JULY 17 – AUGUST 11, 2017
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Former Vilnius Ghetto Library Receives Protected Status
Vilnius, March 22, BNS–The building of a former Jewish library in Vilnius has been entered on the registry of cultural treasures and there are plans to house a Vilnius ghetto museum there.
The Cultural Heritage Department announced the building with a commemorative plaque at Žemaitijos street no. 4 is being provided legal protection for its valuable archaeological, architectural and historical characteristics. The first council for assessing real estate cultural heritage at the department made the decision.
Cultural Heritage Department director Diana Varnaitė the surviving building which was part of the Vilnius ghetto and where the Mefitsei Haskalah library operated and later the Vilnius ghetto library is not currently being used and belongs to the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum.
“At [the museum’s] initiative there are plants to set up a museum commemorating the Holocaust in Lithuania and the Vilnius ghetto which will exhibit the vast Jewish cultural heritage and the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania. The names of Holocaust victims are read out there annually to mark the day of Jewish genocide,” director Diana Varnaitė said.
Special Celebrations at the Šiauliai Jewish Community
Last weekend was special for the Šiauliai Jewish Community. Friday many members of the community gathered to celebrate the Sabbath conducted properly by Rabbi Kalev Krelin. The men went for prayer to the synagogue and the women lit the candles to the kiddush and challa. We had a special guest: Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon paid an unofficial visit.
At the culmination of the evening the entire community enjoyed kosher floimen-tzimmes.
Early Saturday morning the men gathered again for prayer at synagogue with the rabbi.
In the evening all members of the community dressed up in carnival costumes and masks and gathered to celebrate Purim. Rabbi Kalev Krelin read from the Book of Esther and all of us, together and loudly, wiped the name of Haman from history.
This year the holiday coincided with the 27th anniversary of modern Lithuanian independence and the community didn’t neglect that holiday either, singing the Lithuanian national anthem (and Hatikvah).
With our feasting and fun we celebrated Purim according to all the Jewish traditions.
Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky’s Greetings on March 11, Day of Restoration of Lithuanian Independence.
I wish all members of the community a happy holiday!
For Litvaks Lithuania is the land of our ancestors, and March 11, the day 27 years ago when Lithuanian independence was restored, is an important holiday for us, marking as well the beginning of the rebirth of the surviving Jewish community. March 11 is for each of us an exceptional and dear day, and we cannot allow ourselves to forget how important the state where we live and where our children grow is to us. In 1918 as the first Republic of Lithuania was being born her Jewish citizens volunteered to fight for Lithuanian freedom, and went on to foster the economic and social welfare of this state.
In the run-up to March 11, significant activity by the Lithuanian Jewish initiative group took place in 1988 dedicated to the rebirth of Jewish culture. After the Lithuanian independence movement Sąjūdis was established, Lithuanian Jews were faced with the dilemma of how Jewish relations with the Lithuanian national movement would develop as the wounds of the Holocaust remained painful, recalling the tragedy which took place in this country.
Along side the rebirth of Lithuanian independence, first came the rebirth of Jewish cultural activity, and the Jewish Cultural Association was the first to hold a congress, beginning the conversation about the destruction of the Jewish community during the Holocaust in 1989, for the first time since the decline of the Soviet era in Lithuania. I have to say Jewish-Lithuanian relations in the historical context, their evaluation and research began exactly with the rebirth of independence when there had to be an assessment of the Holocaust and the active role played by Lithuanians in it had to be admitted. There were also efforts made to help Jews restore their Jewish identity.
The Jewish communities in the shtetls were exterminated in the Holocaust, the shtetls are gone and Yiddish is no longer spoken in Lithuania. Currently the Jewish communities in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Panevėžys and Švenčionys have been re-formed. We still dream of a revival of the Yiddish language.
In the recent past we have sensed the emergence of a new generation in Lithuanian society who are interested in Jewish history and the life of the Jews in Lithuania, and slowly but surely stereotypical thinking is fading away.
When we speak of the values of March 11, we underline human rights and freedoms and their necessary consolidation and growth. We hope for the generation who understand their importance and who cherish and protect these rights and freedoms, and who connect love for their native land with self-respect and respect for all of its citizens.
Was Hebrew Ever a Dead Language?
Frequent VYI summer course student Sonya Yampolskaya at her doctoral defense in Russia
Frequent student at the Yiddish summer courses at Vilnius University Sonya Yampolskaya has successfully defended her doctoral dissertation casting serious doubt on the alleged morbidity and revival of the Hebrew language.
If Hebrew were a “dead language” before its revival as the official language of Israel, as is commonly accepted, then why was it being used by Russian Jews who were even opening new Hebrew newspapers right into the 20th century?
The first chapter of Yampolskaya’s dissertation at St. Petersburg State University details both the genesis of the myth of the death of Hebrew and its alleged “resurrection” by Ben-Yehuda, and a discussion of the concepts of “dead” and “alive” as they are used in different scientific paradigms, and especially their usage in linguistics and biology. The first chapter also explores developments within Ashkenazic Hebrew in the 19th and 20th centuries. Chapters Two and Three get down to the nitty-gritty, detailing the process of lexical borrowings into Ashkenazic and what is called the T-V (tu, vous) distinction in linguistics to demonstrate both innovations and the loss of traditional forms in the language in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Yampolskaya says Ashkenazic did undergo a kind of extinction in public use in the Soviet Union ca. 1925-1926, but that its rapid development from the 1850s to the 1920s resulted in publications in Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia (Moldova), Poland and the Ukraine besides Russia, whose output of text vastly outweighed Hebrew-language publications from Palestine, the Americas and Western Europe. The way words were borrowed from foreign languages carried over into the method used in modern Israeli Hebrew, Yampolskaya found. The idea Hebrew was a dead language, as might be said of Latin and classical Greek, found proponents in the Yiddish side of the battle between Hebrew and Yiddish for the soul of the Jewish people. Yampolskaya also notes the seemingly Christian symbolism ironically involved in the semi-official myth of Hebrew’s death and resurrection by the State of Israel ca. 1948 following 2,000 years of its alleged morbidity. Besides the use of Ashkenazic Hebrew in “high register” venues such as religious books and its “mid-level” use in the periodical press, Yampolskaya discusses its use as an everyday language among Russia’s Jews.
Yampolskaya’s dissertation at the Oriental Studies department of St. Petersburg State University is the first one in 50 years on Hebrew.
Dissertation in Russian with extensive English translation available here.
Photos and details of the doctoral defense in Russian here.
State-of-the-Art Jewish Museum Planned in Šeduva
Preliminary design concept for the Lost Shtetl Museum
Plans have been announced for a state-of-the-art Jewish museum scheduled to open in 2019 as part of the Lost Shtetl memorial complex in Šeduva, Lithuania.
The museum complex is to be designed by the Finnish company Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects who also designed the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. POLIN won the 2016 European Museum of the Year Award. They are towork together with local partner Studia2A established in 1994 and headed by Vilnius Art Academy dean of architecture Jonas Audejaitis.
The museum is to be located next to the sprawling Šeduva Jewish cemetery, completely restored and opened in 2015 as part of the memorial complex. The complex includes memorials at three sites of Holocaust mass murders and mass grave sites and a symbolic sculpture in the middle of the town. A study of the Jews of Šeduva was conducted as part of the project and is to result in a documentary film called Petrified Time by film director Saulius Beržinis.
Memorial statue in Šeduva. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber
Sergey Kanovich, founder of the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund, said the Lost Shtetl Museum will employ advanced technologies to teach visitors the history and culture of Šeduva and similar Litvak shtetls. It is expected to serve as an educational and cultural center.
“Visiting the Lost Shtetl will be a history lesson which will allow national and international visitors to learn about the lost Litvak shtetl history and culture,” he said.
“Lifestyle, customs, religion, social, professional, and family life of Šeduva Jews will serve a center point of the Museum exhibition,” he said. Visitors to museum will learn “the tragedy of Šeduva Jewish history which in the early days of World War II ended in three pits near the shtetl.”
Lithuanian Women’s Magazine Features Amit Belaitė on Cover
A popular magazine for young Lithuanian women has featured Amit Belaitė, the head of the Lithuanian Union of Jewish Students, on its February cover, with a long interview with her and a series of fashion photographs inside.
“Cover girl: Amita honors her people’s past with deeds,” the cover proclaims.
The feature on page 10 is called “Living History”:
“The Jewish girl Amita Belaitė (24) is completing her studies this year at Vilnius University. During her university career this active defender of human rights was able to establish the Lithuanian Union of Jewish Students, to become the vice president and a member of the executive board of the European Union of Jewish Students, to start a Jewish history project called Mayses fun der Lites/Stories from Lithuania, to become a Living Library volunteer and for all of those activities to receive a tolerance award. Amita, who selected social health studies as her major, said her professional career over those years would have been much more difficult if not for her love of her cherished boyfriend, the economist Rokas Grajauskas (31).”
More information in Lithuanian here.
Sole Jewish Survivor of Holocaust in Šilalė Says Old Jewish Cemetery Cattle Pasture Now
Until World War II, the majority of the residents of the western Lithuanian town of Šilalė were Jews. The brick synagogue was built sometime around 1910 to 1914 at what is now the corner of V. Kudirkos street and Maironio street. There is a hardware store there now. The old Jewish cemetery is now pasture for livestock, with just the Holocaust mass murder site next to it fenced off.
Lithuanian Jewish Community member Ruvin Zeligman is the sole survivor of approximately 1,500 Šilalė Jews murdered in the Holocaust. He was 10 when World War II began in Lithuania in 1941.
Although he hasn’t lived in Šilalė for many years now, when he speaks he still falls into the western Lithuanian dialect. His wife also comes from the region and they speak in dialect at home.
Zeligman remembers the great fire which ravaged the town in 1939, burning down his family home and the entire street, taking a terrible toll on the town’s mainly wooden buildings.
How do you remember Šilalė when you lived there with your parents and family?
At that time about 60% of Šilalė’s population was Jewish. My father was a religious figure: the cantor, mohel [performer of circumcision], a religious teacher and a reznik [a man educated in the rules of kosher slaughter]. My father graduated from the famous Telz yeshiva. He was a respected man and he helped the local residents of Šilalė with his knowledge of medicine, healing the sick. There were four of us children in the family. Mother took care of the home and the children. We lived well, back then each of us, the four children, had a golden goblet at home and mother used to bring out a silver candleholder for holidays.
Zeligman lights candles for the murdered Jews of Šilalė at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius
Kaunas Jewish Community Celebrates 120th Birthday of Yudl Mark
The Yiddish Club of the Kaunas Jewish Community is celebrating the 120th birthday of Litvak-American Yiddish philologist, educator and author Yudl Mark (1897-1975). Mark taught at the Vilkomir Jewish Gymnasium and was one of the founders of YIVO. He moved to the United States in 1936, and to Israel in 1970. Among his many great works stands the 12-volume Groyser verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh (Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language), which caused dispute with YIVO over the use of non-YIVO orthography.
Lithuanians Rediscover Their Own Anne Frank
Estera Kverelytė second from left
Romualdas Beniušis writing in the newspaper Lietuvos žinios tells the story of Estera Kverelytė, a Jewish girl from Darbėnai (Drobyan or Dorbyan in Yiddish), Lithuania, who kept a diary in the months leading up to her murder at the hands of postman and policeman Vladas Jašinskas presumably in early July of 1941. Kverelytė’s diary has been lost but is known to have existed and was used in a documentary called “Nebaigtas dienoraščio puslapis” [Unfinished Page of a Diary] released by the Lithuanian Film Studio in 1964 and still available for viewing on the internet archive of Lithuanian National Radio and Television, according to the author. Beniušis is trying to locate the diary and is asking the public for help.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
A Mekhaye Winter Children’s Camp 2016
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Joint Distribution Committee traditionally hold the A Mekhaye winter camp for Children and did so late last year in 2016 as well. The camp is held in Dubingiai, Lithuania. It usually includes about 90 children who spend the holiday period together. This year as in earlier years we assembled a great team, people who know their work and who have been part of camp staff for several years now.
This year the theme was “Hanukkah in the shtetl,” since the camp coincided with the holiday. Each day camp counselors introduced a new topic and taught the children about it. Besides just being fun, the camp is very educational, even if information comes through games, as it often does. The children and staff say they feel right at home in Dubingiai now, as if it were their second home.
Lithuanian National Radio: Slobodka
The Lithuanian National Radio and Television radio program Radijo dokumentika [Radio Documentary] for Sunday, January 8, rebroadcast Tuesday, January 10 after the morning news program at 9:00 A.M. The small area at the confluence of the Neris and Nemunas Rivers created by the Radziwiłłs in the 17th century, Slabada, a “serfdom-free zone,” was originally smaller and is called a village in the documentation, but by the second half of the 18th century the shtetl was a competitor in arts and crafts and trade with the city of Kaunas across the rivers. Industry developed quickly in the 20th century. Slobodka, as it came to be called, was the home to the world-famous Slobodka Yeshiva. Known in Lithuanian as Vilijampolė, the city on the Viliya River [a synonym for the Neris], the district became part of the city of Kaunas before World War II.
This is the eighth episode in a series dedicated to the Jewish shtetls of Lithuania in Lithuanian National Radio and Television’s retrospective on the forgotten past of the Jews of Lithuania.
Call for Information about Jews Murdered near Švenčionėliai, Lithuania, in 1941
Please contact Moshe Shapiro at moisa50@mail.ru if you have any information.
No one who witnessed or lost relatives to the tragic events in the Švenčionys region in October of 1941 will ever forget.
All Jews living in the Švenčionys region, including doctors, bankers, rabbis and any number of other professionals, were locked up in a ghetto and then shot that fall after the Nazis occupied New Švenčionys (that’s what it was officially called in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic) in October, 1941.
A site for the mass murder of Jews in the Švenčionys region was selected in a pine forest in the village of Platumai near the town of Švenčionėliai across the Žeimena River. The remains of military barracks still stood there. Local police received secret orders in August of 1941 for sending all Jews to Švenčionėliai and stealing their property. Jews held in the barracks for a week suffered hunger and cold besides the looming uncertainty over their future. The barracks were surrounded by a fence and the area around that had land mines.
In October the local district police chief delivered the order by the German regime to shoot all the Jews of Švenčionys and the 22 surrounding towns and villages. About 8,000 Jews were murdered in cold blood at the execution site in October. Locals were shocked.
A memorial first erected in 1961 to the murdered Jews hasn’t been repaired in more than a decade. After standing there for two decades it needed repairs in 1984 and was reconstructed by the architect Astutė Bučinskaitė then. It was again reconstructed in 1993. The centerpiece is a granite slab with the names of the shtetls. The last major refurbishment was in 2002 when benches were installed and gravel brought in.
The Švenčionys Regional Jewish Community wants to fix up the memorial and better commemorate the victims.
The project will cost about 6,200 euros. The Ethnic Minorities Department under the Lithuanian Government will provide partial funding, and the Švenčionys regional administration will also make a financial contribution, totaling 20 percent of total costs or 1,200 euros.
The project will learn the names of victims and compile a comprehensive list, and the new memorial will include an information board. Although some names are known from the Lithuanian archives and from the book in Hebrew and Yiddish called the Book of Memory of the Twenty-Three Jewish Communities of Švenčionys Region published in Tel Aviv in 1965, there are still real difficulties in learning the specific identities of those who were murdered and buried across the river from Švenčionėliai.
Švenčionys Regional Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro is highly cognizant and appreciative of the grave responsibility posed by this important project, and is asking those who survived the Holocaust from the smaller towns in the Švenčionys region, their children, grand-children and relatives, wherever they might live now, to share any information they might have, including stories and the names and surnames of the victims.
Please contact Moshe Shapiro at moisa50@mail.ru if you have any information.
Shalom (from Birzh)
Executive board of Association of Biržai Firefighters, 1936. First person sitting on left: Boruch Michelson. Third seated from left: G. Belickas. First standing from left: S. Chaitas. Fifth from left standing: I. Masas. Photo courtesy Sėla Museum.
by Borisas Januševičius
This is a greeting among Jews. It is the wish for peace, spiritual peace and security. Lithuanian “sveikas” corresponds to “shalom aleichem,” peace to you [sic]. I heard these types of greetings often in my childhood. Parents—neighbors, Jews—of my friends (in Jewish jargon khebra: meydal and bakhur) used to use them. We also used this jargon, Kučinskų Aliukas, Kėkštų Zenka, Karpuškų Liolė and others, including me. Our chebra, our friends of darker extraction have been lying in the ground in Pakamponys for 75 years now. Their memory is fading fast into the past.
Conflicted Thoughts against the Backdrop of Noble Action
For some time now I have been watching the burgeoning interest in the Jews who lived so numerously in Biržai between the wars. Their mysterious codes are deciphered, projects are planned and carried out and the attempt is made to provide a background of international significance to this activity. The Israeli ambassador, the deputy US ambassador, Lithuania’s chief rabbi [sic], the chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, the president of the Brooklyn Synagogue, Lithuanian members of parliament, Kaunas archbishop Lionginas Virbalas, representatives of the Jewish communities of certain cities and many others all rushed to Biržai. The men of Biržai donned Jewish “yarmulkes.” The sorrowful hymn of the cantor rang out across the Jewish cemetery. Some of the guests only then learned that there is a place called Biržai in this world with its unique Jewish and Karaite cemetery.
Unfortunately, Sheftel Melamed was not among those who turned, who used to call himself the only surviving Jew in Biržai. Melamed died more than a year ago. Sheftel and his brother went to Russia in June of 1941 and that’s how they survived. When he came to his hometown in 1945 he didn’t find his parents’ home on Vytauto street, it had burned down. Neither did he find the relatives he had left here four years earlieir. His mother Paya, his father Peisach and his brother Hirsh were shot in Pakamponys.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Discover, Recognize, Accept
One beautiful December afternoon director Vida Pulkauninkienė and members of the Dukstyna Tolerance Education Center travelled to Vilnius to meet with Jewish Community member Geršonas Taicas. The knowledgeable Taicas took them on a tour of the Vilnius Old Town and told them about famous Jewish personalities.
During the walking tour Taicas took them to the remnants of the old city wall where in the early 17th century the Bastillion was built at the Subocz Gate. This is a defensive fortification consisting of a tower, an artillery section and a tunnel connecting them. From there they walked to a location where the city and its surrounding areas are clearly visible and took in the view.
On Strazdelio street they saw the building where the Romm publishing house operated.
They also saw the building where Jascha Heifetz, the famous 20th century violinist, studied.
Fayerlakh 45th Birthday Concert: No Signs of Old Age Yet
A concert to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the founding of the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble took place December 18 with an overflow crowd of well-wishers and fans. A large screen projection by the stage relayed images to those in the very back of the hall, and Jews from the regional communities as well as the Lithuanian capital turned out in abundance. The group performed some songs in Yiddish and the birthday coincided with the issuing of a new CD by the collective which includes qualified musicians from across the generations, from children to the elderly.
Of the ensembles 40 or so members, the youngest is just five and the most senior about to turn 70. The little flame which sprang up in 1971 burns on, and the audience on December 18 included more non-Jews than Jews, including a delegation from the Association of Disabled Poles who attended in wheelchairs.
The entire year has been a celebration of the collective’s birthday and in March Lithuanian prime minister Butkevičius sent warm wishes for their continued success. The ensemble was presented with a large cake with small flames at the mid-December celebration, and Lithuanian parliamentary speaker Pranckietis hailed the longest-surviving musical group in Lithuanian history as well.
Al Jolson Birthday Concert
You are invited to a concert to celebrate the 130th birthday of Litvak musician and screen star Al Jolson at 7:00 P.M. on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius.
Free to the public, come and enjoy!
Fayerlakh Birthday Concert
Celebrating their 45th birthday, the Jewish song and dance group Fayerlakh is inviting everyone to a concert at the Vilnius Polish House of Culture (Naugarduko street no. 76, Vilnius) at 5:00 P.M. on Sunday, December 18. The concert will feature Jewish dance, Yiddish songs and a group of klezmer musicians.
The ensemble is constituted of over 40 members and the youngest Fayerlakh member is just 5 years old. The oldest is now almost 70. Although times change, Fayerlakh stands as an unextinguished flame, formed way back in 1971.
Tickets just 8 euros for Jewish Community members!
Get your tickets by internet here: http://www.tiketa.lt/jubiliejinis_koncertas_fajerlech__45_75662
The Religious and Secular Meaning of Hanukkah and Litvak Traditions
for lzb.lt by Dr. Aušra Pažėraitė, associate professor and lecturer, Religious Studies and Research Center, Vilnius University
“…While the Chabad Hassidim cannot be excluded from the ranks of Lithuanian Jews (their communities in Vilnius go back to the time of the Russian Empire), they do not represent all Lithuanian Jews, and especially not those who consider themselves misnagdim, largely known simply as Litvaks. Perhaps the Vilnius municipality this year could seek for some sort of Solomonic solution which wouldn’t step on the toes of the Litvak community and would take their traditions into account. Or simply point out that the erection of a giant menorah is not tacitly understood as a universal Jewish tradition…”
The holiday of Hanukkah, celebrated for 8 days beginning on Kislev 25, is one of those holidays which the Torah does not demand be celebrated. That’s understandable, since the holiday comes from a time after the Torah was given. The name of the holiday is explained by examining the root, which indicates inauguration, celebration, dedication, establishment, and these actions are connected with the reconsecration of the Temple in Jerusalem. The holiday is begun by lighting a candle or an oil lamp, over the eight days lighting one more flame each day. The Talmud (Shabbat 21b-22a) relates that one school of thought in the first century, Beit Shammai, was of the opinion all eight flames should be lit initially and successively extinguished one by one daily, while Beit Hillel followers believed one flame should be lit the first day, two the second day until all eight were lit, which is the belief which took hold and is followed till today. As Rabba bar bar Hana explains, relying upon what Rabba Johanan said on the issue: “The thinking of Beit Hillel is that we should grow in the light, not shrink” (Shabbat 22a). Light should increase daily. It is the opinion of many authors that something which burns up by itself in a limited time should be burned, and that there be just enough “fuel reserves” that it extinguish itself within 30 minutes after “the onset of night.” Therefore electric light bulbs are inappropriate. Although some allow their use, if there is nothing else available, no special blessing is said upon their lighting.
The Secret’s Out: Bagel Shop Featured on Russian Travel Site
Travel journalist and photographer Evgenii Golomolzin from St. Petersburg, Russia, has written a long piece about the culinary experiences available in Vilnius, with the Bagel Shop featured prominently.
Vilnius is a cosmopolitan city where all sorts of ethnic dishes are on offer, he writes. As a heavily Jewish city of many centuries, it has preserved Jewish traditions even after the Holocaust. There is an old Jewish quarter. A year ago the Bagel Shop Café appeared as well. The kosher café the Bagel Shop is an exotic attraction. The Bagel Shop is located at Pylimo street no. 4. The café is not large and is very simple, but original. It feels like a small apartment with the books and knickknacks on the shelves. You can read the books as you sip coffee, you can buy a Hebrew dictionary or a Jewish calendar. But people come here not for the books, but for the real Jewish treats and the bagels (€0.85 apiece). Five kinds are sold at the café.
The display case also has lekakh, a Jewish sweet-cake; imberlakh, a pastry made of carrots, ginger and orange; and teiglakh, small cakes cooked in honey. You can order something more filling, for example, soup with dumplings (€2.00), an egg-salad sandwich (€3.60), tuna sandwich (€3.60) or hummus sandwich (€3.60). It’s all delicious. The café opened just recently—in 2016—but has already become a tourist attraction, the St. Petersburg-based travel publication writes.
Full story in Russian with very nice photographs here.