Learning, History, Culture

Meeting Israeli Knesset Speaker Edelstein at the LJC

Speaker of the Israeli Knesset Yuli-Yoel Edelstein visited the Lithuanian Jewish Community and met with members who listened to his warm words for the community. Community members were also able to meet the speaker at the Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium Wednesday afternoon at a ceremony to honor the Bujel family who rescued Jews from the Holocaust.

Edelstein’s visit is a big and important event for Lithuania and the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Relations between Israel and Lithuania this year are the best and closest in history. Both countries are interested in strengthening existing cooperation and expanding the friendly relationship. This was demonstrated in the Knesset speaker’s meetings with all of Lithuania’s top leaders.

Visits by high-ranking Israeli leaders, begun four years in 2013 with Shimon Peres’s visit, are very important to Lithuanian Jews, imparting morale to the community as well as honor, but most of all they’re important because, for however brief a time, there is an opportunity to listen to one another. “The democratic state of Israel is a second homeland for Lithuanian Jews,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky remarked at the meeting at the LJC. Edelstein in turn praised the Community’s activities.

The chairman of Israel’s parliament said Lithuania after independence cares much more about remembering the Holocaust now, and that Vilnius–the Jerusalem of the North–was one of the most important cities for Jews. Paying his respects at the Ponar Holocaust memorial, Knesset speaker Edelstein called upon Lithuania “to remember honestly” that there Nazis, Lithuanian collaborators but also rescuers of Jews in this country during the Holocaust. “This is history, you can’t rewrite it, you cannot cross it out,” he said. Changes begun in Lithuania several years ago in Holocaust consciousness have led to better relations with Israel. Edelstein told BNS this was thanks decisions made by the Lithuanian Government. He also told BNS he hoped Lithuanian leaders would maintain this line, and said it was the task of the Lithuanian Government to insure there are not xenophobic and anti-Semitic sentiments in the country.

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Knesset Speaker Calls on Lithuania to Remember Honestly

BNS reports Israeli Knesset speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein speaking at the Ponar Memorial Complex outside Vilnius called on Lithuania to pay more attention to commemorating Jewish history and preserving Jewish heritage, and said the country needs to insure it has rid itself of xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

According to BNS, he said independent Lithuania is more concerned about Holocaust commemoration than the Soviet government was, but the situation can still be improved.

“Definitely, in comparison with the period of Soviet Union, when all the Jewish heritage, Holocaust remembrance, everything was wiped out, we see positive developments,” BNS quoted the speaker of the Israeli parliament telling reporters in Vilnius after visiting the Ponar memorial to Holocaust victims Wednesday. “But there’s never enough. As I said, the heritage was great, the contribution was great. Let’s not forget, Vilna was called Jerusalem of Lithuania, Jerusalem of the North, [and] was one of the most meaningful Jewish cities,” he was quoted as saying.

Edelstein called on Lithuanians “to honestly remember that there were Nazis, there were their collaborators, Lithuanians, there were courageous Lithuanians saving Jews during the Holocaust”.

“This is history, you can’t rewrite it, you cannot cross it,” he said according to BNS.

He reportedly called on Lithuania to pay attention to the historical memory of Lithuanian Jews, their life until the Holocaust and their contribution to Lithuania’s history, culture, art and business. He said the people who were murdered weren’t numbers and had names, according to BNS, and said the challenge for the Lithuanian Government, the local Jewish community and local non-Jews was to collect the names, remember the names and to celebrate the commemorative sites around the country, according to BNS.

Edelstein last visited Vilnius in 2009 as the Israeli minister of public diplomacy and Diaspora affairs. BNS reported he was told not to go on that trip to Lithuania by Litvak Holocaust survivors, who claimed he had no right to go. Edelstein noted a complete change in the situation over the intervening years which he said were down to the decisions of the Lithuanian Government and due to relations between the two countries, BNS reported.

Edelstein expressed the hope Lithuanian leaders would maintain that course and stressed it was the task of the Lithuanian Government to insure no xenophobic and anti-Semitic sentiments are left in the country.

“I never think that it’s a sign of friendship to Israel or special relations with Israel. It’s an internal Lithuanian task,” he was quoted as saying by BNS.

The speaker of the Knesset also called for moving to practical steps for fortifying Israeli-Lithuanian friendship and said he discussed those kinds of steps with Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė, prime minister Saulius Skvernelis and the speaker of the Seimas (parliament) Viktoras Pranckietis.

“We can’t just stay forever with this phrase about friendship and positive relations; we have to do practical things. In all my meetings here, we discussed how to strengthen the economic ties, cultural ties [and] tourism that is on the rise,” BNS reported he said.

Knesset Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein’s Visit to Ponar, LJC Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky’s Speech

“On Sunday at three o’clock the streets of the ghetto were closed. A group of three hundred Jews from Salos and Smurgainys left for Kaunas with a large crowd of Jews from the countryside at the railroad station. Standing at the gate I saw how they packed their things. Happy and in a good mood, they got on the train. Today terrible news reached us.

“Eighty-five cars with Jews, almost 5,000 people, were not taken to Kaunas as promised; instead the train took them to Ponar where they were shot. Five-thousand new victims of brutality. The entire ghetto is upset as if struck by lightning. People are consumed by the sense of butchery… Everything is so horrible.”

These are the thoughts fifteen-year-old Yitskhok Rudashevski wrote down in Yiddish in his school notebook. The thoughts of someone mature beyond his age, or perhaps thoughts made old through violence, suffering and waiting for death… Yitskhok’s life ended here, as did those of many Vilnius ghetto inmates, in one of the pits of Ponar turned into human sacrifice sites.

Lithuanian school children and young adults have not had the opportunity so far to read Yitskhok’s diary, and the several pages included in history textbooks do not reflect the horror of the Holocaust, or the 700 years of Lithuanian Jewish history, or my people’s contribution to fortifying Lithuanian statehood. Little is said of Lithuanian collaboration in the Holocaust, and heads are bowed and statues raised not always to the true heroes of Lithuania. The Holocaust is passed on as a crippling tragedy of from one generation to the next, and from a different generation to the next as horrible guilt, at the subconscious level. The time has come to recognize the common historical memory of Jews and Lithuanians. Lithuanians and Litvaks have one shared history in which Lithuanians and Jews intertwine, and the paths of Israel and Lithuania crisscross. Zionism, or Jewish patriotism, a very strong tradition in Litvak history, saved many Jewish families from death. Am Yisrael khai. Mir zainen do!

For perhaps the first time at this event in Ponar, Jewish partisan Fania Brancovskaja will not speak. The entire Community says, Get well soon, Fania!

This reminds us of the passage of time, the worth of a human life, its fragility and transitory nature, and it encourages us to act, while we can, to keep memory alive. Only historical memory and truth will help the older generation to know, give the younger generation the chance to learn, and help build the bridge of memory between peoples and countries.

Don’t Give Up Hope: The Partisan Poem and Song Project


Eli Rabinowitz interviews Phillip Maisel, 95, Survivor of the Vilna Ghetto, and friend of Hirsh Glik in Melbourne, Australia. August 22, 2017

Hirsh Glik, 20, wrote the poem, Zog Nit Keynmol, in Yiddish in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943. Its powerful words are about hope, heroes and resistance. It became immediately popular and spread quickly. Hirsh was killed in Estonia the following year.

Two Jewish Russian brothers, Dmitri and Daniel Pokrass, had composed a march for a movie in 1938. This was later matched with the poem. After the Holocaust, this song became the anthem of the Survivors and has been sung ever since at annual Yom Hashoah commemorations, mostly in Yiddish, and in Hebrew in Israel.

Many school children now sing Zog Nit Keynmol at commemorations in Yiddish, the lingua franca in 1943, but hardly spoken today. Most do not understand the meaning, inspiration and context of the words. This was brought to my attention in January by Rabbi Craig Kacev, the Head of Jewish Studies at South Africa’s largest Jewish Day School, King David. Three weeks later, 1000 of his high school students attended my audiovisual presentation consisting of short YouTube clips. It was a resounding success and the start of my remarkable journey taking me to South Africa, the UK, Lithuania, Poland, Israel, the US, Canada and back home to Australia in six months!

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Life and Diaspora in the Shtetl of the Jews of Jurbarkas

Jurbarko žydų gyvenimas ir diaspora štetle

The Kaunas Jewish Community accepted an invitation from Viktoras Klepikovas, monument specialist for the Jurbarkas (Yurburg, Georgenburg) regional administration’s infrastructure and property department, to attend the seminar Klepikovas organized called “Life and Diaspora in the Shtetl of the Jews of Jurbarkas” held at the regional public library. A large, overflow audience listened to deputy director of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute Rūta Puišytė who spoke about the Jewish history of Jurbarkas, daily life for Jews there and good neighborly relations between Jews and Lithuanians. She said Jews constituted 42 percent of the population before the Holocaust.

Viktoras Klepikovas presented the second speaker, Rita Vaiva Begenat, who finally grew weary of the apathy of local officials and all the bureaucratic obstacles, and so in 2003 began cleaning up the old Jewish cemetery in Jurbarkas herself. She cleaned up the grounds, cleaned headstones and renewed inscriptions. She said she needs help reading the inscriptions now.

KJC chairman Gercas Žakas spoke at the seminar and thanked the organizers for the meaningful event. Also attending were KJC members Judita Mackevičienė and Dobrė Rozenbergienė, both originally from Jurbarkas. KJC members toured the old Jewish cemetery and a mass murder site. The KJC delegation stopped at nearby Panemunė castle on the way home and were intrigued by the yellow star on the coat of arms of its former rulers, the Gelgaudas (Giełgud) family.

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Knesset Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein to Visit Ponar and Lithuanian Jewish Community

Kneseto pirmininko Yuli-Yoel Edelstein apsilankymas Panerių memoriale ir susitikimas Lietuvos žydų (litvakų) bendruomenėje

Dear members and friends,

You are invited to join Knesset speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein in commemorating Holocaust victims at the Ponar Memorial Complex on Wednesday, September 13. A bus will provide transportation from the Lithuanian Jewish Community building at Pylimo street no. 4 and will depart at 2:20 P.M. sharp, so please don’t be late, and of course the number of seats is limited.

At 5:45 P.M. speaker Edelstein will visit the Community and you’re welcome to join us on the third floor. Opera soloist Rafailas Karpis and pianist Darius Mažintas will perform a short concert there as well.

More on Sugihara Week in Kaunas

Sugihara Week celebrations in Kaunas drew a large number of guests from Japan, including his eldest son Hiroki’s widow Michi Sugihara and the only surviving son Nobuki Sugihara.

Mr. Sugihara laid a wreath and observed a minute of silence for the Jews murdered in Garliava, a suburb of Kaunas. The scion of the Sugihara legacy said his father inculcated in him an interest in history and taught him respect for those who didn’t escape.

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The Holocaust Remembered


by Loreta Ežerskytė, Gimtoji žemė, the newspaper of the Ukmergė region

For more than 60 years now the mass murder of 12,000 Jews has been marked on the first Sunday in September in the Pivonija forest near Ukmergė [Vilkomir]. The commemoration happens at noon at the mass grave. Those who cannot attend, whose family members or other loved ones are buried here, mark the tragedy by lighting candles and praying at home. On Sunday many candles burned in Israel, the United States, South Africa and other countries whither fate sent Jews from Ukmergė.

The commemoration of the third-largest Holocaust mass murder site in Lithuania was attended by members of the Ukmergė Jewish Community and a large contingent of Jews from the Panevėžys, Šiauliai, Vilnius and Kaunas Jewish Communities as well as from other cities and countries. Regional administration head Rolandas Janickas and municipal administration director Stasys Jackūnas attended, and US embassy Vilnius deputy chief of mission Howard Solomon attended for the second year in a row.

A group from the Dukstyna primary school and local residents also attended the commemoration. Ukmergė Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas told those in attendance about how Jews were brought in groups there 76 years ago: “They were brought by the Nazis and local collaborators. No one had any mercy for the women or children, never mind the men. They all suffered the same fate. They were murdered because they were Jews. Only a few individuals survived, those who were deported. In the Taicas family only my grandfather survived, and that’s why I am standing here…”

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Chiune Sugihara a True Humanitarian Who Lived in Kaunas

Dr. Aurelijus Zykas, the director of the Asian Studies Center of Vytautas Magnus University which formerly occupied the second floor of the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas, characterized Japanese diplomat and Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara this way in an interview granted to the “What’s Happening in Kaunas” webpage. Dr. Zykas was one of the organizers of the Sugihara Week celebration in Kaunas from September 2 to 9.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

Japanese Kites Color Kaunas Skyline during Sugihara Week

Kaunas residents got to learn more about Japanese culture during Sugihara Week. A Japanese kite festival and Japanese and Jewish art workshops became keynotes of the celebrations.

On Thursday the Jurgis Dobkevičius Pre-gymnasium hosted an extraordinary event. Students flew rendako and rokkaru kites (kites flown in train and six-sided Japanese fighting kites, respectively). Japanese who came for the festival brought 30 rendako-type kites. Arranged in three long trains of kites, they appeared as a snake of three colors in the air. High school students in Iwate Prefecture in Japan made the kites. The kite festival was dedicated to the memory of the victims of the large earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan in 2011.

The event at the school included a Japanese drum performance.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Story Told through Dance at Kaunas Railroad Station Bridges Peoples and Eras

A story told through dance at the Kaunas railroad station bridged peoples and eras. This was where Japanese diplomat and Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara issued his final “visas for life” through the train window as he and his family departed for Berlin. Choreographer and dancer Kyrie Oda (織田 きりえ) and dancer Love Hellgren of Sweden (with Jewish roots) have lived in Kaunas for several years and belong to the Aura dance troupe. They have performed their “Aušra” [Dawn] routine in Norway, Japan, Sweden and Great Britain. They performed the same piece inspired by the deeds of Sugihara at the Sugihara House museum and the historic Hotel Metropol (est. 1899, where Sugihara and family spent their last night in Lithuania before leaving on September 1, 1940) in Kaunas as well. Photos by Jonas Petronis here.

Time for Remembrance in Rokiškis and Panemunėlis

Residents of Rokiškis, guests and representatives of the Panevėžys Jewish Community gathered in the hall of the Rokiškis Regional History Museum on the afternoon of September 8. They gathered for an event to celebrate the European Day of Jewish Culture. Event organizer Neringa Danienė presented the program, the first part of which honored Molėtai Regional History Museum director and Lithuanian linguist Viktorija Kazlienė. Visitor from the USA F. Shapiro presented her the Ruvin volunteer award and thanked her for promoting Jewish heritage and for her contribution to the march of memory in Molėtai.

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EJC Calls on French Authorities to Root Out “Societal Anti-Semitism”

Dear Friends,

Please find below EJC’s statement following the anti-Semitic attack on a French Jewish leader and his family near Paris.

Kind regards,
The EJC team
European Jewish Congress (EJC)
Tel : +3225408159
Fax : +3225408169
Web : www.eurojewcong.org

*******

EJC Calls on French Authorities to Root Out “Societal Anti-Semitism”
after Jewish family assaulted near Paris

Brussels, Monday, September 11, 2017–The European Jewish Congress (EJC) has called for stronger measures to be taken by French authorities in the wake of an attack on a French Jewish leader and his family who were assaulted in their home near Paris in an anti-Semitic attack. The attack took place just days after it was reported that a former principal at a preparatory school for teenagers in Marseille said that he regularly advised Jews not to attend his institution for fear of harassment by other students.

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Presentation of New Book “Aleksandras Livontas ir Olga Šteinberg”

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to a presentation of a book about the famous 20th century Lithuanian performers and teachers Aleksandras Livontas and Olga Šteinberg. The author of the book is cultural expert and professor Dr. Rita Aleknaitė-Bieliauskienė.

Participants are to include students of Aleksandras Livontas and Olga Šteinberg, including musicians, teachers, national figures and professors: violinist, teacher and doctor of the humanities Dr. Algis Gricius; pianist and teacher Veronika Vitaitė, pianist Aleksandra Žvirblytė, violinist Kristina Domarkienė, violinist Gediminas Dalinkevičius, pianist Povilas Jaraminas and music scholar Vaclovas Juodpusis.

Time: 6:00 P.M., Thursday, September 14
Location: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius

The evening will be moderated by Maša Grodnikienė, the initiator and organizer of the Destinies series of discussions, concerts and meetings with remarkable people.

Volunteers Clean Up Sudervės Road Jewish Cemetery in Vilnius

Lithuanian Jewish Community members and staff gathered to clean up the Jewish cemetery on Sudervės road in Vilnius on Sunday, September 10.

Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon pitched in, as did LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky with her grandchildren. Community members, administrative staff and rabbis all came out to perform a small mitzvah in the run-up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They raked up leaves, gathered garbage and sorted it for recycling, tended abandoned graves and cleaned and beautified the only working Jewish cemetery in Vilnius.

Thank you to all the volunteers for your good work!

Thank You

A week has passed during which Lithuanian remembered her shtetlakh. The fourteenth celebration of the annual European Day of Jewish Culture has taken place in Lithuania, this year with the theme “Diaspora and Heritage: The Shtetlakh.” Lithuanian towns which used to be called shtetlakh hosted events, tours of surviving old towns and Jewish residential sections, interesting talks on the former life of Litvaks there. The word shtetl was heard much in Lithuania after the Holocaust, with the loss of the former Litvak world and the Yiddish language.

This year the European Day of Jewish Culture was observed in more than 20 towns and cities, including Alytus, Jurbarkas, from Kaunas to Žasliai and Žiežmariai, Kelmė, Klaipėda, Kretinga, Molėtai, Palanga, Pakruojis, Pandėlys, Pasvalys, Pikeliai, Šiauliai, Šilalė, Jonava, Joniškis, Kupiškis, Darbėnai, Šeduva, Švėkšna, Ukmergė, Zarasai and Želva.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community thanks all the participating cities and towns for remembering the shtetlakh and the Jews who lived, traded, created and built there. They deserve to be remembered. Many cities and towns held lectures, conferences, exhibits, concerts and film screenings this year.

LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky also thanks the organizers of the events at the Jewish Community for their interesting program, and thanks the participants and speakers who spoke about the remaining traces of the shtetlakh in Lithuania. We thank Fania Brancovskaja, Vytautas Toleikis, Sandra Petrukonytė, Ilona Šedienė, Rimantas Vanagas and Antanas Žilinskas not just for their interesting presentations, but also for their own work, books and research on Jewish history, contributing to making the shtetlakh part of the heart of our country, without which Lithuania is impossible to imagine.

Thank you also to the Bagel Shop Café for the tasty Jewish dishes, the Sabbath ceramics exhibit and the holiday atmosphere, and to the Fayerlakh ensemble for the wonderful concert!

Our sincere thanks to everyone.

World Jewish Congress Hosts Meeting of Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Ambassadors in Jerusalem

“This year Lithuania and Israel mark the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations. We value what our countries have in common and seek to become even closer,” Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius said at the function.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky traveled with the Lithuanian delegation to Israel and met with Litvaks living there, who congratulated her on her re-election as chairwoman and wished her the highest success. The meeting was warm and hospitable with home-made dishes made by Litvaks. They agreed in discussions to work together with the Jews of Lithuania and in the near future to discuss broad possibilities and goals in that cooperation.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry reported meetings with Israeli leaders included positive assessments of growing bilateral economic cooperation, growth in trade, increases in tourism and successful cooperation in research and development. They also discussed security threats in their respective regions and agreed to push for more cooperation in the fields of energy, defense and cyber-security.

Most Important Event in Sugihara Week: Discussion of Sugihara’s Lessons, Applicable Today

Svarbiausiame „Sugiharos savaitės“ renginyje – pokalbiai apie Č.Sugiharos pamokas, pritaikomas ir šiandien

15min.lt

For Japanese people he is a hero, known to all, from the youngest child to the oldest person. The diplomat Chiune Sugihara is also well known in Lithuania. Even so, greater attention to his life and deeds is only know being paid. A group of scholars, public figures, politicians and diplomats from Lithuania and Japanese discussed Sugihara’s extraordinarily heroic deed at a conference in Kaunas September 6.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Sugihara Week Continues in Kaunas

Events for the Sugihara Week being celebrated in Kaunas are scheduled from September 2 to 8.

Sugihara Week is a series of events to commemorate Japanese diplomat and Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara’s life and deed. From 1939 to 1940 Sugihara and Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk saved over 6,000 Jewish lives from the Holocaust by issuing so-called visas for life.

“Consul Sugihara has become ever more known in the world and I am happy ever new ways to commemorate his heroism are appearing. It is significant that this wonderful initiative for a Sugihara Week came from Kaunas, which is the epicenter of the entire Sugihara story,” Toyoei Shigeeda, Japan’s ambassador to Lithuania, said.

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