The Lithuanian Jewish Community and Bnei Maskilim invite you to come celebrate the greenest of Jewish holidays, Tu b’Shvat, on Wednesday, January 24, starting at 6:30 P.M. at the LJC in Vilnius, located at Pylimo street no. 4. The cost is 5 euros per person. Registration is required by sending an email to viljamas@lzb.lt or by calling (+370) 67250699. Everyone is welcome.
This Thursday, January 25, is the Jewish holiday of Tu b’Shvat, the 15th day of the month of Shvat, the New Year for trees also known as Israeli Arbor Day. It is traditional to eat of the shvat ha’minim (seven species endemic to the Land of Israel): wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Hag sameakh!
An evening to remember the Jewish writer and first Yiddish literary critic Israel Isidor Elyashev packed the house at the Art and Museum Department of the Vincas Kudirka Public Library in Kaunas last Monday, January 15.
The Kaunas Jewish Community organized the event and Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas spoke about the man and his legacy, along with others.
The Regional History Museum of the Jonava Cultural Center in Jonava, Lithuania, posted an invitation on January 18 for the public to attend an arts workshop in the run-up to the Lithuanian holiday Užgavėnės, or Shrovetide:
“We invite you to a creative workshop for adults this January 22 at 2:00 P.M. called “Making Užgavėnės Masks!” We’ll use papier-mâché on wooden frames! … The function of having fun is the basis of this holiday, it’s essence and core! This is a day when social conventions are ignored, rules are broken and ethical and moral principles are transgressed! You can do anything, but only during this time!”
Unfortunately traditional masks made and worn on Užgavėnės include grotesque stereotypes of Jews and Roma.
Yesterday evening the Litvak Culture and Identity Museum opened next door to the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky spoke at the opening ceremony, saying the long-awaited exhibits would finally be made public and should be very interesting. She said the history of the Litvaks didn’t begin and end with the Holocaust, that we have a rich history which hasn’t gone away and that the new museum will offer the public a view of that history.
“We are neighbors, the Lithuanian Jewish Community is based right here, on the other side of the wall, in the same building, the former Tarbut gymnasium. We are alive and are celebrating our Jewish identity, and everyone who learns something here at the museum, we invite them to stop by the Community as well, to try our bagels, listen to music and participate in our events. Food, culture and other Community activities of which we are proud–these are all part of the Litvak identity,” Kukliansky said.
Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg-Silverstein also spoke at the opening.
We are please to invite you to join a webinar co-hosted by NGO Monitor and the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement featuring a distinguished panel of experts. They will discuss the bias, silence and distortions of the international human rights community regarding the atrocities committed by Hamas. During this online briefing, we will explore the misconceptions surrounding Israel’s defensive actions, while addressing the gross human rights violations perpetrated by Hamas and their impact on innocent lives. The discussion moderated by NGO Monitor’s Olga Deutsch will include insights and
fresh perspectives from:
* Emily Schrader, journalist/writer/CEO of Social Lite Creative
* Pnina Sharvit Baruch, senior researcher on law and national security
* Danielle Haas, former senior editor at Human Rights Watch
* Dr. Saralyn Mark, women’s health and gender equity specialist and author
Mark your calendar, set a reminder, and get ready for an eye-opening discussion!
January 23, 2024, at 9:00 A.M. CT / 10:00 A.M. ET / 4:00 P.M. CT / 5:00 P.M. IST
Click here to register: https://events.combatantisemitism.org/humanrights
In addition to registering above, we encourage you to invite others who may be interested in joining.
Full text here.
Photo by I. Gelūnas
The Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum reopens its branch in the former Tarbut Gymnasium at Pylimo street no. 4a Thursday, January 18, following reconstruction and the installation of a new Litvak Culture and Identity exhibit.
The space used to house the museum’s History Department and Gallery of Righteous Gentiles, and has been undergoing renovation for several years. The third floor will now house a permanent exhibit on the life and work of Rafael Chwoles, the Litvak artist. Other exhibits feature Litvaks who found fame and achievement around the world in various fields of endeavor. The space includes four storeys accessible by stairs.
The Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum includes consists of several sub-museums and spaces including the Tolerance Center, the Holocaust Museum, an information space at the Ponar Memorial Complex outside Vilnius and soon an exhibit inside the former Jewish ghetto library in the Vilnius Old Town.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Elija-Leiba Fainberg passed away January 17. He was born in 1930. The Lithuanian Jewish Community extends our deepest condolences to his son Markas and all his loved ones.
We are saddened to report the recent death of Marijaša Graužinienė. She was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the LJC’s Saul Kagan Welfare Center. Our deepest condolences to her daughters Tatjana and Rima.
Photo: Simonas Gimelšteinas at premiere on left.
Congratulations to young composer and Lithuanian Jewish Community member Simonas Gimelšteinas who did the musical score for the Lithuanian documentary film “Irklais per Atlantą” [Rowing across the Atlantic] which premiered last week.
Simonas Gimelšteinas also created the sound track for the award-winning Lithuanian short film “Blausos” [Through the Gloom] back in 2022.
On Sunday bells rang out around the world and in Lithuania to remember the hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 in Israel.
The date marked 100 days since that attack and 100 days of horror, darkness and unknowing for the hostages still being held.
We thank Evangelical Lutheran bishop Mindaugas Sabutis for his support in joining the campaign and ringing church bells to bring them home.
#BringThemHomeNow
The Palanga Jewish Community is marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day a day early on January 26 by unveiling a plaque commemorating professor Lazaris Gutmanas (1875-1957) on his family home. Gutmanas was a professor at Kaunas University’s Nerve and Mental Disease Faculty and one of a number of remarkable members of the Jewish academic intelligentsia. Everyone is invited to attend the unveiling ceremony.
Time: 11:00 A.M., January 26
Place: S. Daukanto street no. 25, Palanga
A Republic of South Africa High Court barrister has presented opening arguments at the United Nationas International Court of Justice in the Hague against what it claims is Israeli genocide being committed against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
South African High Court attorney Adila Hassim who has also served as a judge in the past told the hearing in the Hague Thursday Israel was in violation of at least four articles of the 1948 Convention for the Prevention of the Commission of the Crime of Genocide. She said it wasn’t incumbent upon the ICJ to pass an immediate verdict on the accusation and that preventative measures including an immediate cease-fire were needed.
Hassim was one member of a South African legation of eight, all of whom also gave presentations. Israel also sent at least one judge to the hearing. Israel is signatory to the Genocide Convention which grew out of the Nuremberg trials to address the new international crime of genocide as the world attempted to come to terms with the Holocaust.
The Kaunas Jewish Community invites you to an evening commemorating literary critic and writer Israel (Isidore) Elyashev.
Bal-Makhshoves as he was also known, “man of thoughts,” used that nom-de-plume in his Jewish writing at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The commemoration will be held in the former Jewish cafeteria near Elyashev’s home where he died 100 years ago on January 13, 1924. Speakers will touch upon his friendship with the painter Marc Chagall, Jewish life in Kaunas, Elyashev’s home street now known as Daukšos gatvė but formerly called Yatkever or Butcher’s street with five synagogues located along it, about the return of “evacuated” Jewish exiles in 1921 and about the shared and separate Lithuanian and Jewish cultural legacy in Lithuania’s interwar provisional capital Kaunas.
Speakers will also detail his family, including his sister Ester Veisbart who was an art critic, teacher and Lithuania’s first female doctor of philosophy who died in the Kaunas ghetto; the rest of his family who were killed in the Kaunas and Vilnius ghettos and Soviet labor camps and the members of his family to made it to Palestine and lived.
The Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble led by Larisa Vyšniauskienė held a benefit concert to raise funds for the Israeli victims of Hamas and decided to send 1729 euros they raised to the survivors of the Cohen family, Sandra and her two sons Liam and Dylan. A further 298 euros was donated into a special bank account set up for the surviving family members.
Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel director Arie Ben-Ari Grodzensky reported fifty members of that organization had raised a further 5650 euros for the Cohens and said he hoped the money would at least help the family in some way to overcome the consequences of the attack by Hamas on October 7.
Thank you to all who donated and those who haven’t heard the story yet can read about it at the link below and make a donation if they so desire:
http://www.lzb.lt/en/2023/12/07/lets-make-a-hanukkah-miracle-happen/
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–Harvard College president Claudine Gay resigned Tuesday amid plagiarism accusations and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.
Gay is the second Ivy League president to resign in the past month following congressional testimony. Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned December 9.
Gay, Harvard’s first black president, announced her departure just months into her tenure in a letter to the Harvard community, thus becoming the shortest presidency in the history of Harvard College.
Following the congressional hearing, Gay’s academic career came under intense scrutiny by critics who unearthed numerous and extensive instances of plagiarism in her 1997 doctoral dissertation. The Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s governing board, initially rallied behind Gay, saying a review of her scholarly work turned up “a few instances of inadequate citation” but no evidence of research misconduct. Critics posted long passages of verbatim copy/pastes of unattributed works from other authors from Gay’s academic papers and alleged dissertation.
Gay’s public troubles began when she gave testimony in the House of Representatives about Harvard’s bullying, harassment and code-of-conduct rules. Asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s rules by representative Elise Stefanik, a Republic from New York state, Gay equivocated and claimed it was a free speech issue which depending on the context–if it became conduct instead of speech–could be a violation of the rules. The public was quick to respond with an internet meme of a book purportedly authored by Gay called “Mein Context,” a reference to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” Gay has not been a champion of free speech on campus in the past, approving bans of conservative speakers.
Full story here.
With deep sadness we report the death of Svetlana Plenkivskaja on January 1. She was born in 1943 and was a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center and a member of the Union of Former Concentration Camp and Ghetto Prisoners.. Our sincere condolences to her sister, son and many friends and relatives. Rest in peace, Svetlana.
With deep sadness we report the death on December 23 of long-time Community member and Saul Kagan Welfare Center client Liubov Indenok. She was born in 1930. We extend our condolences to her daughter Galina and other loved ones.
Frume Malka Kučinskienė died December 22. She was born in 1933. She was a long-time member of the Kaunas Jewish Community, a Holocaust survivor and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. We extend our deepest condolences to her family and friends but also to Lithuania for the loss of this friend who suffered so much but never lost her inner light.
