A reminder that the Ilan Club is meeting on Sundays at 1:00 P.M. at Pylimo street no. 4.
Women’s Club Meeting Friday
Dear reader,
The Women’s Club will be expecting you again this Friday, and this meeting will be especially fun and delicious as we make quiches and pastries.
This time of year is special, the High Holy Days, and we cannot avoid the holiday spirit. THis Friday we celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot, when we sit down at the table together with our families and also treat those who come by. So, dear homemakers, we will learn to make the Israeli dish pashtida, sometimes called a kugel, which resembles a quiche, and layered apple pastries.
A good time is guaranteed.
Please register before noon on Thursday by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt or by calling (+370) 678 81514. Space is limited.
Time: 6:30 P.M., Friday, October 18
Place: Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
Condolences
Maratas Šeimanas passed away October 13. He was born in 1937. He was a Lithuanian Jewish Community member and Saul Kagan Welfare Center client. Our deepest condolences to the wife and son he left behind.
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and remission from sin, the most important holiday on the Jewish calendar, will be observed Saturday. No matter how religious or not, no Jew risks travelling, bathing or eating during Yom Kippur. The holiday must be observed correctly, so the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Bnei Maskilim progressive Judaism community invite you to observe the holy day together with us and Rabbi Hanoch Fields from the United States.
Program of events at the LJC in Vilnius:
October 11
6:30 P.M. Kol nidrei
October 12
10:00 A.M. Torah reading
5:00 P.M. Yizkor
5:15 P.M. Neila
6:30 P.M. Blowing of the shofar
7:00 P.M. End of fast, shared feast
Registration required. To register, contact viljamas@lzb.lt
Somber Tone as Seniors Citizens Celebrate Rosh Hashanah on Eve of October 7
Senior citizens and elderly members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community gathered for a different kind of Rosh Hashanah celebration at the LJC in Vilnius on the weekend.
With the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 invasion and mass murder of Israelis last year, there was less of the usual music and fun and more prayers in Yiddish and Hebrew performed by Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom. The cantor’s wife Natalja Cheifec spoke about the history and traditions of Rosh Hashanah and the role of the woman in the Jewish family.
Panevėžys Celebrates the New Year
The Panevėžys Jewish Community celebrated Rosh Hashanah last week with music and food, including apples and honey. The prayer was performed before blowing the shofar. Yekaterna Radionova performed Jewish melodies on violin and members of the Community wished one another well in the coming year.
Natalja Cheifec’s Lecture Series Continues with Discussion of High Holy Days
Natalja Cheifec’s #EDUKACIJOS discussion club invites you to join the zoom call at 5:30 P.M. this Thursday, October 10. She’ll discuss Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and what these holidays mean to Jews, traditions for observance and what to avoid to protect yourself from misfortune.
Zoom credentials available here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRZKhoOgl_UbN-IxT4SO7m4uerwQONUveXaWQvFMKDghE-1A/viewform
Everyone is welcome.
Kaunas Ushers in the New Year
The Kaunas Jewish Community celebrated Rosh Hashanah with gusto and flair, and with a large number of Community members, friends and musicians.
Participants ate and chatted, and listened to Jewish melodies, which led to dancing. There was a quiz to test knowledge of the holiday, well-wishes for the coming year and prayers for more peace, love and human warmth in the world.
Rosh Hashanah in Šiauliai
The Šiauliai Jewish Community came together to celebrate Rosh Hashanah Thursday evening. It began with a prayer and blowing the shofar horn, followed by breaking of challa and apples with honey, other dishes, well-wishes for the coming year 5785 and a glass of wine with a hearty “lechaim!”
Makabi Sporting Extravaganza
On September 29 the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club held their annual sports celebration for young and old alike to try their hand at a number of different kinds of sport, from chess and frisbee to volleyball and basketball. This year’s celebration included a workshop on krav maga, the Israeli martial art. The competition and workshop concluded with lunch and a discussion of the Makabi club’s future.
Knife-Wielding Masked Teenagers Take Over Palace of Sports in Old Jewish Cemetery
Photo: Police at Palace of Sports by Paulius Skučas
A group of 50 masked, knife-wielding teenage boys has turned the crumbling Palace of Sports complex built on top of the old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius into their gang clubhouse and have threatened pedestrians in the area, including children, with their weapons, as well as attacking a lone security guard in charge of the site, according to Paulius Skučas, an LNK television reporter who posted on Instagram as well as did a Lithuanian state radio interview about the situation.
Skučas posted photos of the incident on Instagram with textual explanations:
This is how the Palace of Sports looked after the massive attack by teenagers this evening. Police and security stood guard for several hours. It seems the gang of teenagers are so uncontrollable and undetainable that all the residents of the surround neighborhoods and buildings have become hostages.
Shofar Procession through Vilnius
Dear Community members,
In celebration of Rosh Hashanah a shofar procession will make its way from the inner courtyard of the Old Arsenal next to the Tower of Gediminas, in honor of grand duke Gediminas who invited Jewish merchants, artisans and craftsmen from European cities to come settle in Lithuania, and wind through Cathedral Square to end up at the Vilnius Old Town Hall on Wednesday, October 2.
Shofar horns and shofar blowers from the Baltic states, the Ukraine, Israel and Great Britain will take part in the procession and sound the ancient ram horn instrument, dispelling evil and announcing the new year 5785.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community will hold a reception at the Old Town Hall following the procession.
Schedule (approximate):
October 2
4:00 P.M. Ceremony to kick off the march, inner courtyard, Old Arsenal, Arsenalo street no. 3
4:30 P.M. Procession along Arsenalo and Vrublevskio streets
4:40 P.M. Procession through Cathedral Square and along Pilies and Didžiosios streets
5:05 P.M. LJC reception for participants at Old Town Hall with sampling of holiday dishes
5:45 P.M. End of event
Rosh Hashanah Event Program
Rosh Hashanah is almost here. When the sun sets Wednesday, the celebration begins.
Program of LJC Rosh Hashanah events:
Choral Synagogue:
October 2
6:00 P.M. Mincha and Maariv prayer service
October 3
10:00 A.M. Shacharis
12:00 noon Blowing of the shofar
12:15 P.M. Torah reading and Musaf
2:30 P.M. Mincha
6:00 P.M. BLowing of the shofar
7:42 P.M. Maariv
Bnei Maskilim Progressive Judaism Community Invites You to Celebrate Rosh Hashanah
Dear reader,
As Rosh Hashanah draws near, the Jewish new year 5785, with its accompanying holiday, we invite you to join in with our community’s holiday prayers and events.
This year one of our guests will be former US Army chaplain Rabbi Hanoch M. Fields.
During the celebration we will pray, sing and sample sweet symbolic foods, for example, apples with honey, so that the New Year would be sweet and filled with delight.
May this New Year bring everyone health, peace and happiness!
Shana tova u’metukah!
The cost is 20 euros per person. For more information and to register, send an email to viljamas@lzb.lt.
Time: 6:30 P.M., October 3
Place: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
Šiauliai Jewish Community Remembers the Murdered Jews of Žagarė
Šiauliai Jewish Community members are planning to leave the Šiauliai Jewish Community building at 10:00 A.M. on Sunday, October 6, to reach the town square in Žagarė where a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust will be held. Everyone is invited to attend.
Rosh Hashanah Celebration for Seniors
The LJC’s Saul Kagan Welfare Center and the Abi Men Zet Zich Club invite seniors to celebrate the new year 5785 together.
Registration required by contacting Žana at zanas@sc.lzb.lt or +370) 678 81514.
Time: 2:00 P.M., Tuesday, October 1
Place: Third floor, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
Shana tova!
Condolences
Irina Felgina passed away September 27. She was born in 1931 and was a member of the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners as well as a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. We extend our deepest condolences to her daughter Anna, grandson Alex and her other friends and family members.
Vilkaviškis Unveils Statue to Litvak Ballerina Sonia Gaskell
The western Lithuanian town of Vilkaviškis is to unvei a public sculpture Friday commemorating native Sonia Gaskell, a world-class ballerina who went on to teach ballet in Paris and the Hague, according to Lithuanian state television LRT. Gaskell was born in Vilkaviškis on April 14, 1904, and died in Paris on July 9, 1974.
The statue by sculptor Lukas Šiupšinskas is located in a square in front of the Vilkaviškis Children’s and Youth Center near where Gaskell is believed to have been born. She was originally named Sarah. Vilkaviškis reportedly also has a small museum dedicated to the details of her rather amazing life which includes making aliyah to Palestine and returning to Europe before the Holocaust. Vilkaviškis, aka Vikovishk, had a Jewish population which hovered at about 50% compared to the Christian population, sometimes reaching 60% and falling back to 45% just before the Holocaust. William Shatner’s maternal grandmother was born in Vilkaviškis, as were Aharon April, Jonas Basanavičius, Vincas Kudirka, Miriam Markel-Mosessohn and Galina Shurepova.
Earlier LRT reporting in Lithuanian on Sonia Gaskell here.
Correction
Yesterday Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky attended a press conference at the Lithuanian parliament and made comments which have become the object of speculation by the media and by social media posters.
The joint press conference with the LIC chairwoman, Lithuanian MP and chairman of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Emanuelis Zingeris, MP Žygimantas Pavilionis and MP Liudvika Pocienė was called to discuss rising anti-Semitism in Lithuania.
Asked by reporters for comment, LJC chairwoman Kukliansky said words to the effect Lithuania’s foreign partners were concerned by reports a political party known for its anti-Semitic remarks led by a man the Constitutional Court of Lithuania found guilty of spreading ethnic discord could come to power.
Pressed for further comment, chairwoman Kukliansky said, to paraphrase in translation: “I heard there is a very stern letter by a German ambassador regarding this.”
She was referencing a statement by Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda speaking to Lithuanian state television’s LRT Forumas broadcast who said (in unofficial translation): “These statements, which may seem as if are innocent little jokes and short songs, have travelled very far indeed. And they have travelled to those partners of ours whose support to us is so crucially important. I mean Germany.”
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and our chairwoman would like to correct the record and quell possible speculation by stating that chairwoman Kukliansky wasn’t referring to Germany’s ambassador to Lithuania Cornelius Zimmermann, nor to any other specific German diplomatic or political official. She only attempted to relay what she had heard the president say on state television, if getting some of the details perhaps slightly wrong.
Chairwoman Kukliansky and the Lithuanian Jewish Community apologize for any misunderstanding regarding this matter.
We would also like to say that during this period of intensifying anti-Semitic attacks we are very grateful to a number of foreign embassies which have provided us constant great and staunch support, including the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. In gratitude for that support, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky has sent written thank-you letters expressing our collective appreciation for their consistent and strong support to ambassador to Lithuania Cornelius Zimmerman, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier and chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Remembering the Holocaust Victims in Švenčionys
Traditionally there is a commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust in Švenčionys held the first Sunday in October. We remember the Jews tortured and murdered, and those imprisoned in the ghetto set up in the town square and later murdered at nearby Platumai village. You are invited to attend the commemoration this year on October 6.
Program:
11:00 A.M. – 11:30 A.M. Remembering the victims in a gathering at the Menorah statue in the central park
12:30 P.M. Paying respects to the victims at the mass murder site in Platumai village approximately 13 kilometers to the west of Švenčionys