The boys’ swim team of the Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium took first place in intermural competition in Vilnius. This is a first in the history of the school! Now we’ll go on to the Lithuanian intermural competitions in Kėdainiai.
Congratulations to the boys and to their trainer, Ela Pavinskienė!
A working group for refurbishing the old Jewish cemetery in Žaliakalnis neighborhood of Kaunas met March 3. Under an agreement with the municipal administration, experts from the public agency Registrų centras [Registry Center] performed a survey and inventory of the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery. All gravestones were counted (5,808) and every grave was assigned a number and its exact location determined. This work took about 2 months and cost 8,000 euros. It was financed by the city of Kaunas. The work performed so far will allow the next steps to be taken: to photograph each grave, to read and translate headstone inscriptions, to identify the graves (to determine the identity of the people buried) and to create a virtual database. After that’s done, drafting and implementing a technical plan for refurbishing the cemetery will be possible. So far there is no funding for these tasks, so the plan is to approach different foundations, and the idea of recruiting volunteers for grave identification is also being considered.
The municipality is preparing a territorial planning document (designating the plot of land) for the cemetery and is planning to set up surveillance cameras at cemeteries this spring. The cemetery is always mowed and maintained.
A large group of Kaunas Jewish Community members are spending their weekends attending swimming exercises held by the Makabi Athletics Club at the newly renovated Girstutis pool complex. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Goodwill Fund have extended financial support to the Kaunas Makabi Athletics Club so that members can make use of the sports and recreation center.
The Catholic newspaper and website bernardai.lt now has a video outlet as well and has presented a feature on the new Bagel Shop Café located at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. The video presentation in Lithuanian, Hebrew and English features short conversations with Lithuania’s two new rabbis on the meaning of kosher food and cooking, as well as a brief interview with Smhuel Levin, the chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Religious Community, among others.
To view the interview, please direct your browser here.
Photo courtesy JDC
by Cnaan Liphshiz
SZARVAS, Hungary (JTA)–Escaping a sudden downpour in the summer of 2012, Andras Paszternak and Barbi Szendy ran to find cover inside an empty cabin at their Jewish summer camp, Szarvas, 100 miles east of Budapest.
The two senior counselors, then 31 and 36 respectively, chatted as rain drenched the sprawling compound where they had passed every summer since their early teens.
“I suddenly noticed I was holding Barbi’s hand,” Paszternak, a Hungarian Jew from Slovakia, said in recalling the day when he began his romantic relationship with his Hungarian Jewish wife.
March 4, 2016, No. 197
To:
the honorable Algirdas Butkevičius
Government of the Republic of Lithuania
Gedimino prospect 11
Vilnius 01103
the honorable Remigijus Šimašius
Konstitucijos prospect 3
LT-09601 Vilnius
the honorable Visvaldas Matijošaitis
Laisves alley 96
LT-44251 Kaunas
cc:
Chancellory of the President of the Republic of Lithuania
S. Daukanto square 3
LT-01122 Vilnius
Statement
March 4, 2016
Vilnius
The Lithuanian Jewish Community proposes the Government of the Republic of Lithuania and the municipal governments of the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas take all possible measures to ensure the holiday to mark the 26th anniversary of the restoration of the Lithuanian state does not include neo-Nazi chants, marches and symbols and events of a similar nature.
We would like to underline the importance of this holiday for all of Lithuania’s citizens, including the Litvak community in Lithuania with its unique and long-standing traditions, and the importance of fostering in the international arena an image of Lithuania as a modern state based on democratic principles and celebrating a tradition of multiculturalism over many centuries.
We would like to remind you of the march held by the Union of Patriotic Youth and the Lithuanian National center on March 11, 2015 with permission from the Vilnius municipality. This march featured fascist and racist symbols and chants and slogans promoting ideas of segregation.
The Government and the municipal institutions should continue to make efforts so that neo-Nazi ideas do not become acceptable in Lithuanian society and especially that they shouldn’t be propagated under cover of state holidays and through manipulation of the concept of patriotism.
Sincerely,
Faina Kukliansky
chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community
The Jewish song and dance Ensemble celebrate their 45th anniversary with a concert at the Russian Drama Theater in Vilnius. The concert is scheduled for 6:00 P.M. on March 22. Tickets cost 12 euros for the general public, 9 euros for Community members and 2 euros for students and senior citizens. To purchase tickets, see here.
VILNIUS, March 4, BNS–Lithuania will support a Japanese application to include the documents issued by its vice-consul Chiune Sugihara in Kaunas in the UNESCO Memory of the World Program.
“Lithuania supports the initiative. Sugihara’s heroic deed must be remembered, immortalized and promoted as triumph of humanity even in the face of deadly threat. I am glad our nations share values,” Lithuanian parliamentary speaker Loreta Grauziniene said after meeting with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.
During World War II Japanese vice-consul Sugihara issued Japanese visas to Jewish nationals fleeing Nazi oppression, saving many lives.
The opening of Vilnius’s annual street fair will feature a concert by the Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh, at 5:00 P.M. at the Vilnius Old Town Hall square. The group is promising a whole range of music and performances, including a traditional Sabbath prayer and song.
Don’t forget, the Bagel Shop Café will also be at the fair on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. LJC staff, members and volunteers are all invited to come and help sell Jewish bagels during the fair. It should be a lot of fun and this year the annual street fair will include a Jewish shtetl section.
A large group turned out for the launch of the new book “Lietuvos sporto klubas ‘Makabi’ 1916-2016” [The Lithuanian Athletics Club Makabi, 1916-2016] at the Lithuanian Jewish Community on the last day of February, 2016. The appearance of the book is a milestone not just for the Lithuanian Jewish Community, but for Lithuanian sport as a whole, because Makabi is the oldest athletics club in Lithuania. The book tells the story of the origins of Makabi a century ago, activities in the first Lithuanian Republic, how the club was reconstituted after Lithuanian independence from the Soviet Union and its activities since then over the last 25 years. It includes information on Makabi’s participation at European and World Maccabiah Games and other sporting events, and showcases athletes. The book is richly illustrated with photographs depicting the history of Makabi.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the club, which began in German-occupied Vilnius. On October 23, 1916, the Makabi Jewish Sports and Gymnastics Association was established in the ancient Lithuanian capital. Kaunas Makabi was established in 1919. The entire Maccabee athletics movement took place as part of the early spread of Zionism.
A new Lithuanian edition of “Sabbath” by Abraham Heschel (1951), translated by Asta Leskauskaitė and published by Katalikų pasaulio leidiniai [Catholic World Publications] was launched at the Vilnius Book Fair last week.
Rabbi Heschel became a rabbi at age 16 and was graduated from the Vilna Mathematics and Natural Science Gymnasium in Vilnius before going on to study under some of the greatest Jewish teachers in Germany. He was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland in October of 1938. He fled to Britain weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland, and then went on to the United States in early 1940, where he became one of the most important and respected Jewish thinkers of the mid-20th century. His first book, apparently, “Der Shem Hamefoyrosh: Mentsch,” was written when he was a member of the Jung-Vilne group of writers in Vilnius, a book of poems in Yiddish published in Warsaw in 1933. Heschel’s poems attracted attention, including a letter of praise Chaim Nachman Bialik sent to the author from Israel.
March 2, 2016 No. 37
Office of Prosecutor General
of the Republic of Lithuania
February 29, 2016 No. 17.2.-2521
re: February 11, 2016, No. 179
To: Faina Kukliansky, attorney, chairwoman,
Lithuanian Jewish Community
Re: possible actions in connection with a list compiled by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania of people suspected of committing or otherwise abetting the murder of people of Jewish ethnicity during World War II
Directed by the leadership of the Office of Prosecutor General, the Criminal Prosecution Department has examined your letter of February 11, 2016, to the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Lithuania and the director general of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania (henceforth CSGRRL) containing proposals by the Lithuanian Jewish Community on possible actions in connection with the list of people alleged to have committed or otherwise abetted the genocide of people of Jewish ethnicity during World War II compiled by the CSGRRL, and having considered these suggestions, we affirm that the Prosecutor General’s Office, operating within its area of competence and under the criminal code of the Republic of Lithuania, and under the law of the Republic of Lithuania of May 2, 1990, on the restoration of rights of people repressed for opposing the occupational regimes, after receiving from the CSGRRL a detailed list based on complete archival data of people alleged to have taken part in the genocide of the Jewish people, will assess all information received. After assessing it and only if there is a legal foundation for beginning a pretrial investigation of one of the aforementioned people on the list for the aforementioned criminal actions, for which there is no statute of limitations for criminal prosecution, the prosecutor will undertake the appropriate decisions for proceeding with the case.
You’re kindly invited to the preview of the documentary “Farewell Herr Schwarz” (2013, Germany / Israel) and the meeting with the director Yael Reuveny. The event is to be held at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum (Naugarduko street 10/2) at 4.00 P.M. on March 10, 2016.
The documentary is in several langaugues with English and Lithuanian subtitles. The discussion with the director is to take place in English.
A meeting of the newly appointed rabbis Kalev Krelin and Shimshon Daniel Izakson (Isaacson) was held at the Lithuanian Jewish Community February 29. Participants included representatives of foreign embassies in Vilnius, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, Parliament, the Catholic Church, the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and the regional Jewish communities in Lithuania. Also attending was Vilnius auxiliary bishop Arūnas Poniškaitis.
Shmuel Levin, director of the Lithuanian Jewish Religious Community, spoke at the meeting and said: “The physical genocide by the Nazis and the spiritual genocide by the Soviet regime destroyed the Jewish communities in Europe and especially in Lithuania. Today Judaism is an exotic religion, not just for the other religions, but for us ourselves. We hope Rabbi Izakson and Rabbi Krelin will be successful in reviving and preserving the Litvak tradition, Jewish spiritual life.”
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky welcomed the new rabbis to the community and wished them every success in their work.
The exhibition International Studies Days will be held from 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. on March 3 in the conference center at the Radisson Blu Hotel located at Konstitucijos prospect no. 20 in Vilnius. This will be the first time the cultural center of the embassy of Israel participates. Anna Keinan, first secretary of the Israeli embassy in Vilnius, and Ray Keinan, director of the Israeli cultural center, will greet participants.
The exhibition will also be held on March 5 in Riga, Latvia, and on March 6 in Tallinn, Estonia.
For more information contact lietuva@balticcouncil.org or see www.balticcouncil.org
The Lithuanian Jewish Community
Pylimo street No. 4, Vilnius
February 29, 2016
No. 190
To: the honorable Birutė Burauskaitė
Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania
the honorable Evaldas Pašilis
Office of the Prosecutor General of Lithuania
the honorable Stasys Žvinys
Molėtai regional administration
Re: Assessment of the Actions of Father Jonas Žvinys and Bronius Žvinys
The Lithuanian Jewish Community, possessing information about the direct and personal participation of Bronius Žvinys in the murder of Jews during World War II and his brother Father Jonas Žvinys’s collaboration in the murder of Jews, requests:
I. the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania (hereafter Center)
1. to perform a study, or if this has been done already, to perform a new study of the aforementioned people for their possible involvement in the stated criminal activity, and to make public, i.e., to acquaint the public with, the conclusion of this study and the material used in this study.
2. If the Center determines the information held about the criminal acts committed by the aforementioned people is true, to recommend to the Molėtai regional administration and/or other regional and municipal administrations to take no actions to commemorate Bronius Žvinys and/or Jonas Žvinys, i.e., not rename streets after them and not to make other commemorative markers intended to honor these people.
II. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Lithuania
1. In light of the conclusion and material from the Center regarding the aforementioned people, to investigate whether the Supreme Court of Lithuania legally and correctly rehabilitated Father Jonas Žvinys.
Sincerely,
Faina Kukliansky, attorney at law, chairwoman
Lithuania Jewish Community
In an article dated February 28, the Jerusalem Post reported on plans to rename a street in Molėtai, Lithuania after a man suspected of complicity in the mass murder of 1,200 Jews from the town during the Holocaust.
The man in question is the late priest Jonas Žvinys, long dead but honored with a state medal by Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus in 1999.
The Jerusalem Post article quotes Lithuanian author and activist Rūta Vanagaitė complaining no one is will to take responsibility in investigating the supposed hero’s past. Vanagaite also said that after searching through KGB archives she discovered the priest in fact had set up the unit responsible for the mass murder operation in Molėtai, and that one of the unit’s commanders was his brother who later confessed to his role in the massacre.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust researcher, author and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Jerusalem Post the Žvinys case reflects a “much wider problem.”
It’s the biggest night of the year in Hollywood, so it’s not surprising that Jews are typically well-represented among the annual list of Oscar nominations. This year, in the absence of a major Jewish-themed film, the Jewishness of this year’s Oscars is of a quieter kind.
As it happens, several Oscar-nominated films have unusually triumphant, behind-the-scenes Jewish stories worth celebrating. Below, we give you five of the best “secret” Jewish stories behind the 88th Academy Awards.
Full story here.
American Jewish comedian Roseanne Barr will participate in a March 28 conference in Jerusalem about fighting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement. Barr was invited to the conference, which is sponsored by Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, because of her involvement with the pro-Israel group Stand With Us, according to Ynet.
“I am proud to stand with Israel during the week of Purim,” Barr said Thursday, according to Ynet. “This is the holiday where Esther mobilized the Jewish community, and because of her strong and unifying stance, she succeeded in overturning the brutal decree to destroy us.”
Barr, who starred in the long-running sitcom “Roseanne,” will tour the country for two weeks prior to the conference and will be accompanied by her mother. The comedian, who frequently posts on Twitter, is an outspoken critic of the pro-Palestinian left and BDS. She has even called Jews who support BDS “anti-Semites” and recently retweeted a post from JTA’s partner website Jewniverse noting that the Bataclan, the Paris nightclub where at least 130 people were killed in a recent attack, was named for a 19th-century Jewish operetta.
Others expected at the conference include Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, several government ministers and Knesset members and Sodastream CEO Daniel Birnbaum.
Full story here.
February 26, BNS–An old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius is being put forward to become a state-protected cultural heritage site. Cultural Heritage Department director Diana Varnaitė initiated the process.
“There are surviving headstones there and there should be a certain amount of state protection. The cemetery is already on the registry, it is already a cultural heritage treasure. The registry is so construed that significance determines whether the state or a local government is the party to make a decision and declare sites protected,” Cultural Heritage Department deputy director Algimantas Degutis told BNS. He said state-protected cultural treasures have stricter protection, financing and maintenance requirements.
The move to change the status of the Užupis Jewish cemetery is unconnected with plans by the adjacent funeral home to build a crematorium, Degutis said. The Vilnius municipality is against the crematorium plan.