Learning – Page 104 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Simas Levinas Remembers Hanukkah in Šiauliai

Vilniaus žydų religinės bendruomenės vadovas Simas Levinas prisimena savo paauglystės Chanuką Šiauliuose

Šiauliai was a strange town in 1960. It was the Soviet time, there were still some “synagogues” illegally operating in apartments. Almost all of the local Jews used to go there to pray. It wasn’t entirely clear whether this was to satisfy a religious need, or the need to spend time with people of the same ethnicity. Or to speak Yiddish. Or to remember the horrible experiences of the Holocaust.

Or perhaps it was the instinctual psychological need to heal one’s wounds. Everyone wanted to enjoy the life which the miraculous lottery of fate had given them.

The town’s Jews stuck together and were ready to support anyone who needed it. This really wasn’t any kind of official community. Its leader was… a family with a larger apartment. We held all traditional and Sabbath evenings of Saturday talks and meetings there. This took place at the home of Josif Burshtein (the chairman of the Šiauliai Jewish Community until last summer) where Jews congregated right up until the restoration of independence.

Hanukkah was the holiday to which the town kids (they called us little Jewies) really looked forward. We were treated to hanukkahgelt, ponchikes and latkes. The parents carved dreidls out of wood. Some had managed to preserve their family heirlooms, a really miracle!, and we lit candles on pre-war menorahs.

Now I realize our parents did everything they could so that we wouldn’t know what they experienced. Everyone chipped in and used to hold the holiday, the miracles of Hanukkah, for us.

And even today most of the Jews who come from Šiauliai know and speak Yiddish. Those us “fun Shavl” [from Šiauliai] scattered around the world by fate maintain our ties.

This year on the eve of Hanukkah another miracle has taken place! We are witnesses to history. The world has begun to remember that King David’s city, whose age goes back more than 3,000 years, is the capital of the state of Israel!

The victory of the Macabbees has again lit the oil lamps of the Hanukkah miracle.

2017-12-112017-12-21

Vilnius Ghetto Chronicler Yitzhak Rudashevski: The Teenager Whose Thoughts Were Beyond His Years

Yitzhak Rudashevski, the young chronicler of the Vilnius ghetto, would have turned 90 today (December 10). Imprisoned in the ghetto with his mature values and a gift for writing, he wrote down in his school notebook the reality around him, images of the ghetto, struggle and faith in the future.

Trapped in the ghetto and seeing the suffering, Yitzhak didn’t stop taking pride in his Jewishness and he wasn’t overcome by hopelessness and self-pity. On the contrary, his thirst for life propelled him forward.

“I am ashamed to be seen on the street, not because I’m a Jew but because I am ashamed of my powerlessness. The yellow patches are sewn to our clothes, but not to our minds. We are not ashamed of the patches! Let those who put them on us be ashamed,” he wrote in his diary.

The young man’s thoughts about the dignity of man and freedom might seem obvious today, but the entries from 75 years ago paint a much different picture of that period. They speak of a world where the concept of human rights didn’t exist. Taken in context, we marvel at the maturity, courage and talent it took for a teenager to write about what he did.

2017-12-112017-12-15

Birthday Party and Award for Daumantas Todesas at the LJC

The Lithuanian Jewish Community celebrated Daumantas Lveas Todesas’s 70th birthday this week and the director of the Lithuanian Department of Ethnic Minorities presented him an achievement award at the party.

Department of Ethnic Minorities director Vida Montvydaitė personally awarded him a golden badge of honor called the For Merit award in recognition of Todesas’s life-long dedication to improving society and to preserving ethnic culture and identity.

Lebn zolstu biz hundert un tsvantsik yor! Mazl tov!

2017-12-072017-12-15

Under the White Star

Judita Letaitė and Marianna Slobodeniuok will perform a concert called Under the White Star on Thursday, December 7, at 6:00 P.M. at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Admission is free.

2017-12-072017-12-12

Trump Recognizes Israel’s Capital at Jerusalem

United States president Donald Trump announced Wednesday the United States will henceforth recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel.

In the original United Nations partition plan creating Palestine and Israel from the territory of the formerly British Mandate of Palestine, Jerusalem was to become an international city along the lines of pre-war Danzig and Trieste. Israel never agreed to the UN plan and always claimed Jerusalem.

Israel’s victory in the 1967 war against neighboring Arab countries led to the occupation of East Jerusalem, which had been administered by the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan.

Most states have refused to recognize Israel’s claim to Jerusalem and have maintained embassies in Tel Aviv instead. According to internet sources there are zero foreign embassies in Jerusalem and 86 embassies in Tel Aviv, but a number of countries operate what they call consulates in Jerusalem, including Belgium, the US, Vatican City, the UK, Spain, Sweden, France, Italy, Greece and Turkey, among others. Costa Rica and El Salvador removed their embassies from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in 2006. Costa Rica and El Salvador were the only countries with embassies to Israel after 1982, according to internet sources.

Trump’s announcement calls for the eventual removal of the US embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with immediate effect, instructing the US State Department to select appropriate architects for building an embassy which would be “a tribute to peace.” White House officials said the move could take from 3 to 4 years.

Critics of the move say it will destroy the perception of US neutrality in peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Proponents point out this perception hasn’t had currency among Arab-speaking states for at least a decade now, most of which don’t recognize the state of Israel in any case. Trump said he remained committed to an enduring peace agreement between Israel and Palestine leading to a two-state solution. He also called for maintenance of the status quo regarding the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount.

The Palestinian Authority had planned to make the capital of the Palestinian state East Jerusalem, despite its de facto inclusion in the territory of the state of Israel.

Trump promised during his campaign to make the move. Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton all said they would do the same previously.

2017-12-062017-12-15

Forgetfulness Is an Incurable and Dangerous Disease

An interview with Litvak writer Grigory Kanovich by Stephan Collishaw

SC – To what extent is the novel Shtetl Love Song autobiographical?

GK – True, Shtetl Love Song is an autobiographical novel.

Your character in the novel seems very close to his grandmother and goes with her regularly to the synagogue. Is the synagogue still a part of your life?

My grandmother Rokha was a very religious person. When I was a child the synagogue played a big role in my life. There was not a single Saturday, nor a Jewish holiday when my grandmother wouldn’t take me to synagogue. My grandfather was religious, but didn’t go to synagogue so often. He joked, ‘If you hear something interesting from Him, you won’t be able to keep it from me long, you’ll tell me.’ I, myself, am not religious; the synagogue doesn’t play such a strong role in my life now as in my childhood.

2017-12-052017-12-15

Gešer Club Invites Seniors to Come Celebrate Hanukkah

The Gešer Club will hold a holiday meal with a concert and great company at 7:00 P.M. on December 12 at the Draugai restaurant located at Vilniaus street no. 4 in Vilnius. Tickets cost 20 euros. To register contact Žana Skudovičienė, zanas@sc.lzb.lt, +370 678 81514. Tickets are available from Irina Slucker, +370 612 40875, in room 306 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius, from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. on December 8.

2017-12-052017-12-15

The Woman Who Rescued Jewish Books from the Vilna Ghetto

by Erika Dreifus

Some 75 years ago a group of Jews under German occupation in Vilna was assigned to assist Nazi authorities in curating books and other cultural items destined for shipment to Germany. There, the selection of Judaica materials was to be conserved as a collection of artifacts from an extinct people.

Some items were indeed shipped away as ordered. Some the authorities destroyed and diverted to be used for scrap.

Others were smuggled and hidden by the same Jewish scholars, teachers and writers who had been designated to sift through and catalog them. The heroism of this Paper Brigade has recently received new attention, thanks largely to two developments: the discovery of another trove of materials that the squad managed to squirrel away, and the publication of historian David E. Fishman’s fascinating new study, “The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race To Save Jewish Treasures From the Nazis” (ForeEdge).

2017-12-05

Kazys Škirpa: When an Inconvenient Truth is Suppressed

by Arkadijus Vinokuras

I carefully read Vidmantas Valiušaitis’s article “Why Is Kazys Škirpa Slandered?” I felt I was missing the position of the late Barry Rubin, the famous Litvak, also well known in Lithuanian, and professor of Israeli history.

There he goes: “I would like to stress that events need to be examined as objectively as possibly, that evidence needs to be provided objectively, it needs to be confirmed and then the facts need to be pursued.” Professor Rubin’s relatives were murdered in Lithuania. www.delfi.lt provided an interview with Barry Rubin in which he said without qualification that Jews who became Communists had become traitors to Jewish society, and that it was laughable to be afraid to talk about the crimes of Communism and to argue who had suffered more.

I base my claims on statements by Lithuanian historians. For instance, professor emeritus Saulius Sužiedėlis, liberal arts professor Alvydas Nikžentaitis and Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Philosophy and Communications lecturer Andrius Kulikauskas. I also base my claims on famous interwar Lithuanian diplomat Eduardas Turauskas (1896-1966), a member of the Futurist Society, an attorney, a journalist, diplomat and a member of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Sciences.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2017-12-042017-12-12

Lithuania Initiated Netanyahu Visit to Brussels

BNS–Lithuania initiated the historic visit by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Brussels to meet with EU foreign ministers, diplomats confirmed Tuesday.

“Lithuania initiated what led to the planned meeting between the Israeli prime minister and EU foreign ministers during a meeting of EU member-state foreign ministerial council December 11,” Lithuanian Foreign Ministry media representative Rasa Jakilaitienė told BNS. Over the last decade Lithuania has become one of Israel’s strongest diplomatic supporters within the EU. Many other EU member-states take stronger exception to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius remarked direct dialogue is necessary to solve remaining disagreements.

In a comment sent to BNS, Linkevičius wrote: “We seek discussion between all EU states on the concerns of the Union and Israel. Direct dialogue is crucial. Only by hearing the arguments presented in discussion can we harmonize what are sometimes very different positions.

Observers say Lithuania’s pro-Israel stance might stem partially from coordination of policy with the United States and might also be due to the history of Lithuanian Jews. Recently Israel and Lithuania have intensified bilateral relations in the military and economic spheres. The Jerusalem Post reports this will be the first visit by the prime minister to Brussels in more than two decades.

Israel annexed the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem following the Six-Day War in 1967. Most EU countries and the EU as a federated entity do not recognize Israel’s declaration Jerusalem is the nation’s capital and cite the need to follow United Nations Resolution 181, or Partition Plan for Palestine, of 1947 which envisaged Jerusalem as an international city. The Jerusalem Corpus Separatum in that plan included Bethlehem and surrounding areas.

2017-12-042017-12-12

Launch of Victor David Brenner Catalog

You’re invited to the launch of a catalog of works by Victor David Brenner, the Litvak who designed, among other things, the United States one-cent coin.

The publication will be launched at the Jewish Culture Information Center at Mėsinių street no. 3a in Vilnius at 3:00 P.M., Monday, December 4, 2017. The launch of the catalog will be accompanied by an exhibit showcasing Brenner’s design work.

2017-12-042017-12-07

Bagel Shop and Israeli Embassy at Charity Christmas Fair in Vilnius

Photo, from right: Prime minister Saulius Skvernelis, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Israeli embassy deputy chief of mission Efrat Hochstetler, PM’s wife Silvija Skvernelė

An international Christmas fair fundraiser was held again this year at the Old Town Square in Vilnius. Visitors were invited to purchase handicrafts, Christmas decorations, sweets and other knick-knacks made and sold by the spouses of foreign ambassadors resident in Vilnius, embassy personnel, social welfare organizations.

Photo: President Valdas Adamkus, Faina Kukliansky, former first lady Alma Adamkienė

The international Christmas fair is an annual initiative by the International Women’s Association of Vilnius, which includes women from Lithuania and foreign women temporarily living and working in Lithuania as members.

Photo: Apostolic nuncio archbishop Pedro Quintana

Lithuanian Jewish Community and Bagel Shop volunteers went all out this year to make this event a success. The Israeli embassy’s booth sold Lithuanian and Israeli products and collected almost 4,500 euros for charity, three times more than last year’s amount.

More photos here.

2017-12-042017-12-07

Happy 70th, Daumantas Levas Todesas!

The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends birthday greetings to Daumantas Levas Todesas, born November 25, 1947, a long-time member of the LJC executive board, the director of the Jakovas Bunka charity and support fund, vice-president of the Makabi athletics club and consultant to the director of Moscow’s Vakhtangov theater, among other things.

You have dedicated so much of your life to the preservation of Litvak heritage and of the remaining wooden synagogues, to promoting Jewish history and culture, to fostering understanding between Jews and Lithuanians and to encouraging recognition of Jewish traditions in Lithuanian society.

In 1989 you were one of the organizers of the Makabi delegation sent to the Maccabiah Games in Israel, back when Lithuania was still under the Soviets, the delegation of athletes who raised the Lithuanian flag for the first time in decades at an international event.

Daumantas, we wish you health and happiness and that your beguiling charm, great sense of humor and sharp wit would continue to illuminate the Community for many years to come!

Lebn zolstu biz hundert un tsvantsik yor! Mazl tov!

2017-12-012017-12-15

Oldest Hatred Gone Viral

You are invited to NGO Monitor and the World Jewish Congress-Israel’s conference on modern-day anti-Semitism, “The Oldest Hatred Gone Viral,” on Monday, December 11, 2017 at the Namal in Tel Aviv.

The conference will take place in memory of Prof. Robert Wistrich, a leading scholar of antisemitism.

For more information visit: www.ngo-monitor.org/events/oldest-hatred-gone-viral/

Please rsvp to rsvp@ngo-monitor.org

2017-11-292017-12-12

Saulius Sužiedėlis Interview on Lithuanian Holocaust Collaboration

by Mindaugas Jackevičius, www.delfi.lt

U.S.-based professor emeritus of history Saulius Sužiedėlis says it’s inappropriate for the state to honor those who contributed in any way to the Holocaust, and calls upon Lithuania to review for whom statues have been erected

Sužiedėlis says Lithuania could have and should have done more to detect and prosecute Holocaust perpetrators. He says Lithuania doesn’t have to admit complicity in the murder of Jews, but finally needs to admit collaboration by Lithuanians without excuses and to stop downplaying the significance of that collaboration.

The historian says this is harming Lithuania’s reputation which is important for defending national sovereignty. Sužiedėlis says no one will want to defend a country with such a poor reputation.

Well-known German historian Dr. Christoph Dieckmann, who in 2011 wrote the fundamental work “Germany’s Occupation Policy in Lithuania 1941-1944” [co-authored by Saulius Sužiedėlis], in an interview with Delfi last spring raised the moral question of why Lithuanian society, seeing and hearing the Jews being killed around them, didn’t protest. Do you think this is a well-founded question?

I think the question is not completely justified, because there were few opportunities to resist. And let’s remember that in the first two months the Lithuanian consciousness was still focused on the deportations, and Red Army soldiers shot at least 1,000 innocent Lithuanians as they withdrew. The psychology was completely different. What Lithuanian would die for Stalin? So resisting would have been difficult psychologically.

2017-11-292017-12-12

Grigory Kanovich: A Good Book is a Life Teacher

G. Kanovičius: gera knyga visada yra gyvenimo mokytoja
by Donatas Puslys, www.bernardinai.lt

Rūta Oginskaitė’s book “Gib a Kuk: Žvilgtelėk” recently hit the book shops, in which the author, Grigory Kanovich and his wife Olia paint a portrait of the Lithuanian writer and an entire era. On November 29 London’s Central Synagogue will host the launch of the English translation of Kanovich’s book “Shtetl Love Song.” We spoke with Grigory Kanovich about his relationship with his readership, love of homeland and the painful moments in our history.

There’s a proverb that a prophet is not recognized in his homeland. Your work is an important monument to the history of the Jews of Lithuania and their memory. The book requires, however, a reader who is able to enter into a dialogue with the text. Do you sense the presence of such readers in Lithuania, do you think there is a dialogue and discussion going on with your texts? Should we conclude from your recent works published abroad that your work is more interested to foreign than Lithuanian readers?

I hold to the view that prophets are rare in their homeland, and one more frequently encounters only clairvoyants and the righteous. I think “prophet” is hyperbole. I won’t deny that my novels are an attempt to create a monument to pre-war Jewish history and to commemorate my compatriots.

I wouldn’t dare claim some wide-ranging discussion is taking place between me and my readers in Lithuania, but I do receive a lot of good-willed responses from different locations from readers reading my work in Lithuanian and Russian. I can’t complain about that. I am happy foreign publishers are interested in my work. For instance, the recent publication of my Shtetl Love Song by a leading London publisher.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

2017-11-292017-12-12

The Litvaks: 900 Years of History

You are invited to a multimedia presentation called “Litvaks: 900 Years of History” by the students of the Saulėtekis school in Vilnius. The Saulėtekis school has presented a number of plays on Litvak culture and the Holocaust. The school has a strong Holocaust education component. In addition, student choirs often perform songs in Yiddish and Hebrew, most recently at the Holocaust commemoration at Ponar at the end of September where they performed the Vilnius ghetto anthem, Zog Nit Keynmol.

The presentation will take place at the Russian Drama Theater at Basanavičiaus street no. 13 in Vilnius at 6:00 P.M. on Wednesday, November 29.

Admission is free.

2017-11-292017-12-04

Japanese Volunteer Teacher Visits Panevėžys Jewish Community

Svečio iš Japonijos Susumu Nakagawa vizitas Panevėžio miesto žydų bendruomenėje

Last week Susumu Nakagawa from Japan visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community. Mr. Nakagawa is visiting Panevėžys for the second time as a volunteer teacher, teaching beginning Japanese at the Panevėžys Technology and Business Faculty of Kaunas Technology University. Mr. Nakagawa is building a bridge of friendship between the two countries, he says. He’s interested in Litvak history and culture, and when he learned there is a living Jewish community in the Lithuanian city, he decided to visit. He was accompanied by art teacher Loreta Januškienė.

Mr. Nakagawa and his family are Christians and interesting in the Old Testament and Jewish history and traditions. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman told Mr. Nakagawa about the history of the Panevėžys Jewish community over tea, and showed him documents and photographs. Mr. Nakagawa posed a number of questions to the chairman, and they touched upon the legacy of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who rescued Jews in Kaunas during the first stages of the Holocaust.

2017-11-282017-12-12