Learning, History, Culture – Page 53 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Wine Tasting Saturday

Dear Community members,

An exceptional Hanukkah Evening: we’ll light the seventh Hanukkah candle while tasting and discussing wine.

Do you know which wine goes with what dish at the dinner table? Wine expert Edvinas Gurinas will be present at this wine tasting and you’ll learn which wine is appropriate for different dishes through tasting. Traditional Jewish snacks and dishes will be served. We’ll learn why some wine/food combinations work while others put a damper on taste and mood.

Please register by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt. Space is very limited. The event will take place at 5:00 P.M. on December 4at the Bagel Shop Café.

2021-12-03

Makabi Tennis Tournament

The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club held their annual tennis tournament November 27 with both amateurs and tennis veterans taking to the courts. In the open group the winners were Danielius Merkinas in first place and Norbertas Faktarovičius taking second, and in the veterans group the winner was Eduardas Gurvičius. Ilja Bereznickas also made a good showing in the veterans group. The matches were followed by impassioned discussions of the play and plans for the future.

2021-12-02

Traditional Jewish Music at the Ukmergė Regional History Museum

Residents of Ukmergė (Vilkomir) and others were invited to attend a Hanukkah concert at the Ukmergė Regional History Museum with the Rakija Klezmer Orkestar performing on November 29, the second day of the eight-day holiday. Ukmergė Regional Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas briefly told the audience the story of Hanukkah and what it means. Ukmergė Regional History Museum director Violeta Reipaitė was invited to light the first candle and chairman Taicas lit the second.

Guests were invited to sample traditional Hanukkah dishes with special food packages to take home.

2021-12-01

Condolences

Jenta Timukienė passed away Sunday. She was born in 1939 and was an inmate of the Kaunas ghetto. May her soul rest in peace. Our deepest condolences to her family, friends and fellow members of the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners.

2021-12-01

2021-11-292021-11-29

Israeli Ambassador Visits Panevėžys

Panevėžys mayor Rytis Račkauskas held a reception for Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yossi Avni-Levy. They spoke about projects taking place in the Lithuanian city and opportunities for cooperation.

“I thank the ambassador and the embassy for their attention to Panevėžys. For many years now we’ve enjoyed intense cooperation between the municipality and the Israeli embassy. I hope and believe our cooperation with our sister-city Ramla and with the embassy will only continue to grow in strength,” Račkauskas said.

The Israeli ambassador met with the Panevėžys Jewish Community and visited Jewish historical and commemoration sites including the former Rabbinate, yeshiva, Jewish high school and the Yavne school following the meeting with the mayor.

2021-11-25

A Bloody Story: They Were Murdered in Kaunas

Kauno.diena.lt

The tragic events of the Holocaust have left visible marks at the Ninth Fort. During World War II it was turned into one of the largest mass murder sites in Nazi-occupied Lithuania. From 1941 to 1944 Jews from Lithuania and transported here for Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, the Soviet Union and Germany were murdered here.

The mass murder began November 25, 1941 [sic]. That day 2,934 Jews were shot. The newspaper Kauno Diena presents our readers with a text by a former resident of Kaunas living in Germany concerning the blood-curdling events, commemorations of them and her feeling of guilt. Her grandparents’ home was right next to the Ninth Fort and the so-called road of death.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2021-11-25

Vilna Gaon Museum Launches Kalmanovich Book

The Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum is launching two editions of YIVO linguist Zelig Kalmanovich’s diary written in the Vilnius ghetto, in Lithuanian and English, titled Hope Is Stronger than Life. The book will be presented at 5:30 P.M. on Wednesday, November 24, at the Samuel Bak Museum, aka the Tolerance Center, at Naugarduko street no. 10 in Vilnius.

2021-11-242021-11-24

Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community Hosting Play for Hanukkah

The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community is pleased to announce the first-ever appearance by the Lanzheron troupe from Odessa performing “Teza from Our Yard” at the Stairs Galley at Žemaitės street no. 83 in Šiauliai at 3:00 P.M. on Sunday, November 28, the first day of Hanukkah. “Teza” is about life-stories of Jews with a lot of interesting and funny passages with a distinctly Odessan sense of humor. The main character is played by renowned Ukrainian actor Vitaliy Bondarev. Galina Panibratets is the director. The play is in Russian.

Reservations are required and tickets cost 7 euros, or 3.50 euros for seniors, students and children. Please call 841 200 643 or write an email to toma.galerija@gmail.com to register.

2021-11-23

Rescuers Commemorated in Šarnelė

Rescuers of Jews have been commemorated in Šarnelė in the Plungė region. A street has been renamed for the Righteous Gentiles, with only one household of rescuers still remaining on that street, that of poet Vytautas Mačernis. Historians say the residents of this village rescued dozens of Jews from the Holocaust.

The stone monument stands on the edge of the village of Šarnelė in front of a house where Jews hid from the Nazis. Descendants of Juozapas and Adolfina Karpauskas say their grandparents provided safe haven for Jews for three and a half years.

Grandson Aleksandras Karpauskas said: “They rescued 16 Jews, and there was another family of 10, the 2 parents and eight children. So that’s 26 people. And usually on such a large farm there would be about four hired hands, so you can just imagine that there were 30 people around you every day.”

2021-11-232022-01-12

Emigrant from Israel Wants to Help Lithuanians

Attorney Viktoria Akhmedov who has lived for 20 years in multicultural Israel is happy she’s maintained ties with Lithuania. In her free time the young woman teaches Lithuanian children Hebrew and feels this helps reduce the stress of adaptation for their families and helps them find points of convergence between the two cultures.

Vitorkia believes helping Lithuanian families adapt is in a certain sense her calling. Her own parents moved to Israel to live when she was just 10 and she remembers the difficulties inherent in adapting to a new life. The hardest part at the beginning was communicating in a foreign language.

2021-11-23

Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club Annual Report and Conference

The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club, an associate member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, held their annual conference and presentation of the past several years’ activities at the Bagel Shop Café in Vilnius on November 21. Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Žakas Gercas moderated the meeting of members of the board, athletes and special guests. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman delivered a welcome speech and noted the significance of the Makabi club for the Lithuanian Jewish Community as an athletic and cultural movement. She invited Makabi members to participate more in Jewish cultural life and holiday celebrations and to celebrate their Jewish roots.

Makabi president Semionas Finkelšteinas presented a report on the club’s activities over the last three years, noting good results from the Maccabee Games in Budapest, the annual Fun Run and continual operation during the global virus panic.

2021-11-22

Kaunas Jewish Community Celebrates Minkowski Brothers with Concert

The Kaunas Jewish Community is pleased to invite you to a concert called “Born in Kaunas, Renowned throughout the World: A Concert in Memory of the Brothers Oskar and Hermann Minkowski” at 6:00 P.M. on Monday, November 22, at the Kaunas State Philharmonic located at E. Ožeškienės street no. 12 in Kaunas.

Actor and director Aleksandras Rubinovas will tell the story of Oskar and Hermann Minkowski.

The concert will feature compositions by Litvaks and contemporary Israeli composers performed by the Vilnius St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra.

If you’d like to attend, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/modjciNNQ1eaixHt7

2021-11-19

Condolences

Rachil Zeidenberg passed away November 19. She was born in 1933. Our deepest condolences to her sister Maja and daughter Roza.

2021-11-19

Vilnius Ghetto Diary Donated to Schools More than a Book

The Lithuanian Jewish Community has donated a thousand copies of Yitzhak Rudashevski’s Vilnius Ghetto Diary. [Several days ago] the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Athletics hosted a ceremony for the symbolic hand-over with education and athletics minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, former culture minister Kindaugas Kvietkauskas, who translated the book from Yiddish to Lithuanian, and book designer Sigutė Chlebinskaitė participating.

It’s symbolic this is happening in the run-up to Rudashevski’s birthday on December 10, which will be a good opportunity for teachers and students to talk about him and his diary. The book has been included in the Lithuanian language and literature curriculum and Rudashevski is also mentioned in the history curriculum now undergoing revision.

“The simplest matter in embarking upon the path of Holocaust education is literature. It often facilitates better understanding of some of the matters involved than history textbooks can. Anne Frank’s diary is read around the world and is popular, and here in Lithuania we have a similar diary written by an adolescent. My assignment is to donate this book to schools, and it is the job of the education system to say, and there a million Yitzhak Rudashevskis,” Faina Kukliansky said.

2021-11-17

LJC Donates 1,000 Rudashevski Diaries to Lithuanian Schools

The Lithuanian Jewish Community has delivered 1,000 copies of Yitzhak Rudashevski’s “Vilnius Ghetto Diary” in Lithuanian translation to the Lithuanian National Education Agency for distribution to almost all primary school libraries across the country.

At the hand-over ceremony several days ago, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said the gift will contribute to Holocaust education in Lithuania and that Rudashevski’s diary provides a personal perspective which children are able to grasp more easily. Rudashevski wrote the diary as a teenager from Vilnius. She presented one copy of the book personally as a symbolic gift to Lithuania’s education and athletics minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė on the occasion.

“While we provide the book to the schools, it’s important to remember there were thousands of Rudashevskis,” chairwoman Kukliansky said.

2021-11-16

Condolences

Grigorijus Kušneris passed away November 14. He was born in 1932. Our deepest condolences to his wife Nadežda, daughter Natalija and son Anatolijus.

2021-11-16

Children’s Cooking Workshop at Community

It was quite a Sunday afternoon at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. We were not able to count the number of children in attendance nor the abundance of food made. We cooked, we baked, we sampled and we did it all over again numerous times. This was the fourth round of the Kinder Tish Sunday school activities. The chicken bullion–Jewish penicillin–was cooking in the pot since 8 in the morning. We’ll be meeting again in two weeks for the Miracle of Hanukkah. #BalabostaRiva

2021-11-15

Alanta Synagogue Renovated

The synagogue in the town of Alanta in the Molėtai region stands on slight hill side a little bit away from Ukmergės street on the right-hand side of the Alanta-Molėtai road. It is unique in Lithuania and Europe. It is one of only seventeen surviving wooden synagogues spread across Lithuania. Judging from its shape, it is thought it was built in the late 19th century. The Alanta synagogue is the only surviving synagogue from the Romantic period with an intact interior and interior stairs left in Lithuania.

The renovated synagogue will be handed over to the Molėtai regional administration for managing public use of the state-protected heritage site for cultural, educational and tourism activities including exhibits and tours teaching local Jewish history.

2021-11-152022-01-11