Learning, History, Culture

Summer Camp in Švenčionys

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This summer in August, a two-week international camp is being organised in Švenčionys. Our goal is to clean the old Jewish Švenčionys cemetery, remove trash, document gravestones and discover what we are able about Švenčionys Jewish history. We will be teaching our volunteers about Litvak culture, history and Jewish burial traditions in general.

The old Jewish Švenčionys cemetery is one of the oldest Jewish burial places in Lithuania, dating back to the 17th century. The cemetery covers approximately 39,670 sq. meters (47,445 square yards) with existing gravestones estimated to number in the thousands. The number was higher prior to the Holocaust when gravestones were stolen for use in local construction, including for the construction of a horse stable. Much of the remaining cemetery was desecrated. In 1993, the stables were taken apart and many stones returned to the cemetery, and a remembrance monument was built.

Many ornate gravestones survive from the period 1900- 1930, and their condition varies. Many, if not most, are in fragile condition and need urgent repair and restoration.
We do not have data defining dates for the cemetery, we hope to discover that during our work.

The camp is organised in partnership with Action Reconciliation Service for Peace

http://www.actionreconciliation.org/

and will be our second joint project in consecutive years. We expect between 10-15 youngsters will visit Lithuania from Germany and other countries, to volunteer in this effort. More information can be found at https://www.asf-ev.de/en/summer-camps/activities/lithuania.html

If you are interested in the project and/or have any questions, please contact us via info@litvak-cemetery.info or sandra@litvak-cemetery.info

From http://www.litvak-cemetery.info/events/summer-camp-in-svencionys

Note: although the camp started today, there are still free spaces for interested volunteers, with housing and three meals per day provided. Please contact the email addresses above for more information.

Maya Pennington Concert

Mayos Pennington koncertas Vilniuje, Lietuvos žydų (litvakų) bendruomenėje

Maya Pennington’s concert at the Lithuanian Jewish Community August 4 drew a large crowd.

Maya spoke about her Litvak roots, her tender feelings for Vilnius which she is visiting for the second time to study Yiddish and her love of music.

Maya said music is the best international language.

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Event in Dieveniškės to Commemorate Regional Jewish History

Dieveniškėse vyko renginiai, skirti regiono žydų istorijai

On August 4 Lithuanian Jewish Community representatives sold traditional Litvak bagels and sweets and spoke about Jewish tradition under the aegis of the LJC Bagel Shop Café at the Dieveniškės town square. The bagels quickly disappeared but local residents stuck around for the events to commemorate regional Jewish history.

The Dieveniškės Technological and Business School hosted the lectures “Jewish Funeral and Cemetery Traditions” and “Synagogues: How They’re Built, What Happens in Them and Why.” Participants manufactured models of synagogues from cardboard and other materials, and bricks made of clay to mark the locations of former Jewish buildings.

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Unveiling of Apple Grove Sculpture Park Commemorating Jewish Rescuers at the Litvak Commemorative Garden

Gelbėtojų obelies atidengimas Litvakų atminimo sode (Medsėdžių kaime, Platelių seniūnijoje);

Congress of Residents of Šarnelė, 2016

August 13, Šarnelė Community Center, Plungė Region, Lithuania

Educational conference “They Lived in Šarnelė“

10:30 Unveiling of Apple Orchard of Rescuers at the Litvak Commemorative Garden (Medsėdžiai Village, Plateliai Aldermanship);

12:00 Catholic Mass for the Šarnelė village community, for those who perished and those Šarnelė residents who survived deportation, and their friends;

1:00 Agape. Presentation of book by Tomas Viluckas;

2:00 Conference opening;

Road map

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A Jewish Culinary Legend Reborn: Fania Lewando’s Vilnius

Lewando Fania2
by Jūratė Važgauskaitė Šaltinis, manoteises.lt

If you happened to be walking on Vokiečių street in Vilnius eighty years ago, you would surely have noticed the sign for the Dieto-Yarska Yadlodaynia restaurant, and if you stepped inside you would probably have bumped into Marc Chagall, the famous artist, as well as discovering good food. The vegetarian restaurant beloved of connoisseurs belonged to Faina Lewando-Fiszelewicz aand her husband Lazar Lewando. These members of the Vilnius Jewish community established their Dieto-Yarska Yadlodaynia (“Dietary/Vegetarian Cafeteria”) in the building that was marked no. 14 on Vokiečių street then and created a food revolution in Vilnius at that time, then called Wilno.

A vegetarian restaurant in the 1930s was a big sensation. Although vegetarian dishes were nothing new in the Jewish culinary traditions of Eastern Europe, they were often eaten by solitary diners or if no other kosher food choice was available. A vegetarian restaurant was extraordinary.

Ashkenazi food traditions, named after the word for Jews living in Eastern and Northern Europe, dominated the city and entire region when Faina Lewando opened her vegetarian restaurant and a culinary school right next to it in Vilnius. These traditions made much use of meat products and fat and heart meat dishes for holidays and to warm up during winter, without which the Jewish dinner table was inconceivable. It was to be expected that a luxury vegetarian restaurant in interwar Vilnius would create so much wonder and interest among the public.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Happy 90th!

<img width=”670″ height=”300″ src=”http://www.lzb.lt/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/rozes-raudonos-670×300.jpg” class=”attachment-featured size-featured wp-post-image” alt=”Sveikiname su 90-uoju jubiliejumi!” title=”Sveikiname su 90-uoju jubiliejumi!” />

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Social Center congratulate Feiga Koganskienė, a Holocaust survivor and active member of the Kaunas Jewish Community, on the occasion of her 90th birthday.

We all wish her perfect health. Mazl tov!

Lithuanian Media on Children’s Experiences of the Ghetto: to Live to Tell the Story

Vaikiškos geto istorijos – išgyventi ir pasakoti

Children’s Experiences of the Ghetto: to Live to Tell the Story
by Jūratė Važgauskaitė
manoteises.lt

“Wednesday the 10th of December. It dawned on me that today is my birthday. Today I became 15 years old. You hardly realize how time flies. It, the time, runs ahead unnoticed and presently we realize, as I did today, for example, and discover that days and months go by, that the ghetto is not a painful, squirming moment of a dream which constantly disappears, but is a large swamp in which we lose our days and weeks…In my daily ghetto life it seems to me that I live normally but often I have deep qualms. Surely I could have lived better. Must I day in day out see the walled-up ghetto gate, must I in my best years see only the one little street, the few stuffy courtyards?” So wrote Yitzchak Rudashevski, a student at the Real Gymnasium in Vilnius, a talented writer and a prisoner of the Vilnius ghetto.

Rudaševskio dienoraštis

The ghetto swallowed up the life of this young man, leaving us only his diary. A diary which reveals the personal world of a young man who grew up too soon and experienced terrible experiences.

Full treatment in Lithuanian here.

Remembering the Murdered Jewish Community of Ukmergė

Commemorative ceremony to remember the Jewish community murdered during the Holocaust in Ukmergė

12:00 noon, Sunday, September 4, 2016
Pivonija forest, Ukmergė

Sponsored by the Lithuanian Jewish Community, the Goodwill Foundation and the Ukmergė Jewish Community

Lithuanian Citizenship for Litvaks

According to various reports in the Israeli media, there has been a sharp increase in South African Litvak applications for Lithuanian citizenship.

Some authors have even mentioned some sort of “Lithuanian Citizenship Programme,” whose existence is unknown to the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

Because of the seemingly increased interest, we are placing some of our earlier reporting back at the top of page one of the English version of the webpage.

We would like to take this opportunity to remind readers the amendment to the Lithuanian law on citizenship, the initiative of both the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Lithuanian parliament, only removed and changed language which might have led to discrimination against Jews and Litvaks by individual public servants. There is no language about welcoming Litvaks with open arms, unfortunately. The amended law only levels the playing field to make sure Litvaks are treated equally with ethnic Lithuanians and others in the application process.

While the law doesn’t express welcoming Litvaks with open arms, the Lithuanian Jewish Community does welcome Litvaks from around the world, including South Africa, to become members, and does support Litvaks’ bids for Lithuanian citizenship. It has been our honor to have played a part in the amended legislation signed into law by the president of Lithuania last month.

LJC Chairwoman on Lithuanian Citizenship Law: Why Is It So Important to Livaks?

F.Kukliansky apie pilietybės įstatymą. Kodėl jis litvakams toks svarbus?

Articles on this web page and the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s facebook section about citizenship for Litvaks have been the subject of great interest. Thousands of people around the world are reading everything written about citizenship. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky therefore would like to talk about why this issue is of such tremendous importance to Litvaks.

Many Litvaks died during the Holocaust and they are now scattered around the world. These people identify themselves with Lithuania, but have lost Lithuanian citizenship. Truly this is not just a moral issue, but also a legal one. We are talking about Jews who survived the Holocaust, and truly no one rescinded their citizenship in the concentration camps. No one sent them to the concentration camps with their passports. They were deported, isolated and murdered as Jews, not as citizens of Lithuania. Of those who were deported to Siberia, likewise no one asked for their Lithuanian citizenship, but deported them because they owned property, or were firefighters or volunteer soldiers. Thus arises the legitimate question: when did these people lose Lithuanian citizenship, when was it taken away from them?

Reading the laws of restored Independent Lithuania, we see Jews were deprived of Lithuanian citizenship during in already independent Lithuania, when the law on citizenship was adopted. Many Jews who survived the war and the Holocaust went to their ethnic homeland, Israel, Jews who consider themselves citizens of Lithuania but who, when the Republic of Lithuania law on citizenship was adopted in 1991, which clearly states Lithuanian citizenship is lost upon acquisition of citizenship of another state, lost that citizenship.

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President Signs Citizenship Amendment for Litvaks into Law

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Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė signed into law amendments to the country’s citizenship law on June 6, 2016. The parliament adopted the amendment to impose stricter language to insure Litvaks and others are able to obtain Lithuanian citizenship without greater bureaucratic obstacles. A copy of the act of law is provided below in Lithuanian.

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Lithuanian Parliament Passes Amendment to Ensure Citizenship for Litvaks

The Lithuanian parliament Thursday adopted amendments to Lithuania’s citizenship law to ensure the rights to citizenship of Jews who left Lithuania between the two world wars and their descendants. The vote was 98 for, none against and four abstentions. The amendments will come into force after president Dalia Grybauskaitė signs them into law. The new legislation was introduced to parliament this week and were scheduled for fast-track consideration and debate. The new language specifies citizenship is restored to an individual who left Lithuania before March 11, 1990, the date Lithuania formally declared independence from the Soviet Union, except for cases where the individual left Lithuania to live in another part of the Soviet Union after June 15, 1940, the date the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania. The current law on citizenship allows those who left Lithuania before March 11, 1990, to hold dual citizenship.

“I very much welcome the change in the law, and I am certain the Lithuanian state has lost nothing at all, and on the contrary, has received much more, a good name and living potential,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told BNS.

One of the authors of the new language, conservative opposition leader MP Andrius Kubilius, noted the current regulations needed to be better defined because Migration Department staff and the courts had begun to demand Litvaks provide proof they or their ancestors were persecuted in Lithuania between the wars. The new language makes it explicit that “withdrawal” or “flight” from Lithuania and “leaving the country” are all used synonymously and people in both alleged categories are included in the right to restoration of citizenship.

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Maya Pennington at the Lithuanian Jewish Community Thursday

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Maya Pennington and the Hive!

Come… Hear… Fall in Love!

At 6:00 P.M. this Thursday, August 4, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community (Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius)

About Maya

Singer, actress, composer.

Born in Jerusalem, Maya began learning music when she was 5. She graduated from the Ruben Academy for music and dance High School (majoring in Baroque flute), later studyied jazz voice and multi-disciplinary composition at the Academy of Music and Rimon. In order to supplement her acting training, she took part in courses held by Sadna’ot Habama with teachers from the Royal Academy of Music and Guildford and with teachers specializing in various acting methods. She toured internationally with the a cappella group Voca People (2009-2013), and performed as a soloist with a wide variety of performances, ranging from several performances with the Be’er Sheva sinfonietta to the international Red Sea Jazz Festival 2008, the Jerusalem Jazz Festival 2006, etc. and as a recording artist on several albums, including Ittai Rosenbaum’s “Between Waters and Waters” (2009).

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Free Israeli Dance Lessons

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photo: Giedre Rozmanaite Photography

The Israeli embassy in Vilnius invites everyone to free Israeli dance lessons in Vilnius! An experienced instructor from Israel will conduct the lessons.

Come to the square in front of the Old Town Hall at 7:00 P.M. on July 28 and 29.

About dance instructor Orly Goldshtein:
Residence: Ramat Ha’Sharon, Israel

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New Torah Study Library at Choral Synagogue

We invite all our friends to the inauguration of our new Torah library at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.

Every synagogue is more than just a house of prayer–it’s also a house of learning. Even more so in Lithuania, where Torah study has always been of the highest priority. Now our synagogue will provide the opportunity to teach Torah in the classic way.

Thanks to the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund and their understanding of the importance of this library in Vilnius, the synagogue will now contain a classic Jewish library of more than a hundred books needed by everyone who wants to engage in serious learning.

The Torah (Pentateuch) and the Books of Prophets with all the classical commentaries, Mishnah, Talmud, Rambam, Tur and Shulchan Aruch–if the latter are missing it is impossible to study Torah, to prepare for lessons and to teach those who are resolved to make progress in their knowledge and Torah study.

The Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund and the Lithuanian Jewish Religious Community invite you to share in our joy and to make a small l’chaim at 7:00 P.M. on August 24 at the Choral Synagogue.

Important Delegation of Rabbis

smaller synagogue group

Rabbi Kalev Krelin reports on an important delegation who visited Lithuania last week.

“I had the honor to host a group of rabbis and philanthropists from the US. At the head of the group were R. Yeruham Olshin, head of biggest yeshivah in the world in Lakewood, New Jersey, and R. Reuven Desler, businessman and philanthropist, grandson of famous Rabbi Eliyahu Desler.

“The group visited the tomb of the Gaon and R. Chaim Ozer in Vilnius, and also the gravestone of Rabbi Boruch Beer Leibovitz at the Užupis cemetery. They visited the grave of Elchonon Spektor in Kaunas, prayed at the 7th Fort on the date when R. Elchonon Wasserman from Baranovichi Yeshiva was killed there, and also visited another cemetery.

“After that the group returned to Vilnius and prayed an evening prayer at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.

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Polish Constitutional Court Upholds Restrictive Restitution Law

Dear Friend,

Today we received disappointing news from the Polish Constitutional Tribunal. The Court affirmed the constitutionality of a law passed by the Polish Parliament that limits the rights of claimants to restitution for private property in Warsaw.

Please see the below article from today’s New York Times describing the law and its implications. This article, as well as other media stories, have highlighted our position. Hebrew speakers may also read this article on Ynet.

The World Jewish Restitution Organization wrote to then-President Bronisław Komorowski last year asking him not to sign the legislation. President Komorowski agreed, and sent the law to the Constitutional Tribunal. WJRO submitted a “friend of court” brief urging the Court to declare the law unconstitutional for violating former owners’ rights.

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LJC Statement about the Seventh Fort in Kaunas

Statement by the Lithuanian Jewish Community concerning Cnaan Liphshiz’s article “This Lithuanian Concentration Camp Is Now a Wedding Venue” published at http://www.jta.org/2016/07/24/news-opinion/world/lithuanian-concentration-camp-is-now-a-wedding-venue

The Lithuanian Jewish Community thanks the author of the article and the news agency who have again brought attention to the problematic situation at the Seventh Fort in Kaunas. We also feel it is our duty to explain and add to some of the facts and circumstances brought up in the article.

In June and July of 1941 a concentration camp was set up at the Seventh Fort where up to 5,000 people were murdered, mainly Jews resident in Kaunas. During the Soviet era the fort was used for military purposes and the exact location of the mass grave was unknown and inaccessible to the wider public. In 2009 the Lithuanian State Property Fund, which had ownership of the complex, allowed it to be privatized. The Lithuanian Jewish Community never approved of this decision and numerous times wee expressed our position that this was a huge mistake which couldn’t be allowed to happen at similar sites. In any event, after the fort buildings were privatized, the new owner, Karo paveldo centras [Military Heritage Center], received the right to lease the land around the buildings, which belongs to the state. The mass grave site, whose exact location was not known then, thus fell within territory controlled by a private corporate entity.

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