Learning

Goodwill Foundation Press Conference

Gerosios Valios fondo spaudos konferencijoje

by Paulius Gritėnas, 15min.

A meeting of the executive board of the Goodwill Foundation for Disbursing Compensation for Jewish Religious Community Real Estate met in Vilnius Thursday. The board decided how to use monies allocated by the government to fellow Jewish citizens for losses incurred during the Holocaust. Board chairwoman and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said: “Rather sensitive issues were discussed. Issues such as the rebuilding of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius, cemetery protection, Holocaust education.”

“It’s wonderful that the large world Jewish organizations are returning to Lithuania. Many of them have Litvak roots,” Kukliansky noted, pointing to Andrew Baker, director for international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee who also serves as co-chair of the Goodwill Foundation’s executive board.

Baker said the issue of the Great Synagogue was especially important. “Lots of discussions are taking place on what should be at that site, but whatever happens, it must reflect the historical and cultural moment which that site is,” Baker commented.

“I know there are legal arguments which could be employed, we could assert our rights and became the owners of the site. Our board resolved we should go that route,” Baker said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Lithuanian and American Jewish Reps: Museum at Palace of Sports Impossible

Vilnius, April 27, BNS–The Palace of Sports, built above old graves in the old Jewish cemetery in the Šnipiškės neighborhood of Vilnius, is not an appropriate place for a museum of Jewish history, according to Lithuanian and American Jewish representatives.

“There’s agreement the Jewish cemetery is not an appropriate site for a museum,” American Jewish Committee representative Andrew Baker, who is a leading executive in a fund for disbursing compensation for Jewish property, told reporters Thursday.

“We believe there should be a kind of presentation of the history of the cemetery and of the people buried there,” he added. Baker is a chairman on the executive board of the Goodwill Foundation which supervises monies paid in compensation for Jewish religious community property. Under a law adopted in 2011 Lithuania is obligated to pay out 37 million euros over ten years in compensation for property seized by totalitarian regimes.

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Old Jewish Cemetery No Place for Jewish Museum

by Laima Žemulienė, ELTA

“Today’s agenda for the meeting of the Goodwill Foundation was connected with Jewish heritage and its use in Lithuania. There are issues, however, which the Goodwill Foundation would like to solve with the Lithuanian Government. These include the rebuilding of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius, a Jewish History Museum in Lithuania, cemetery protection and education, especially Holocaust education. There are issues for which the international Jewish communities can make recommendations, and we are using those recommendations. Many of the people in those communities have Litvak roots. The Goodwill Foundation is in contact not just for allocating monies, but also with international Jewish organizations,” Faina Kukliansky said.

The Great Synagogue which stood on Jewish street in Vilnius was the center of the Jewish community.

“I know there are specific legal considerations which could be used for us to take ownership of that site. Our executive board decided we should go that route. The most important interest for us is how the site will be used, how it will be respected,” Rabbi Andrew Baker said.

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Play Silenced Muses in Panevėžys

The Rokiškis Theater Association of the Juozas Miltinis Gymnasium presented the play Nutildytos Mūzos [Silenced Muses] directed by Neringa Danienė in Panevėžys April 21 to commemorate Holocaust victims. The play was based on real events. The original play was written using the diary of the young Jewish girl Matilda Olkin and the memoirs of her contemporaries. The moving story about the fate of the family of the pharmacist Naum Olkin from Panemunėlis in the Rokiškis region of Lithuania and the muse silenced before its time just as it was about to bloom in the young and talented poetess Matilda is topical in the context of ever-growing dangers in the world today, and compels us to think about the senselessness of war and the fragility of this day.

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Happy Birthday to Eta Gurvičiūtė

Eta was an active member of the Community for many years and worked at the medical consulting center at the LJC. Her birthday is on April 27.

Dear Eta, the Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes you excellent health and as much warmth as you gave so many others over the years. May the coming years bring you happiness and joy, strength and hope. May you live to 120!

March of the Living Speakers: Important to Remember Rescuers and Collaborators

Vilnius, April 26, BNS–Participants at the March of the Living to commemorate Holocaust victims in Vilnius say both the crimes of the murderers and the deeds of the rescuers need to be judged in commemorating the mass murders.

For the tenth time in as many years marchers walked from the Ponar railroad station along the same path the victims were marched during the Nazi occupation to what is now the Ponar Memorial Complex.

“Today we both recognize and thank the individuals who, despite the risk not only to their own lives, but to the lives of their entire families, saved Jewish lives. We thank them and we bow our head,” Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon said at the ceremony.

He noted the inscription on one memorial speaks of 70,000 Jews murdered, but noted there are more than 200 mass Jewish graves where the same thing happened in Lithuania. He stressed the importance of remembering the Jewish community wasn’t a group of “temporary residents,” and contributed significantly to the creation of the state of Lithuania in the areas of economics, science, technology and art.

Ambassador Maimon said there were the names of people, families and communities behind the statistics who, as the prime minister of Lithuania noted, lived together for many years. He said it was our moral imperative to insure the names appear at these sites, not just the numbers.

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Goodwill Foundation Press Conference

Media are invited to a press conference following the April 27 meeting of the executive board of the Goodwill Foundation. The press conference will be held at 2:00 P.M. at the Narutis Hotel, Pilies street no. 24, Vilnius. Foundation chairs and other members of the executive board will attend.

Happy Birthday to Jakov Mendelevski!

Happy birthday! The Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes you health, happiness and strength… A human life is not measured in years, but deeds. Your life is filled with many useful and wise deeds in which you can take much pride. You have stored up a treasure house of wisdom and experience, and seriousness in the paths chosen, in your heart. We hope the passing years bring you joy, warmth and hope!

May you live to 120!

Meeting of Executive Board of Goodwill Foundation

Press Release

A meeting of the executive board of the Goodwill Disbursement Foundation for Compensation for Jewish Religious Communal Property, or Goodwill Foundation, will be held April 27, 2017.

The formation of the Goodwill Foundation was an important step for Lithuanian Jews as well as the Lithuanian state, representing the first successful attempt to compensate at least partially the losses of fellow Jewish citizens during the Holocaust. Based on the law adopted, by 2023 the Lithuanian state budget is to transfer 37 million euros in compensation to the Goodwill Foundation to be disbursed for financing Lithuanian Jewish religious, cultural, health-care, athletic, educational and academic projects in Lithuania. The Lithuanian Government annually allocates approximately 3.6 million euros for purposes defined in the law on goodwill compensation. From its inception the Goodwill Foundation has expanded and become an organization striving for the sensible and appropriate use of funding for Lithuania’s Jews.

In 2014 the Goodwill Foundation began financing projects adhering to the prescribed goals laid out in law. Each year the Foundation has disbursed about half of the monies received from the Lithuanian Government, or about 1.6 million euros, setting aside the remainder for future projects. The chairs of the Goodwill Foundation, Rabbi Andrew Baker and Faina Kukliansky, have insured the efficacy of the Foundation’s work, as demonstrated by the conclusion of the 2016 audit by the Lithuanian State Auditor’s Office.

One of the top agenda items for the April 27, 2017, meeting of the executive board of the Goodwill Foundation is executing allocation of annual monetary compensation according to project applications received. The allocation of Goodwill Foundation monies for projects follows established criteria. The Goodwill Foundation’s executive board will also consider issues concerning investment of deferred funds, maintenance and acquisition of buildings in support of the activities of the Jewish communities, preservation of surviving portions of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius, plans for establishing Litvak museums and commemoration of and insuring due respect for the mass murder site at Ponar.

The Goodwill Foundation operates according to legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania and the findings and recommendations of international audit bodies, assuring the appropriate acceptance, assessment and approval of applications and the appropriate administration of the Goodwill Foundation itself. Our hope is the recommendations from the audits conducted will become an important tool helping the Foundation to achieve our goal of becoming an example of best practices for organizations disbursing funds for implementing projects.

Members of the media are invited to a press conference following the meeting of the executive board of the Goodwill Foundation on the ground floor of the Narutis Hotel, Pilies street no. 24, Vilnius, beginning at 2:00 P.M. The chairs and members of the executive board of the Goodwill Foundation will be at the press conference.

ORT and Non-ORT Schools Join in Partisan Anthem Project

With each Yom haShoah the number of Survivors dwindles making the challenge of engaging new generations more difficult and more urgent. We have found a way to involve ORT students across the former Soviet Union.

We have started an international push to popularise the partisan song Zog Nit Keynmol by linking ORT and non-ORT schools in an online programme to not only learn its Yiddish – and Hebrew – words but also to delve into its meaning and historical significance and to share what they learn.

The result has moved groups of students at World ORT schools in Kiev, Odessa, Kishinev, Vilnius, Chernivtsi, Tallinn, Moscow, Kazan and Samara to prepare videos for Yom haShoah singing the anthem written by the Vilna poet Hirsh Glik to a melody by the Soviet-Jewish composers Dmitri and Daniel Pokrass.

This is a powerful statement and shows that we can link the generations this way and honour the legacy of the Survivors.

World ORT has added a new video: A Song for Yom haShoah:

The next stage will evolve into a program in which our youth learn about their family histories within the context of our Jewish cultural history.

Find out more about my project here:
http://elirab.me/teaching-the-partisan-song-to-a-new-generation/

Best regards,
Eli Rabinowitz

Kaunas Jewish Community Celebrates Inventor of Esperanto

Zamenhof’s grave in Warsaw, visited by members of the Kaunas Jewish Community

The Kaunas Jewish Community marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, the inventor of the artificial international language Esperanto who sought to bring the races and linguistic groups of the world closer. Dr. Zamenhof sought to make Esperanto the world’s second language. The residents of Kaunas are proud L. L. Zamenhof called the city home for a time and proud of the legacy he left the world in the form of Esperanto.

According to wikipedia: “By 1878, his project Lingwe uniwersala was almost finished. However, Zamenhof was too young then to publish his work. Soon after graduation from school he began to study medicine, first in Moscow, and later in Warsaw. In 1885, Zamenhof graduated from a university and began his practice as a doctor in Veisiejai and after 1886 as an ophthalmologist in Płock and Vienna. While healing people there he continued to work on his project of an international language.”

More about Zamenhof and the language he created is available in the Lithuanian language:

Zamenhof and Kaunas
http://mokslolietuva.lt/2014/01/zamenhofas-ir-kaunas/

What happened to Esperanto?
http://www.bernardinai.lt/straipsnis/2015-10-23-kas-nutiko-esperanto-kalbai/136454

Website for learning Esperanto and learning about the history of the language.
https://lernu.net/lt

How is Lithuania connected to Esperanto?
http://www.yrasalis.lt/naujienos/kas-sieja-lietuva-ir-esperanto/

Fun Passover Celebration at Šiauliai Jewish Community

On April 15 the Šiauliai Jewish Community celebrated Passover. Community chairman Josif Burštein welcomed participants and Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon and wife were the guests of honor, speaking about the story of Passover and the meaning behind eating matzo.

Lithuanian art critique, theater expert, writer and doctor of liberal arts Markas Petuchauskas also attended with his wife. The evening included performance of Jewish song and dance, provided by the benefactor Vadim Kamrazer.

Thanks go to the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s Social Programs Department and the Goodwill Foundation for making the wonderful holiday possible.

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Silenced Shtetl of Divenishok Speaks Again

by Ieva Elenbergienė

A conversation with Dieveniškės Technological and Business School director Ilona Šedienė

Ilona, tell me about “your” Jews.

Today there are none left alive in Dieveniškės [Divenishok]. The amount of history we revive, that’s the amount we’ll have. The surviving historical material isn’t generous. We only know the center of Dieveniškės was one of many Lithuanian shtetls. In Jewish history a shtetl doesn’t mean just any town, the term is applied to towns where the Jewish population was truly large and was part of the life of the entire town. Most of ours were craftsmen. They also had their own synagogue, but the think was it was at the bottom of the hill so it didn’t stand above the Catholic church.

A significantly lesser amount of information remains about Dieveniškės than, say, Eišiškės [Eyshishok]. For those seeking information, the internet page Jews in Lithuania, zydai.lt, explains all shtetls in Lithuania were more or less similar. There was a customary order to life, a specific rhythm, and they were to a greater or lesser extent the same. Read about other ones and you’ll find they are similar to yours. But authenticity is always wanted… We’ve discovered material from local collectors, we’ve translated a portion of memoirs by Jews, and when we had a bit better picture put together, we staged an exhibit about the life, history and present situation of the Jews of Dieveniškės.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

#AtmintisAtsakomybeAteitis

Project supported by:
evz

Levita Returns to Stage in Kaunas

The group Levita returned to the stage in Kaunas Thursday with a concert at the Punto Jazz venue. Many who came remembered the group’s initial concert in Kaunas in September, 2016. The Kaunas Jewish Community sponsored the free concert then in the run-up to Rosh Hashanah and the lead singer, Vita Levina, is a member of the Kaunas Jewish Community. The group performs songs by her and others in a combined pop-jazz-folk style.

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Mark Zingeris’s New Novel “I Sat in Stalin’s Lap”

The most important circumstance in the writing of “I Sat in Stalin’s Lap” was that I had a close encounter with death at the hospital and it illuminated the drama of life happening outside my hospital window in a more significant light. I began to think constantly about history and the fate of man. I can’t say how many telephones, umbrellas and bank cards I misplaced. I was closed up in myself then and probably barely sufferable to my family. These attacks of individualism and egocentricity continued for perhaps six years. If my wife had found herself a lover during that time, I would find it justifiable psychologically.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Zog Nit Keynmol: The Partisan Song Project

Imagine a high school student in 2017, singing a Yiddish song with confidence and understanding. It may seem like an impossible dream, but Eli Rabinowitz is making it a reality.

Rabinowitz, who is ex-South African and resides in Perth, is passionate about Jewish education, genealogy and history. On a recent trip to South Africa, he was asked by Rabbi Craig Kacev (Head of Jewish Life at King David Schools) to address over 1000 students on the meaning of ‘Zog Nit Keynmol’ (‘Never say this is the final road …’) – known as the Partisan Song or the Holocaust Survivors Anthem or Hymn.

The words may be familiar to an older generation as they are often recited at Yom Hashoah ceremonies, but Rabbi Kacev felt that young Jewish students had no understanding of the meaning or inspiration of the song. By teaching them the words and their meaning, a legacy and a link could be created between young Jews and Holocaust survivors.

Indeed, when Eli Rabinowitz presented this to a group of Holocaust survivors in Johannesburg, they were thrilled and very moved. Inspired by their enthusiasm, he decided to encourage organisations and schools around the world to teach the song to students, in the hope that they will perform it at Yom Hashoah ceremonies across the globe on 23/24 April.

Rabinowitz took the initiative one step further in Cape Town, where he hosted a live ‘online classroom’ with six schools. These included Herzlia High School and a range of schools in Lithuania, Moldova and the Ukraine. This technological feat was achieved using ‘Google Hangouts’ and YouTube, with the expertise of Steve Sherman of Living Maths.

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Holocaust Denial Materials Posted at Australian Universities

By Jordan Hayne
Updated April 24, 2017 11:47:02

Posters questioning the historical accuracy of the Holocaust have sparked concerns among students at the Australian National University (ANU) and at least two other universities where they were distributed.

On Friday students found flyers and posters at the ANU campus that give support to the views of controversial British writer David Irving, who has questioned the overwhelming body of evidence supporting the existence of the Holocaust.

The materials point to a website that includes questions about whether gas chambers existed at concentration camps.

Full story here.

Yom haShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day

Yom Hashoah: Holokausto atminimo diena
Photo: Yom haShoah ceremony at Kiryat Gat, Israel, 1963. Courtesy www.myjewishlearning.com

The full title of this day for the commemoration of Holocaust victims is Yom haShoah ve-laGevurah, or Day of the Holocaust and Heroism. It falls on the 27th day of Nissan on the Jewish calendar, a week after Passover and a week before Yom haZikaron, Israeli soldiers’ memorial day. If Nasan 27 falls on a day next to the Sabbath (it never falls on the Sabbath), then Yom haShoah is shifted a day away from the Sabbath.

In 2017 Yom haShoah is marked on April 24.

The Knesset, or Israeli parliament, chose this day to remember the Holocaust on April 12, 1951, but it is observed by individuals and Jewish communities world-wide.

In the 1950s Holocaust education focused on the suffering and murder of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis, but public opinion polls showed the younger generation of Israeli citizens found it hard to identify with the victims because they believed the Jews of Europe had behaved like “lambs led to the slaughter.” Israeli curricula began to shift to emphasize cases where Jews resisted the Nazis, differentiating “passive resistance,” the ability to preserve human dignity under the most insufferable conditions, and “active resistance,” armed struggle against the Nazis in the ghettos and partisan underground activities.

Siren

Beginning in the 1960s air-raid sirens across the state of Israel were sounded for two minutes to stop traffic for a moment of reflection on the victims. The sirens blast at sunset and again at 11 o’clock in the morning of the same day on the Jewish calendar (the day begins at sunset in the Jewish reckoning of time). All radio and television shows that day are connected in one way or another with the topic of the fate of the Jews in World War II, with many interviews of Holocaust survivors. Even music stations adapt their programming for the mood appropriate to Yom haShoah. Entertainment, drama theaters, movie theaters, bars and other public venues are closed across Israel on this day.

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Nechama Lifšicaitė Has Died

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is sad to announce the death of Nechama Lifšicaitė (Nekhama Lifshits, נחמה ליפשיץ) and we send our condolences to her daughter Roza. The older Litvak generation remembers well Nechama’s enchanting voice and her lyrical-coloratura soprano song. As we express our condolences, we say: let the ground be soft for her, and recordings of her songs will remind us all of the wonderful songstress and her interesting personality for a very long time to come.

Nechama was born in Kaunas in 1927 and grew up in a traditional Jewish family. She attended a Jewish school where her father Yehuda Tzvi was principal from 1921 to 1928. He later became a doctor. During World War II Nechama and her family found shelter in the Soviet Union and lived in Uzbekistan. They returned to Kaunas after the war. From 1946 to 1951 she studied at and was graduated from the Vilnius Music Conservatory. She performed concerts of her songs in Yiddish beginning in 1956. According to Solomon Atamuk, “Both in Lithuania and throughout the [Soviet] Union, Lifšicaitė provided refreshing national and spiritual sustenance to the Jews thirsting for their culture. Nechama’s songs expressed the deepest experiences and aspirations of the Jews of the Soviet Union; they were moving and spiritualizing.”

Overcoming limitations on doing her repertoire was not a simple matter during the Soviet era, but Nechama Lifšicaitė was able to turn her concert tour across many Soviet cities into a wake-up call for cultural and ethnic identity. Despite the negative view taken by government agencies towards the ethno-cultural activities in which Nechama Lifšicaitė was engaged, she was recognized in 1958 for her exceptional artistic expression and vocal abilities with first prize in the Soviet music maestro competition, and was granted permission to tour abroad. She performed in Austria, Belgium and France. Her songs were released on two records in 1960 and 1961, which were reissued several times in later years.

Nechama Lifšicaitė and her family made aliyah to Israel in 1969 where two more records of her songs were released that same year. She performed in cities and villages, on the radio and on television. Her appearances were great successes. In the period from 1969 to 1972 she did concert tours of the United Kingdom, Canada, the USA, Mexico, Venezuela, Brasil and Australia. In 1976, without retiring from her musical career, she completed library science studies at Bar-Ilan University and became director of the historical archive of the Tel Aviv Municipal Music Library.