered particularly desirable.
The current condition of the cemetery is mediocre.
Many of the gravestones are fully, or partially buried, giving us limited ability to access the inscriptions. Many gravestones are leaning or have already collapsed.
The city of Svencionys has no directional signs indicating the location of the cemetery. …
Full catalog here.
The organizers of the Destinies series of evening events are pleased to invite you to come celebrate the birthday of professor Leonidas Melnikas at the Lithuanian Jewish Community.
Program:
Dr. Leonidas Melnikas on piano, Boris Traub on violin, Valentinas Kaplūnas on cello, Gennady Savkov on accordion
Participating:
Silvija Sondeckienė and composer Audronė Nekrošienė-Žigaitytė, president of the Union of Lithuanian Musicians.
Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, May 11
Location: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
Event planned and moderated by Maša Grodnikienė, deputy chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community.
We have a new Litvak logo designed by Viktorija Sideraitė-Alon.
The Lithuanian Justice Ministry has granted permission to use the national Lithuanian symbol of the pillars of Gediminas as part of a Lithuanian Jewish Community logo trademark. The patent process for making the Litvak symbol a Lithuanian Jewish Community trademark is being completed right now.
The posts, pillars of columns of Gediminas was used as a coat of arms or insignia by Lithuanian grand duke Vytautas the Great beginning in 1397, following its use by his father grand duke Kęstutis, and has been employed by many other Lithuanian and Polish leaders since then. The Jewish community, living in Lithuania for approximately 700 years no, is an indivisible part of Lithuanian society in the political and historical sense. Many peoples have called Lithuania home over the centuries and the Jewish community has also made significant contributions to the state, the culture and the economy. Incorporating the pillars of Gediminas into a Litvak logo makes perfect sense and corresponds to what the current Lithuanian state openly declares, namely, pride that Lithuania has been open, tolerant and diverse over the centuries.
The Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library is hosting a presentation of the book “Dingusios tautos pėdsakais’ [Traces of a Lost People] by Antanas Žilinskas, the long-serving director of the Vilkaviškis Regional History Museum who has collected material about the Jews once resident in Vilkaviškis over many years, the contents of the book published in 2015. The event will also feature a meeting with Ralph Salinger, an Israeli historian specializing in the history of the Jews of Vilkaviškis. The public event is to be held in Lithuanian and English at 4:00 P.M. on May 12 at the library in Vilnius.
Jews were living in Vilkaviškis in the 16th century when queen Bona Sforza allotted a forest for the Jews to construct a synagogue. The Vilkaviškis synagogue appeared in 1623. There was a Jewish gymnasium in Vilkaviškis from 1919 to 1940. There were around 150 shops in the town, of which about 130 were Jewish. In 1939 there were officially 3,609 Jews living in and around the town, constituting 45 percent of the population.
On May 9 the Kaunas Jewish Community commemorated the victims of the Holocaust and World War II and recalled victory and the joy of liberation from the Nazi terror. Memories sweet, bittersweet and sad were shared by the widows and children of veterans at the evening event, and Abraham Leizerson recalled his attempts to join the war effort as a very young man. Aleksandr Rave’s song performance unified and brought together the crowd, while Lucija Laverenova unexpectedly lightened the mood with a comedy routine. Basia Šragienė helped organize the event, as she did two years ago with her husband, now the late WWII veteran Shmuel Shrage, whose bright spirit lives on in our memory.
The Ukmergė Jewish Community marked the 72nd anniversary of Victory Day commemorating the victims of mass murder in the Pivonija forest.
Community members also visited the graves of late members of the community and war veterans at the Old Believers cemetery.
Deutsche Welle reports the first university chair in the country for Holocaust Studies has been created. The department will operate under the History and Philosophy Faculty at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Uni VP Manfred Schubert-Zsilavecz said the city is an appropriate fit for Holocaust studies and that his university has Jewish roots.
The new department will deal exclusively with the genocide of Jews under the Nazis in Germany and Europe. Historian Sibylle Steinbacher is to head the department. The German state of Hesse will finance the department to the amount of 150,000 euros annually.
Hesse state minister of science and education Boris Rhein called the establishment of the new department long overdue in Germany. Although 70 years have passed since the Nazis were driven from power in Germany, he says it will never be possible to fully comprehend the Holocaust. Rhein said while the current generation isn’t legally responsible for the crimes of the Nazis, it is part of the solution in the present and future. One of the priority fields of research at the new department will be research on the ethical and moral mechanisms for justifying and denying the Holocaust.
jewish.ru
Dear Community members,
Before his death, long-time client of the LJC Social Programs Department Avishalom Moishe Fishman left a last will and testament donating his savings to the Lithuanian Jewish Community who had cared for him in his latter years.
To honor Moishe Fishman’s wishes, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky proposed using the funds for the needs of the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.
In furthering Jewish traditions of charity, it was decided with Vilnius Jewish Religious Community chairman Simas Levinas to use the funds received to set up a free-breakfast program in the cafeteria on the second floor of the Choral Synagogue, Pylimo street no. 39, Vilnius.
Moishe lived alone and was a client of the Social Programs Department for about 18 years.
The Community and its members, and especially members of the seniors club, became his second home and family.
Let’s remember together this enlightened man beloved and honored by all who knew him.
For the first time a plaque will be placed on the wall of the synagogue to thank and remember a local philanthropist, rather than a donor from abroad.
Everyone knew him as Misha, so this has been dubbed “Misha’s Breakfast Project.” It will begin Monday, May 15. The breakfast program will take place at the synagogue from 9:00 to 10:00 A.M., Monday to Friday.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community celebrated Victory Day 2017 inviting the public to the Abi Men Zet Zich Club at the Community. The event included a ceremony to honor the heroes of World War II, our veterans and Community members.
An overflow crowd of about 140 people crammed into the hall and foyer to honor the memory of the fallen and to celebrate humanity’s victory over the Nazi death machine. Time has taken its toll on our veterans and now there are only 14 Jewish WWII veterans still living in Vilnius.
The event was organized by LJC Social Programs Department coordinator Žana Skudovičienė with the aid of volunteers and colleagues, with musical performances by Michailas Filipovas ( Jablonskis), Vadim Volkov and Rita Alterman. The Bagel Shop Café and Natali Restaurant catered the event and Arikas Krupas provided special beverages to the veterans as he has for many years now.
Our thanks go to everyone who took part and especially to the students in the woodwind orchestra of the Santara Gymnasium and Pre-Gymnasium in Vilnius and orchestra conductor Linas Avižienis.
LJC Social Programs Department coordinator Žana Skudovičienė thanks everyone who helped make this year’s Victory Day celebrations at the Community such a success for our members and veterans. About 140 people attended Community events for VIctory Day on May 8. A big “thank you!” goes out to the singers Michailas Filipovas ( Jablonskis), Vadim Volkov and Rita Alterman, and to the Bagel Shop Café and Natali Restaurant for the wonderful treats, and to Arikas Krupas who has provided and paid for special beverages for the veterans for many years now. Thank you!
On March 8 Lithuanian Jewish Community members and veterans marked the 72nd anniversary of the Allied victory over the Nazis.
Victims of fascism, leaders of the ghetto resistance movements, teachers and children were remembered at the Vilnius Jewish Cemetery on Sudervės road. The names of murdered Jews of Vilnius are remembered on the gravestones of surviving members of their families. The Sudervės road Jewish cemetery is a working cemetery, although it is sometimes intentionally confused with the Šnipiškės cemetery for propaganda purposes in the foreign media when the topic is the alleged on-going “destruction of the Jewish cemetery.” In the near future the Sudervės road Jewish cemetery will feature monuments indicating remains removed from the Šnipiškės cemetery and reinterred here in earlier years.
Victory Day celebrations included a ceremony for veterans at the LJC headquarters in Vilnius in the afternoon, during which dinner was served and participants were treated to a concert.
South African attorneys Jonathan and Sheli Schlosberg visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community where chairman Gennady Kofman told them about the history of the Jews in the Panevėžys region, community events to teach Jewish history and other social, educational and cultural activities.
There are over 30 mass murder sites where Jews were shot and mass graves in the Panevėžys district. The guests were interested in the history of the Jewish graveyard in the city of Panevėžys. They made use of the opportunity to visit the cemetery site and learned in 1966 the cemetery was destroyed and the headstones used to decorate the walls of the Juozas Miltinis Drama Theater there.
Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman presented small token gifts to the guests including Jewish calendars and star of David ornaments. The guests expressed gratitude for the comprehensive survey he provided and wished success to the Panevėžys Jewish Community.
“I thank God He has sent us the sun. And I thank God we will be celebrating the 70th birthday of the State of Israel next year,” Miša Jakobas, principal of the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium told a large crowd of students, teachers, parents, prominent members of the Jewish community and well-wishers on Tuesday at a celebration of Yom haAtzmaut, Israeli independence day, in the athletics field behind the school.
Children assembled well before the official start of the celebration to practice singing and dance moves, and slowly the crowd coalesced into a ring around pupils performing songs in Hebrew, including haTikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and Yerushalayim shel zahav, Jerusalem the Gold, as a warm golden sun promised the belated onset of spring. Small plastic Israeli flags were distributed to everyone who wanted one. On the track field a group of primary-grade students performed a flag marching ceremony, followed by a group of speakers on the opposite side of the crowd where the children had sung.
Principal Miša Jakobas was followed by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky who asked some of the wilder children to settle down, joking such behavior didn’t belong on the playground, although it is acceptable at synagogue. She pointed to a building in the back corner of the school yard and said if things go to plan, this would be a new Jewish kindergarten in Vilnius where Jewish children would receive priority of place. Currently the Jewish kindergarten in Vilnius, Salvija, just across the river from Sholem Aleichem, accepts a large number of non-Jewish children as well and promotes itself as a inclusive multicultural environment, although it emphasizes Jewish holidays and culture.