Learning, History, Culture

US Author Writes Book of Childhood Impressions of Vilnius

by Ramūnas Gerbutavičius, Lietuvos rytas

“Vilnius is the city of my youth and I have put down roots in the city. Your mother is the first person in your life, and your hometown is your first love, happy or tragic,” Anna Halberstadt said.

The 68-year-old woman was born in Vilnius, educated in Moscow and lives in New York. She wrote poems as a child but never showed them to anyone. She works as a therapist, helping immigrants adapt to American culture. Poetry returned to her thoughts after many years, following the unexpected death of a friend. In 2014 her first book of poems, Vilnius Diary, was published, and was translated into Lithuanian this year.

“Meeting Russian literature teacher Rosa Glintershick at the Salomėja Nėris Gymnasium [in Vilnius] really affected my literary life. When I was 14 I began attending her Russian literature group.”

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Map Reveals Most Racist Countries in EU

As the European migrant crisis surges on, the attitudes of EU citizens towards ethnic minorities continue to shift and evolve. But just how comfortable would they be with their child pursuing a romantic relationship with someone from a different cultural group?

In 2015 the European Commission asked people from all 28 EU member-states this very question, among others, and compiled the resulting data to produce a surprisingly damning report. On August 12th, 2017, a Reddit user named Bezzleford, well-known for creating statistical (and sometimes humorous) maps, decided to draft up a visual component to the report, and now it’s going viral, attracting over 18 thousand upvotes after it was re-posted by Latvian user blueeyedblonde69.

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A Jewish Orphan from Lithuania Who Became a Household Name in America

In 1897 a 16-year-old Jewish orphan from Lithuania named Lena Himmelstein arrived in New York City and found work in a sweatshop for $1 a week. After her first husband David Bryant died at a young age, Lena supported herself and her son by making and selling tea gowns. When she applied to open a bank account, someone misspelled her name as “Lane.” The clothing line Lane Bryant was born.

In 1907 a customer asked Lena to design her something to wear during pregnancy, unheard of at a time when pregnant women were usually secluded until after birth. With some elastic and an accordion pleated skirt, Lena invented maternity wear. Her dresses were a hit, though she often had to be inventive about advertising, since American society still couldn’t accept the shape of a pregnant woman.

Soon she branched out into creating fashions for plus-sized women as well. She met an eager audience. Together with her second husband and business partner Albert Malsin, Lane Bryant broke new ground by selling stylish, ready-to-wear clothing in larger sizes while offering employee benefits such as insurance plans and pensions.

Respecting all body types and the needs of employees, not a bad legacy for a poor orphan from Lithuania.

Full story here.

#AtmintisAtsakomybeAteitis

Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky’s Address to Conference on Commemorating Great Synagogue of Vilnius

Executive director of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Renaldas Vaisbrodas delivered the following address by chairwoman Faina Kukliansky to a conference called “How Should We Commemorate the Site of the Great Synagogue of VIlnius?” on August 4, 2017:

Dear participants of the international conference How Should We Commemorate the Site of the Great Synagogue of VIlnius?”,

Thank you to the organizers for the opportunity to deliver a keynote speech in the name of the chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

I’d like to use this opportunity to address the conference and ask: who could answer the question posed by this conference better than the Jews of Lithuania? Thanks to the initiative and active efforts of the Lithuanian Jewish Community recently, important Litvak heritage monuments and symbols of culture again enjoy the possibility of being restored in our country, recalling the great past of the Jerusalem of Lithuania and preserving it for future generations.

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Two Lessons by Rabbi Mordechai Weits

Rabbi Mordechai Weits will hold two lectures at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius on August 29 and 31.

The first lesson is a discussion of the weekly readings from the Torah. The second lesson is about preparing for the Jewish Holy Days​ in the fall. The teachings will be held in the classroom on the second floor of the synagogue at 6:00 P.M. on August 29 and 31, respectively.

UPDATE: A third lesson by the rabbi, a discussion of weekly Torah readings, will be held at 6:00 P.M. on September 4 as well, at the same location.

Israeli PM Netanyahu to Visit Lithuania

Vilnius, September 4, BNS–Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Lithuania and the Lithuanian ministry reports the Israeli PM accepted the invitation made Monday.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry issued a press release which described Netanyahu emphasizing positive trends in bilateral economic cooperation, including volume of trade, increases in the tourism sector and successful cooperation in science, research and development and innovation. The two men also exchanged views on possible dangers in both regions and agreed to stimulate bilateral cooperation in the energy, defense and cyber-security spheres.

“A special connection binds Lithuania to Israel. We always emphasize, and always receive agreement from Israel on this, that this is more than just traditional politics,” Linkevičius said. He also noted this year marks the 25th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, and that there have been a plethora or events, initiatives and visits in Lithuania to mark this important occasion.

The Lithuanian formin also met with Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, and meetings are scheduled with Knesset chairman Yuli-Yoel Edelstein and other political figures as well.

Linkevičius is visiting Israel at prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s invitation. The Israel prime minister has Litvak roots. Among other family members, his grandmother hails from Šeduva, Lithuania.

Lithuanian Shtetlakh: European Day of Jewish Culture Celebration September 3 at LJC

Press release

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites the public to attend an event dedicated to the Jewish shtetls of Lithuania to commemorate and remember together this period of Lithuanian history, interesting and dear to us but cut short by the Holocaust and which has become a subject of academic interest and heritage protection.

The theme of this year’s European Day of Jewish Culture on September 3 as confirmed by the Cultural Heritage Department to the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture is “The Diaspora and Heritage: The Shtetl.” This is an intentional, mature and topical choice for a country where the life of the largest ethnic and confessional minority, of the Jews, thrived namely in the Lithuanian shtetlakh until 1941.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community will host an event called “Shtetlakh of Lithuania” on the third floor of the community building at Pylimo street no. 4 on September 3 to celebrate the European Day of Jewish Culture in 2017.

The event will kick off with a bagel breakfast and a presentation and tasting of authentic Jewish recipes at the Bagel Shop Café on the first floor at 9:00 A.M. Following that everyone is invited to attend a short Yiddish language lesson. A brunch awaits the graduates at the Bagel Shop Café. At 2:00 P.M. guest speakers will begin delivering free public lectures on the shtetlakh of Aniksht (Anykščiai), Eishishyok (Eišiškės), Sheduva (Šeduva) and Vilkovishk (Vilkaviškis) and what remains of them. A challa-baking lesson and presentation of the Bagel Shop Café’s new ceramics collection begins at 4:00 P.M. The Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh will perform a concert at 6:00 P.M.

The Rakija Klezmer Orkestar will also perform a concert at 3:00 P.M. in the Šnipiškės neighborhood of Vilnius.

More information available here.

“The reality in Lithuania is that If you want to learn more about the material and immaterial cultural heritage of a given town in Lithuanian (including the architectural features and aura of buildings, demographic changes and consequent changes in the structure of the town, changes in political structure and the ensuing canonization of ideologized development patterns), you will, unavoidably, run into the word ‘shtetl.’ You will find no better opportunity to understand what this is and to discover the shtetl in the features of buildings still standing in the towns than the events for the European Day of Jewish Culture on September 3,” director of the Cultural Heritage Department Diana Varnaitė said.

The word shtetl is an old Yiddish diminutive for shtot, city, meaning town. The towns of Lithuania where Jews comprised half or the majority of the population, characterized by Litvak energy and the bustle of commercial activity, are often called shtetlakh, the plural of shtetl. It’s thought shtetls evolved into their modern form in the 18th century. Malat, Kupeshok, Zosle, Olkenik, Svintsyan, Vilkomir, Gruzd, Eishyshok, Utyan–these are just a few of the surviving Lithuanian towns.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky recalls her parents’ shtetl:

“We didn’t travel to my grandparents’ village in the summer. We didn’t have any ebcause they were murdered in the Holocaust, or had moved from their shtetlakh to Vilnius or Kaunas because they could no longer live there without their loved ones and friends lying in the pits together with the bodies and souls of the other unfortunates.

“The Kuklianskys who survived, however, my father, my uncle who hid in trenches from the Nazis near the shtetl of Sventiyansk, were rescued by local village people, but for their entire lives longed for their home on the banks of the Ančia River in Veisiejai, Lithuania. There was no place happier or more beautiful than their native shtetl. Perhaps because their mother hadn’t been murdered yet.

“The eyes of my mother, who was born in Keydan (Kėdainiai) and spent her childhood in Shavl (Šiauliai), her eyes used to just shine when she remembered how they used to go to the ‘spa town’ of Pagelava near Shavl in horse-drawn cart.

“The shtetls… are no more. Now there are cities and towns, but they have no rabbis, no yeshivas, synagogues or Jews… all that remains is love for the place of one’s birth, but love is stronger than hate. The memories remain, too, and without them we wouldn’t be commemorating the shtetls and their inhabitants.”

Those who seek to find the traces of the lost and concealed presence of the Jews only have to find their way to the center of a Lithuanian town, to the old town, where the red-brick buildings still stand. All of the old towns of the small towns were built by Jews. The same goes for the former synagogues, schools, pharmacies and hospitals.

Cultural heritage experts tell us market day and the Sabbath were the main events of the week in the Lithuanian towns. Both were observed. After the Holocaust the shtetlakh were empty, the Jewish homes stood empty even if they still contained family heirlooms and the items acquired over lifetimes. Non-Jewish neighbors often moved into these houses and took over the property. Now no one uses the word štetlas in Lithuanian, it sounds exotic and needs to be translated to miestelis.

Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium Principal Miša Jakobas Greets Pupils on September 1

Dear school community, dear high school students and first-graders,

So summer has fled the fields, leaving behind its warmth and rays, as if telling us: “meet the autumn,” and Lithuania in the fall celebrates September 1, the Day of Knowledge. As gymnasium principal I may take joy in the great achievements and shared victories of our school. I hope and believe in the future we will be one of the best, one of the most beautiful and one of the most tolerant schools in Lithuania, not just in Vilnius. I am glad today that we finally have a first-grader named Sarah. This name is emotive and special to me as a Lithuanian Jew. And I am glad we have such an extraordinarily beautiful community, moms and dads who love and take care of their children. I am glad the school community includes a scholar and members of parliament, PhDs and professors, medical doctors and business people. I feel good that everyone understands the importance of knowledge and are prepared to lead their children into the world of knowledge at the Jewish school. I am glad children of different ethnicities have a place at this school and I wish we could have a lot more students, but all those who desire to enter wouldn’t fit in a single school. I have to apologize to those who did not get in. Let’s hope one way or another the gate can open, it is not locked shut. This year we have 420 students, a large number, a great responsibility, the work will be difficult, but we are prepared for everything.

LJC Chairwoman Greets Community on September 1, Lithuanian Back to School Day

Dear members of the Jewish community,

I greet you and your families, especially those for whom today is a special holiday, families with pupils and students. I wish you the best on your way to school and in your studies, and may the desire to learn and improve never abandon you. September 1 greetings to the students and teachers of the Vilnius Jewish gymnasium! It is wonderful to know the number of those seeking to enter the Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium is growing every year. The excitement of September 1 never fades through life and it will always recall childhood and every September 1 holiday will always cause a small dust particle to irritate our eyes a little. I wish all the students great lessons, and for those who are just entering first grade this year, who became pupils just this morning, I hope the textbook becomes your good friend. Let’s take joy that we have a good Jewish school in Vilnius.

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community


Photograph from Faina Kukliansky’s collection, when she entered first grade and took part in the September 1 back-to-school holiday.

On the Competition Which Took Place in 1990 for Commemorating the Great Synagogue

I report the information about the international tender held in 1990 for rebuilding the Great Synagogue, the architect Tzila Zak’s project being recognized the best and her winning the tender is false.

Honorary Lithuanian Jewish Community chairman Grigory Kanovich (the following document incorrectly spells his surname Konovich), Grigorijus Alpernas and I did not participate as judges in the commission and the use of our names is wrong.

It is possible other alleged members of the jury commission have been listed without their knowledge as well.

Daumantas Levas Todesas

0 monument competition announcement

Kaunas Jewish Community Marks 76th Anniversary of Mass Murder of Jews of Petrašiūnai and the Intellectuals Aktion at the Fourth Fort

The Kaunas Jewish Community marked the mass murder of the Jews of Petrašiūnai and the Kaunas ghetto intellectuals’ aktion/mass murder at the Fourth Fort in Kaunas August 28. Members of the KJC, residents of Petrašiūnai, including some living eye-witnesses, and deputy Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Efrat Hochstetler, US assistant ambassador Howard Solomon and other US embassy staff, director of the Cultural Heritage Department of the City of Kaunas Saulius Rimas and representatives of the Kaunas Forts associations assembled to honor the victims of the Holocaust.

KJC chairman Gercas Žakas and embassy staff spoke of our duty to remember the Holocaust and the great loss not just to Jews but all Lithuanian citizens, the loss of possibilities and of people who might have achieved much in their home country and the need to remember the victims by name, not as statistics.

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Death of a Friend

Learning the lesson of respect and Jewish unity from my dear friend Yechezkel Fox, of blessed memory

by Rabbi Yonason Goldson

Half a century ago, kosher matzah was not something the Jews of England took for granted. In fact, every year the London Beis Din took out a full page ad in the London Times warning that Rakusen’s matzah, the most widely distributed in the country, was not kosher for Passover.

Then Leslie Fox bought the company.

With the ink barely dry on the contract, Mr. Fox called up the London Beis Din. “Send over a rabbi,” he said, promising to do whatever was necessary to make his product kosher. The next Passover, the ad appearing in the London Times trumpeted: This year you can eat Rakusen’s matzah!


Yechezkel at author’s wedding.

How many thousands of people ended up eating kosher matzah because of one man? And what kind of son grows up in the house of such a father?

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The Price of Disunity


Insights into the destruction of the Second Temple
by Rabbi Yonason Goldson

It was in the year 3826 (66 CE) that the excesses of Roman governance over the Land of Israel finally drove the inhabitants of Jerusalem to the breaking point. On the 17th day of the month of Iyar, the taunts and jeers of Roman soldiers provoked an uprising by the city’s populace more violent than either Jew nor Roman could have imagined. By the end of the day the Jews had retaken control of their capital. The Great Revolt had begun.

The victory in Jerusalem came at a painfully high price. Thousands of Jews across the region were massacred or sold into slavery as citizens in Hellenized cities of Caesaria, Alexandria, and Damascus responded to the Jewish uprising with riots and pogroms. But the official response from Rome was more calculated. To impress upon other nationalities throughout its empire the folly of rebellion, the Roman Senate dispatched a massive army to crush the revolution in Judea.

Faced with the approach of four Roman legions led by Vespasian, one of Rome’s most successful generals, it seems unimaginable that the Jews could have held out any hope of victory. But unlike secular history, the Talmudic record incorporates spiritual, as well as political, cause and effect. Just as the Roman occupation of Israel had been decreed on High in response to the Jews’ spiritual shortcomings, so too did the fate of the Jerusalem ultimately rest in the Jews’ own hands. Spiritually, as well as militarily, it was the Jewish people’s internal divisiveness that left them vulnerable to the power of Rome.

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Jewish Solidarity

by Rabbi Berel Wein

One of the hallmarks of the story of the Jewish people over the millennia of our existence has been the fact that Jews, no matter what their political persuasion or level of religious belief and observance, always seem to care for one another. Though there always were divergent interests and different agendas present in the Jewish world, when Jews were in mortal danger the Jewish world somehow rose to attempt to help and defend our brethren who were threatened.

Many times our efforts were too little and too late. That certainly was the case regarding European Jewry during World War II. Till today, there is much controversy and bitterness, academic dispute and political debate regarding what was done and what more could have been done to rescue Jews from the jaws of the Holocaust.

It is a topic that gives us no rest and provides no proper solution. I remember how my own family personally anguished over the destruction of my uncles, aunts and cousins. They always asked themselves if more could have been done to somehow extricate them from Lithuania before 1940.

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Happy Birthday to Larisa Vyšniauskienė

Happy birthday to the tireless director of and creative force behind the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble, Larisa Vyšniauskienė. The Lithuanian Jewish Community hopes your wonderful smile never leaves you, that you continue to enjoy creative victories and inspiration, and that your life be filled with love and harmony.

Happy birthday, Larisa!

Conference “Jews of Palanga” in Palanga, Lithuania

The Palanga Spa Museum is hosting on September 4 an academic conference called “Jews of Palanga: A Lost Part of the City Community.” The museum is organizing the conference with the Baltic Regional History and Archaeology Institute of Klaipėda University. The event will begin at 10:00 A.M. on Monday, September 4 and the address is Birutės alley no. 34a, Palanga, Lithuania.

Organizers ask those who wish to participate to register by calling 8 4 605 7216.

German President Frank Steinmeier, Wife Elke Buedenbender and LJC Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky Commemorate Holocaust Victims at Ponar

German president Frank Steinmeier and wife Elke Buedendender commemorated Holocaust victims at Ponar in Lithuania August 25 with Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky.

Chairwoman Kukliansky said the Jewish community was grateful to the German president for the honor he paid to Holocaust victims and that Ponar remains a symbol of the Jewry of Lithuania murdered during World War II. She also remarked the Nazi regime was responsible for the Holocaust and not all the German people. She characterized modern Germany’s attitude towards Nazi crimes as exemplary. Germany continues to support financially Holocaust survivors in Europe, providing for their health care and other needs. Lithuanian Jews also receive funding from the German state allocated for Holocaust survivors. These funds are distributed through various organizations.

Kukliansky and the president of Germany also addressed the problem of the second generation, meaning the children of survivors, often of parents who took up arms to fight the Nazis and those who survived due to the goodwill of others, as well as the children of those who survived by being deported and evacuated to the Soviet Union. These children in Lithuania grew up with a real experience of Holocaust trauma, they heard talk at home of the loss of family members and entire families, the loss of homes, the need to hide and flee and the experience of survivors who found it difficult to obtain employment after the war in Soviet Lithuania using a Jewish surname. Many feared anti-Semitic attacks after the war. Relatively recently scholars and specialists have begun looking at the this post-traumatic experience by the second generation who also suffered from the Nazi regime, and who in post-Communist countries often experience hardships and poverty in old age. There are plans to review German criteria for distributing compensation. Currently many funds allocate monies, subsidies and grants. Now there is consideration of taking care of the second generation of survivors as well.

from the German press on August 25 with additional LJC photographs (without watermarks):

German President Frank Walter Steinmeier on Official Visit to Lithuania
EPA photographer FELIPE TRUEBA

German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, his wife Elke Buedenbender and chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Faina Kukliansky participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Ponari Holocaust memorial in Vilnius, Lithuania, on August 25, 2017. Steinmeier is on an official four-day tour visiting the Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to strengthen diplomatic relations with Germany. The Baltic region is an important ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

South African Jewish Board Appalled by Andile Mngxitama’s Holocaust Tweet


BLF leader Andile Mngxitama
Image: Gallo Images/Beeld/Deaan Vivier

by Jenna Etheridge, News24

Cape Town, August 24–The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) expressed shock on Thursday at a tweet by Black Land First (BLF aka “Black First Land First”) party leader Andile Mngxitama claiming the legacy of the Holocaust wasn’t all negative.

In an apparent attempt to put himself back in the media spotlight, Mngxitama tweeted around 5:30 A.M.: “For those claiming the legacy of the holocaust is ONLY negative think about the lampshades and Jewish soap.”

The tweet was possibly a reference to Western Cape premier Helen Zille’s controversial tweets earlier in the year when she said the legacy of colonialism was not all negative. Zille apologized for making the comment.

The SAJBD said it was appalled by Mngxitama’s “crassly offensive, demeaning and hurtful” statement.

“With this ugly, jeering remark, Mngxitama has portrayed not just the deliberate murder of Jewish people but even the supposed reduction of their remains to everyday objects as something to be treated as a joke,” SAJBD president Mary Kluk said.

“It is deeply distressing that anyone could so casually and publicly dehumanise an entire people in this way. How much more outrageous it is when emanating from a public figure who heads up a political voice.”

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Jewish Hairdresser Fired over Sabbath Spat Wins Legal Case

by Vicky Fragasso-Marquis, Canadian Press

Rule forbidding Richard Zilberg from working on the Sabbath found to violate freedom of conscience and religion

Hired in 2011, hairdresser Richard Zilberg worked six days a week, including Saturday, the busiest day of the week. (The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes)

A Jewish hairdresser in Montreal who was not allowed to work on Saturdays and was eventually fired has won a discrimination case against his former employer.

A Quebec judge has ordered Iris Gressy, who is also Jewish, as well as a numbered company to pay Richard Zilberg a total of $12,500.

He said the decision to forbid Zilberg to work on the Sabbath because he is Jewish violates his right to freedom of conscience and religion.

Zilberg, who is now 54, was hired at the Spa Orazen salon in October 2011 and worked six days a week, including Saturday, the busiest day of the week.

Accused of breaching confidentiality

Court documents state Gressy told Zilberg in July 2012 he would no longer come in on Saturdays, in accordance with her new policy of not allowing her Jewish employees to work that day. She also told him to not tell clients why he was no longer available Saturdays.

Gressy fired Zilberg the following month after she learned he had told a client of the salon that his employer had prohibited him from coming in on Saturdays because of his faith.

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Kaunas Jewish Community Commemorates 76th Anniversary of Mass Murder at Prienai and Surrounding Areas

On August 26 members of the Kaunas Jewish Community attended a commemoration of the mass murder of Jews in Prienai and the surrounding towns of Birštonas, Stakliškės, Jieznas, Balbieriškis and others 76 years ago. Also attending were Prienai regional administration head Egidijus Visockas and Balbieriškis Tolerance Center director Vitas Rymantas Sidaravičius. KJC chairman Gercas Žakas shared his thoughts and thanked those in attendance. KJC member and Kaunas ghetto inmate Fruma Kučinskienė spoke about the love affair between German composter Edwin Geist and Prienai resident pianist Lyda Bagrianskytė, about their friends and about their rescuers, Prienai resident doctor Juozas Brundza and Kaunas resident Františekas (Pranas) Vocelka. Balbieriškis primary school principal Stasys Valančius, teacher Reda Valančienė and their students also attended the event.

After the painful memories members of the KJC had a chance to speak with event organizers in an informal atmosphere. The Kaunas residents also visited Jewish sites in Prienai, although not many survive: the famous Bagrianski mill listed on the Lithuanian registry of cultural treasures, the former synagogue, a Jewish primary school and the ever-more-beautiful Birštonas spa.

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