Learning, History, Culture – Page 18 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

NGO Monitor Webinar: Examining Human Rights Stances on Israel

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.

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2024-01-18

Vilna Gaon Museum Opens New Litvak Culture and Identity Museum

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.

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Congratulations to Young Composer

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.

2024-01-18

One Million Bells in Lithuania

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

2024-01-152024-02-08

Plaque Commemorating Lazaris Gutmanas to be Unveiled in Palanga

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

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South Africa Presents Opening Arguments against Israel at the Hague

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.

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Evening to Commemorate Israel Elyashev in Kaunas

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.

2024-01-112024-01-22

Fayerlakh Benefit Concert Raises Money for Lithuanian Jewish Family Attacked by Hamas

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/

2024-01-08

Harvard President Claudine Gay Resigns amid Plagiarism Claims, Backlash from Anti-Semitism Testimony

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.

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Condolences

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.

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Art Exhibit in Inspired by Abraham Sutzkever

The Shofar Gallery of the Jewish Culture Information Center in Vilnius is hosting an exhibit of works by art and book restorer and artist Modestas Saukaitis inspired by Abraham Sutzkever’s poetry. Saukaitis’s works on exhibit are verre églomisé, an ancient technique which uses white gold painted on glass to produce an extraordinary effect.

The exhibit runs till December 23 and is open to the public during the gallery’s working hours, from noon to 6:00 P.M. on weekdays and from noon till 4:00 P.M. on Saturday. The gallery is located at Mėsinių street no. 3A in the Vilnius Old Town.

For more information, see here.

2023-12-21

Tomas Venclova Wins Lithuanian Writers Union Prize

The Lithuanian Writers Union announced they were awarding their bi-annual prize to writer and thinker Tomas Venclova for his latest book of poetry entitled “Už Onos ir Bernardinų” [Behind/Beyond the Church of St. Anne and the Church of the Bernardines (aka Franciscans)]. The book was published by the Apostrofa publishing house and contains 31 poems Venclova wrote over the past seven years.

The Lithuanian Writers Union awards their prize to one author every two years in recognition of high literary value. They will present the prize to Venclova on January 6 at Union headquarters in Vilnius.

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Anniversary of Escape from Ninth Fort

On December 25, 1943, 64 prisoners at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas pulled off a daring escape. The Jews and Soviet POWs were the crew selected by the Nazis to exhume and burn corpses.

The Ninth Fort Museum in Kaunas has set up a special exhibit to mark the 80th anniversary of the escape featuring the testimonies of survivors.

Ya’arit Glezer’s father Pinia Krakinovski was one of the escapees and she came from Israel to speak at the opening of the new exhibition. Yakov Faitelson also spoke through an audio recording–his father Aleks was one of the escapees–as did Medel Deich’s son Grisha Deich. Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg-Silverstein attended the event and spoke to the audience about the importance of history in the context of current events.

2023-12-152023-12-15

Strashun Street Library Space to House New Museum

Lithuanian construction company Infes reported they concluded a contract with the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum for help creating a museum inside the Vilnius ghetto library space located on Žemaitijos street, formerly Strashun street, where library director Herman Kruk wrote most of his Vilnius ghetto diary and where the FPO, the Vilnius ghetto partisan fighters force, had a shooting range in the basement.

Infes said they would undertake capital renovation of the building and do other construction there. According to their press release, the museum will teach visitors about the Vilnius ghetto and the Holocaust in Lithuania and will feature unique items from the Vilna Gaon Museum’s collections.

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