Learning – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Samuel Bak Presents Catalog

Samuel Bak himself and a panel of experts will launch a Bak catalog in Lithuanian on the first day of the Vilnius Book Fair. The catalog of his artwork is called “Gydantys simboliai.”

Joining via video link from the USA, Litvak painter from Vilnius Samuel Bak will speak with Bak Museum senior curator Ieva Šadzevičienė, illustrator Jokūbas Jacovskis and others with synchronous translations in Lithuanian and English.

Time: 2:00 P.M., February 27
Place: conference hall 5.5, Litexpo building, Laisvės prospect no. 5, Vilnius

2025-02-262025-02-26

Jewish Kindergarten Registration Open

The Sholem Aleichem kindergarten in Vilnius is accepting applications until March 1. For more information, call +370 672 35592 or write rastine@ort.lt.

2025-02-26

Criminal, Trash and Enemy of the State

by Grant Gochin

All I sought was information about the murder of my Lithuanian family during the Holocaust. This was my entanglement with the government of Lithuania.

Most barbarians shout about their hideous torture and murder of innocents as a matter of pride. Palestinian terrorists murder Jews and boast about it. They have parades with slain bodies. They hand out candy, and dance with joy, thinking they have done something wonderful. They haven’t.

During the Holocaust, Lithuanians murdered Jews with an even greater level of ferocity and depravity than Hamas currently displays. Their conduct was reprehensible and not even close to human. The Lithuanian slaughter was almost complete. They murdered 96.4% of all Jews they could reach. The current dream of Gaza is the replication of the Lithuanian Holocaust.

2025-02-24

Condolences

Marian Turski died February 14. He was born in Druskininkai in 1926. A survivor of the Łódź ghetto, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald and was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. He resettled in Poland where he advocated for the Communist regime and served as editor of the newspaper Sztandar Młodych and then as chief of the history department of the weekly Polytika, and authored at least seven books about the Holocaust and Communist politics in Poland. Our deepest condolences to his surviving daughter Joanna.

2025-02-202025-02-20

Natalja Cheifec’s Discussion Club on Jewish Tradition

Natalja CHeifec’s #ŠALOM discussion club continues this Thursday, February 20, at 5:30 P.M. on the zoom platform. This week she’ll lead a discussion on Jewish tradition in general. To register and acquire zoom credentials, fill out the form here.

2025-02-19

Week-Long International Jascha Heifetz Competition for Violinists Opens in Vilnius

The International Jascha Heifetz Competition for Violinists held once every four years opened its 7th week-long contest at the Old Town Hall in Vilnius, the traditional location, last Friday.

More than 50 younger leading violinists from around the world are competing for combined prizes worth €30,000.Presented by the Center for International Cultural Projects, the competition runs from February 14 to 22 this year. According to the contest’s webpage, no more than 18 musicians will enter the second round, and a maximum of six competitors will qualify for the final. The first and second rounds will take place at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater.

Participants in the final round will perform with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Modestas Pitrėnas at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society. Chaired by violinist Gidon Kremer, the competition will offer a prize fund of €30,000, alongside other awards, according to the webpage. The first place winner takes €12,000, second €8,000 and third-place winner €5,000. Second-round finalists will perform at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater this week.

2025-02-172025-02-17

Tu b’Shvat

Today is the Jewish holiday of Tu b’Shvat, the 15th day of the month of Shvat, the New Year for trees also known as Israeli Arbor Day. It is traditional to eat of the shvat ha’minim (seven species endemic to the Land of Israel): wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Hag sameakh!

2025-02-132025-02-13

Children of the Holocaust Project Takes Flight in Palanga

A project to study the history of pre-Holocaust Lithuanian Jewish and Roma urban and rural communities has begun in Palanga. The aim is to recreate city, town, village and community history to understand how the former way of life connects with the present and future. Called “Children of the Holocaust: Illuminating the Shadows of Lithuanian History,” the Palanga Jewish Community said in a press release public understanding of the Holocaust is changing, with the history of the Jews now being told by creating a personal connection with the past.

This Lithuanian Jewish Community for implementation between 2024 and 2026 is supported by the EVZ Fund in Germany. The Palanga Jewish Community, the Jonas Šliūpas Museum in Palanga, the Old Gymnasium in Palanga, the Palanga Youth and Volunteer Center, the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius and the Roma Community Day Center are all partners in the project.

The goal is to encourage specific, novel, lively retellings of history to engage young people from Vilnius and Palanga. The focus is on children who were victims of the Holocaust from the Litvak and Roma ethnic communities and their experience, stories and recollections among survivors.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2025-02-13

Liova Taicas Memorial Tournament Marks 15th Year

The Šiauliai District Jewish Community held the 15th iteration of the sporting tournament to commemorate Liova Taicas (1952-2009) on February 9. The annual event began back in 2010.

The commemorative games not only honor Taicas’s memory and bring teams together from Jewish communities throughout Lithuania, but have also come to promote healthy living and an active lifestyle.

The Ukmergė Jewish Community sent athletes this year for the ping-pong competition and they made an excellent showing with Feliksas Lermanas taking first place and Lina Kuzmienė a respectable third. The Šiauliai district firefighters team of Jonas Poškus, Karolis Laukutis, Andrius Orlovas and Ugnius Tarasevičius won in basketball. Josifas Buršteinas took first place in the chess competition. Teams from Kaunas and Vilnius played in various sports and French soldiers from the NATO forces patrolling Lithuanian airspace took part in the basketball competition.

2025-02-13

National Library Celebrates 100 Years of YIVO

The Martynas Mažvydas Lithuanian National Library conserves a YIVO document collection of very significant volume and content. The YIVO was established exactly a century ago in Vilnius in 1925. It is the only Vilnius Jewish institution which did not stop operating during the Holocaust and which continues to operate today. After World War II YIVO made its main headquarters at its branch in New York City. This branch took over the institute’s functions as a center for the preservation of Jewish heritage and research.

Many traces of the institute’s work survived in Vilnius: fragments of its documentation, correspondence, library collection and archives, scattered among several commemorative institutions. The National Library is conducting a study of the institute’s archives which is revealing YIVO’s origins in Vilnius and its especially fruitful period of activity in Vilnius before WWII.

The 100-year anniversary of the founding of the YIVO was noted back in 2023 in a resolution by the Lithuanian parliament as being of special significance to world culture and the National Library. Lithuanian National Library director Aušrinė Žilinskienė spoke about this at the Lithuanian embassy in Washington, D.C., on December 9, 2024. That event to mark the anniversary was organized with YIVO headquarters in New York.

The National Library is holding an event in cooperation with a large number of Lithuanian and foreign partners with a spectacular program, including the publication of books on the history of the YIVO, an international academic forum and an exhibit of textual heritage.

2025-02-122025-02-12

New US Attorney General Unveils Anti-Semitism Task Force

Newly-appointed United States attorney general Pam Bondi announced last Monday (February 3) the creation of an inter-agency task force to fight anti-Semitism using “the full force of the federal government,” according to Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, specifically aimed at protecting the rights of American Jews on college campuses.

Measures are to include arrests and the withholding of federal funds to universities which fail to protect Jewish faculty and students from harassment.

The Civil Rights Division was created in 1957 and came to prominence in protecting the rights of black students in America’s South during the Kennedy and Johnson era.

2025-02-102025-02-10

Israeli Speaker to Address LJC Sunday

Litvak Raffael Hletzer will speak at the Lithuanian Jewish Community Sunday. He was born in Lithuania but left for Israel with his family at a young age. He is currently the executive director of the renowned Kehilor Netaim Jewish educational program. His presentation will be about his roots in Lithuania, the upcoming holiday Tu b’Shvat and connections with the past and present. The event is free but registration is required by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt.

Time: 1:00 P.M., Sunday, February 9
Place: Room 306, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius

2025-02-062025-02-06

Natalja Cheifec’s Discussion Club: Secrets of Longevity of the Jewish Family

This Thursday Natalja Cheifec’s discussion club will address male and female relations in Judaism. The Talmud says a God-fearing man vindicates an immoral woman and becomes immoral himself, but when an unjust man marries a God-fearing woman, he comes God-fearing.

This discussion will also talk about the hidden strengths of the Jewish family, the circumstances surrounding quick divorce, legends about Jewish weddings, the concept of love in Judaism and miracle-births by Jewish women.

To receive zoom credentials, click here. To make a donation to #NataljosPaskaita and/or the LJC, click here.

Time: 5:30 P.M., February 6
Place: internet

2025-02-05

Remembering Sutzkever

Ambassadors from Germany, the USA and Israel and the Lithuanian Jewish Community marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by attending a play about the life of Abraham Sutzkever at the Vilnius Puppet Theater, a venue which was the Vilnius ghetto theater during the Holocaust.

Abraham Sutzkever was a Yiddish poet before, during and after the Holocaust and was imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto. He joined the underground and fought as a Jewish partisan against the German and Lithuanian Nazis. In February of 1946 he was called up as a witness at the Nuremberg trials, testifying against Franz Murer, the murderer of his mother and newborn son.

The play, “Witness,” was written by Sutzkever’s granddaughter Hadas Kalderon. Israeli actor and stand-up comic Michael Hanegbi performed the role of Sutzkever.

Lithuanian foreign minister Kęstutis Budrys introduced the play. After the play Kalderon and Hanegbi shared reminiscences of Sutzkever and their thoughts and feelings about the play itself.

2025-02-042025-02-04

Condolences

Elizabeth Lichtenshein has passed away. She was born in 1949. She was a remarkable teacher, who worked for many years as the head teacher of the Sholem Aleichem school in Vilnius, and will be remembered as a wonderful wife, mother and grandmother. Our deepest condolences to her family, friends and students.

2025-02-03

Panevėžys Marks Auschwitz Anniversary: No Statute of Limitations on Holocaust, nor Memory

The Panevėžys Jewish Community marked the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, the date UNESCO proclaimed the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust back in 2005, with ceremonies and educational outreach.

Students from local schools attended a quiz on the Holocaust at the Panevėžys Jewish Community. Community members and chairman Gennady Kofman also met with reporter Jogintė Četkauskienė to talk about Jewish life in the city and country during WWII.

“Today it is our duty to do all we can to ensure this tragedy never happens again. That means encouraging tolerance, there is enough air for everyone on our beautiful planet. It also means courageously fighting against anti-Semitism, which is the most urgent problem in the world today,” Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman told the reporter.

He also touched upon statements made by Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis during the interview.

“This politician’s apathy towards the tragedy of the Jewish people and his anti-tolerance are incomprehensible. How is it possible not to think about normal, friendly relations between the different ethnic communities in Lithuania?” Kofman asked the reporter.

2025-01-30

NAALE Offers Students Chance to Study in Israel

Younger Community members exclusively again have the opportunity to meet with a representative of the NAALE Elite Academy at the Lithuanian Jewish Community this Sunday.

NAALE is a unique program providing Jewish adolescents the opportunity to receive a scholarship and to study from 3 to 4 years at an institution of higher learning in Israel.

The program was established in 1992 by the Society for Advancement of Education in partnership with The Ministry of Education and the Jewish Agency, as a response to the pressing need for quality education for Jewish youth after the dissolution of the former Soviet Union had left the educational system there in disarray. Initially intended for those repatriating to Israel, it came to include talented Jewish teenagers from around the world, providing them the best high school education and a priceless tool to achieve their future goals. NAALE Elite Academy also helps reestablish firm ties with Jewish roots and friendships which last a lifetime.

Different Israeli schools have NAALE programs which have their own individual features tailored to different styles, interests and religious and secular views.

Project leader of the NAALE directorate Igal Brantman will visit the Lithuanian Jewish Community this week to answer all your questions.

You must register to attend the event by sending an email to viljamas@lzb.lt.

Time: 11:00 A.M., Sunday, February 2
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius

2025-01-29

WJC President Lauder Warns Anti-Semitism that Led to Holocaust Still Threatens Global Stability

OSWIECIM, Poland–The virulent anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust is still rampant around the globe today, World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder said against the backdrop of Monday’s solemn commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In a fundamental way, he added, a common thread links what happened at Auschwitz to the recent manifestations of Jew-hatred, including the October 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel: the age-old hatred of Jews. Anti-Semitism “had its willing supporters then, and it has them now,” Lauder, who also serves as chair of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation and who has dedicated decades to preserving the site, said. “It was fed by the indifference of people who thought they were not affected because they were not Jewish.”

Lauder also stressed that anti-Semitic acts undermine the central tenets of civil society. “These attacks are not just targeting Jews,” he said. “They are an attack on Judeo-Christian values, which are the bedrock of Western civilization.”

He delivered his remarks alongside four Auschwitz survivors and Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum.

Full text and video here.

2025-01-282025-01-28

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