A camp for scouts called Draugystės Mazga [Knot of Friendship] is scheduled to take place from August 17 to 19 to include scouts from throughout Lithuania.
Place: Bražuolė campground, https://maps.app.goo.gl/EknH7EqAB1tE74r87
Registration: https://forms.gle/sryYSvAKHbwETKnG8
Cost: 15 euros per participant, 5 euros for scout leader and accompanying adults
If you want to participate but don’t have a scouting guide, contact karolisalekna125@gmail.com.
Members and friends of the Šiauliai Jewish Community gathered at the Community building Monday to commemorate the late Sania Kerbelis who served as chairman for many years.
Special guest Rabbi Kalev Krelin provided a simple and enlightened exegesis of Torah as the basis for his eulogy of Sania and reminded those assembled that the best commemoration and compensation of loss is prayer and good works.
Community member Ričardas Pikelis recited his poem in memory of Kerbelis.
Architect Tauras Budzys visited the Šiauliai Jewish Community recently. He’s the person behind the project begun back in 2018 to mark the graves of Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania with a special symbol. He and Šiauliai Jewish Community leaders agreed to hold an exhibit of Lithuanian Righteous Gentiles in Šiauliai in early September. The exhibit was created by Budzys and Barbora Karnienė and features the names, biographical facts and numbers of Jews rescued by 45 Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania.
Samudaripen or Roma Genocide Day was marked August 2 at the Ponar Memorial Complex in Lithuania.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky was one of the speakers at the event and said:
“Eighty years have passed since the war and we are gathered officially here for only the sixth time. With our whole heart we sympathize with our fellow Roma and feel your tragedy.”
She said the tragedy of the Roma was just as painful as that of the Jews, the difference being pre-Holocaust Jews lived in shtetls and their names, families and significant biographical facts were largely known, whereas we don’t even know the exact number of Roma victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania.
by Rabbi Moshe Martin Levin
Žilvinas Beliauskas WAS ALWAYS:
Tall and handsome;
Brilliant and articulate;
Talking in long sentences without taking a breath;
He always listened with both ears.
Always was an encyclopedia of so many subjects.
A true patriot who knew the shortcomings as well as the achievements of his homeland.
A husband in love with his wife Ieva.
The following is the full text of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before the United States Congress assembled on July 25, 2024, as issued by his office.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson,
Senator Ben Cardin,
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
Senators,
Members of Congress,
Distinguished guests,
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for giving me the profound honor of addressing this great citadel of democracy for the fourth time.
We meet today at a crossroads of history. Our world is in upheaval. In the Middle East, Iran’s axis of terror confronts America, Israel and our Arab friends. This is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.
For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together. Because when we stand together, something very simple happens. We win. They lose.
And my friends, I came to assure you today of one thing: we will win.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Like December 7th, 1941, and September 11th, 2001, October 7th is a day that will forever live in infamy.
It was the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. It began as a perfect day. Not a cloud in the sky. Thousands of young Israelis were celebrating at an outdoor music festival. And suddenly, at 6:29 a.m., as children were still sleeping soundly in their beds in the towns and kibbutzim next to Gaza, suddenly heaven turned into hell. Three thousand Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel. They butchered 1,200 people from 41 countries, including 39 Americans. Proportionately, compared to our population size, that’s like 20 9/11s in one day. And these monsters, they raped women, they beheaded men, they burnt babies alive, they killed parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents. They dragged 255 people, both living in dead, into the dark dungeons of Gaza.
According to diplomatic sources the Israeli leader’s visit to the three Baltic states had been planned for June.
“The dates of the visit have been adjusted due to the busy agenda of the Baltic leaders and the Israeli president,” press secretary for the president of Lithuania Ridas Jasulionis told BNS.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told BNS that she had canceled a trip several weeks ago after learning of the visit planned by the president of Israel. She added Herzog had planned to visit the Lost Shtetl Museum under construction in Šeduva, Lithuania. Herzog is the descendant of Litvaks with roots in Šeduva.
Natalja Cheifec continues her series of lectures on Jewish culture and religion this Tuesday, July 30 with a lecture/discussion called “Justice and the Courts according to the Torah” meeting that day at 5:30 P.M. on the zoom internet platform.
Her lecture will include:
• Criteria for selection of judges
• How theft is defined in Judaism and the 8 types of theft
• Punishment for murder
• What accidental homicide means
• Application of the death penalty in Judaic law
• Who is more at fault, the criminal or the instigator
• What a bribe is
• Compensation for physical and moral damages
• Sanctuary
• Laws of war
The lecture will likely be in Lithuanian, depending on the audience. To receive zoom credentials and attend the virtual lecture, click here: https://shorturl.at/gMbBJ
Žilvinas Beliauskas suddenly died Friday. A teacher at the Mykolas Romeris University, he was a qualified psychologist and for a time, according to his friends, worked at the United Nations in New York. In the early 2000s a private donor attempted to donate a large collection of “Jewish books” in the broadest sense of the term to the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, which eventually resulted in the Vilnius Jewish Public Library with sponsorship and funding from the Government chancellor. Žilvinas took the concept of the library and ran with it, acquiring many more important books on Jewish culture and religion and fictional works by Jewish authors. He created more than an open and friendly public library by hosting numerous speakers, panels, discussions and book launches in the humble space. Ever cheerful, friendly with all, always willing to lend a hand, Žilvinas will be sorely missed by all who knew him. We extend our deepest condolences to his many friends and family members.
The summer Olympic Games opened in Paris Friday, and the Šiauliai Photography Museum hosted a presentation of an illustrated sports encyclopaedia called “Sportas Šiauliuose ir Lietuvoje (iki XX a. vidurio)” [Sport in Šiauliai and Lithuania (until the mid-20th century)] last Wednesday.
Author Jonas Nekrašius told the large audience the story of the birth of the genesis of the publication and thanked the collectors, museum specialists and other people who helped make the launch a success, giving copies of his book to them.
There was keen interest in the section of the book the on the history of the Šiauliai section of the Makabi Lithuanian Jewish sports and gymnastics society which operated between 1921 and 1940. The late chairman of the Šiauliai District Jewish Community Sania Kerbelis contributed heavily to that chapter of the book.
The Israel Antiquities Authority, Kultūros paveldo Išsaugojimo pajėgos, the Good Will Foundation, and the Jewish Community of Lithuania are pleased to announce the results of the fifth season of excavation at the Great Synagogue of Vilna (Vilnius) & the Shulhoyf.
The Vilnius municipality’s webpage madeinvilnius.lt reports a mural depicting a Jewish scholar called “The Sage” was defaced by graffiti recently. The mural is located in the Vilnius Old Town adjacent to what was the city’s Jewish quarter for a time and the Jewish ghetto instituted by the Nazis.
Reporter Šarūnas Černiauskas wrote about the vandalism on facebook: “Something nasty happened. The most known work in the ‘The Walls Remember’ project dedicated to preserving the historical memory of Lithuanian Jews, the mural ‘The Sage,’ was intentionally damaged. The people who did this obviously wanted to ruin the painting. I think this smacks of anti-Semitism. I went there today, recorded it and filed a complaint with the police.”
Černiauskas called on members of the public to come forward to police concerning the act of vandalism. He also called for any video footage from adjacent cameras to be sent to him and police.
The mural was heavily damaged. The mural “Street Musicians” in the same series was defaced with the name “Ivan,” presumably a pejorative for “Russian” rather than a tagger’s name.
Full story in Lithuanian with photographs here.
by Augustė Lyberytė, ELTA, July 17, 2024
The cabinet ministers Wednesday approved a proposal by a working group who has been operating for over a year now on setting up a memorial to the old Jewish cemetery at the site of the Palace of Sports in the Vilnius neighborhood of Šnipiškės.
Government deputy chancellor Rolandas Kriščiūnas said proposals from the working group should be seen as a guidepost.
The plan is for a memorial to be set up inside the Palace of Sports and in the territory of the old Jewish cemetery surrounding that building.
“The site would be open to the public with special focus placed on synergy between the outside territory and the interior space,” Kriščiūnas said.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
The Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium is holding a Young Travellers day camp from August 12 to 16 for children aged 6 to 15. The camp program includes heaps of entertainment, art, games, puzzles and experiments, a change to make new friends and meet old ones, healthy and delicious food and much fun whatever the weather might bring.
To register, click here: https://forms.gle/88qkbq6Rqq15ZyTs9
The price per child is 200 euros including three meals.
Payment:
Recipient: Skaitlis
Account number: LT68 4010 0424 0395 1807
In the reason for payment you must indicate Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium camp and the child’s name and surname. Following the transfer of funds send receipt to vaiva.seliaviene@gmail.com.
The camp is sponsored by the city of Vilnius, the LJC and the Ystreet organization.
Beverly Hills, probably the highest concentration of wealth, success and power in the world, honored Lithuanian citizen Silvia Foti on Monday, July 15, 2024. The award was signed by all members of the city council.
In deciding to honor Foti the city council considered the following facts:
Silvia Foti holds dual citizenship in America and Lithuania. She has always remained loyal and patriotic to both countries. As a devout Catholic, she has stalwartly represented the finest ideals of honesty, integrity and compassion.
Silvia Foti is the granddaughter of the genocidal Lithuanian Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Noreika who is continuously and fraudulently honored by the Lithuanian government as a national hero of Lithuania and a rescuer of Jews.
On July 15 people gathered in Šiauliai to remember the liquidation of the ghetto there on July 15, 1944, when the surviving approximately 3,000 Jews imprisoned there were sent to Dachau and Stutthof for extermination.
Faina Kukliansky’s mother was imprisoned in the ghetto. She recalled: “I am here not just as the chairwoman of the the Lithuanian Jewish Community. I am the daughter of a female prisoner of the ghetto. My grandmother miraculously was able to save two of her daughters, but not the third one. I was named after her, Feigele, little bird.”
She said we were in the debt of the ghetto prisoners and the Jews who died for their concord and unity, and so their sacrifice will not have been in vain.
The Lithuanian National Olympic Committee issued an award to Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club founder and former president Semionas Finkelšteinas July 11 in recognition of his contributions to Lithuanian athletics and the Olympic movement.
We report with deep sadness the death of Sania Kerbelis on July 11. He was born in 1963. His death followed his struggle with a chronic illness. Sania Kerbelis was the chairman of the Šiauliai District Jewish Community and the Šiauliai Jewish Religious Community. Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community extend our deepest condolences to his sons Doyvdas and Simonas and his many friends and family members. Baruch Dayan ha’Emet.
by Jurgita Šakienė, kauno.diena.lt
An international academic conference to mark the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto has begun at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. Called “Think about History, Understand Memory,” the conference includes researchers from Lithuania and abroad who will present Jewish life before and during the Holocaust through the lens of history, politics, social sciences, the theater and the arts.
“This anniversary is a powerful reminder of our collective responsibility to understand memory and to insure the lessons of the past inform our present and future,” Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein said during her speech opening the conference. Also giving welcome speeches were US ambassador Kara McDonald and Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas.
Germany’s ambassador Cornelius Zimmerman in his speech said, among other things, “It’s difficult to understand how these unspeakably brutal things could have happened. But they happened. I feel sadness, remorse and shame. It’s crucial to remember everything in order to prevent this from happening again.”
Full story in Lithuanian here.
July 15 is the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the liquidation of the Šiauliai ghetto in 1944 when the surviving 3,000 Jews were transported to Dachau and Stutthof concentration camps, condemned to die there instead. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and both Šiauliai Jewish Communities invite the public to remember and pay honor to the victims of the Šiauliai ghetto, the men, women, children and elderly who were murdered this July 15.
Program
11:30 A.M. Gathering at Šiauliai ghetto gate monument at the intersection of Trakų and Ežero streets to remember the victims;
12:00 noon procession to Chaim Frenkl villa at Vilnaius street no. 74 with stopover on Righteous Gentiles Square;
12:30 P.M. Commemoration of victims at Frenkl villa.
Transportation: there will be minibus to carry passengers to the event leaving from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius at 8:15 A.M. on July 15. Passengers must register before the event (see below).
Registration: Those wishing to attend are asked to please register before 4:00 P.M. on July 12 by calling Liuba Šerienė at (+370) 5 261 3003 or by sending an email to office@lzb.lt.