Yiddish

Lithuanian Women’s Magazine Features Amit Belaitė on Cover

16486907_10154232463426867_5335691874283383955_oA 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.

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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.

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Zeligman lights candles for the murdered Jews of Šilalė at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius

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Kaunas Jewish Community Celebrates 120th Birthday of Yudl Mark

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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.

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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

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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.

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Lithuanian National Radio: Slobodka

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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

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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.

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Shalom (from Birzh)

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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.

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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

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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

Religinės ir pasaulietinės Chanukos šventės prasmės bei litvakų tradicijos

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.

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The Secret’s Out: Bagel Shop Featured on Russian Travel Site

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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.

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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.

Canadian Celebrity Chef Chuck Hughes Visits Bagel Shop Café

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Chuck Hughes, the Canadian celebrity chief who has an entire collection of series on Canada’s Food Network cable channel and the owner of two renowned restaurants in Montréal, visited the Bagel Shop Café last week.

Best known for his show Chuck’s Day Off, now carried by the Cooking Network on cable networks in the United States as well, Hughes has a special place in his heart and his kitchen for seafood.

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The LJC’s Ilona Rūkienė caught up with Chuck last week and asked him a few questions.

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Plaques to Famous Litvaks Unveiled in Ukmergė

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Two commemorative plaques honoring the famous Litvaks Solomon Levit (1894-1938) and Chackelis Lemchenas (1904-2001) have been unveiled in Ukmergė (Vilkomir), Lithuania. Levit and Lemchenas were from the area. Levit is noted for his work in biology and medicine, and as the founder of the Genetic Medicine Institute in Moscow. He attended school in the city of Ukmergė. Lemchenas was a talented and respected Lithuanian philologist, lexicographer, linguistic reformer and cultural figure in his own right, and taught at the Jewish Real-Gymnasium in Ukmergė.

The ceremony on December 6 was attended by Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon, Ukmergė Regional Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas, Ukmergė regional administrator Rolandas Janickas and vicar Šarūnas Petrauskas, among others.

Chairman Taicas said at the ceremony he was encouraged to see so many people turn out for the event. He invited the Israel ambassador and the regional administrator to unveil the commemorative plaques.

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Sixth Annual Litvak Days Focus on Jewish Languages

On December 1 the Lithuanian Embassy in the UK in cooperation with University College London invited the public to the annual Litvak Days in London.

The program of the sixth annual Litvak Days included an evening of Yiddish song performed by Polina Shepherd at University College London and a conference on Jewish languages (Yiddish and Hebrew) in Lithuania held at the Lithuanian embassy.

“Lithuania puts a lot effort into promoting and preserving the rich heritage of Lithuanian Jews. We regard the Litvak Days events in London as a platform which facilitates cultural links between the UK’s British, Lithuanian and Jewish communities”, Lithuanian ambassador Asta Skaisgirytė said.

Litvak Days in London were attended by Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews; Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community and Arkady Rzegocki, ambassador of Poland. Dainius Junevičius, ambassador-at-large, conveyed a message from the Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius.

Full story here.

Vilnius: In Search of the Jerusalem of Lithuania

The Lithuanian Jewish Community this week hosted the launch of the second corrected and expanded edition of Irina Guzenberg and Genrikh Agranovsky’s book in Russian about Jewish Vilna.

The new edition has been reorganized with a new structure and better indices of names and sites.

Author Irina Guzenberg has done exhaustive research to provide authentic street names from the period and the book is graced with attractive period photographs. Much of the history is unknown to modern residents of the Lithuanian capital, which was not very Lithuanian before the 1950s. Before the war one heard Yiddish, Polish and Russian spoken on the street.

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Shabbat Project at the LJC

Press release, November 9, 2016

For the third year in a row Jewish communities around the world will host challa baking events and Sabbath celebrations. More than 1,006 cities around the world are participating in this enchanting event, and this year Vilnius is one of them. The Lithuanian Jewish Community officially joins the Shabbat Project Thursday, November 10, when we will host an evening of baking that special Jewish bread called challa with Community members and friends.

Challa is a special bread baked for Sabbath and holidays among Jewish families. The process of making and breaking challa is deeply rooted in tradition and religion. The word’s primary meaning is that of loaf or bun, as recorded in the Book of Numbers or Bamidbar in the Old Testament or Tanakh, and was one of the first commandments given the Israelites as they were preparing to leave the wilderness for the Promised Land: “Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for an heave offering: as ye do the heave offering of the threshing floor, so shall ye heave it.” (Numbers 15:20)

The event will feature a brief history of the Sabbath, music and hymns, kneading the dough together and baking traditional Sabbath challa. Ester Izakson, the wife of the rabbi of Vilnius, will lead the event. She will present the ceremony of separating a portion of the dough for the cohen, the haFrashat khalva, one of the three commandments incumbent of women in Judaism.

We’ll begin activating the yeast at 6:00 P.M. on November 10 at the Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius. The Lithuanian Cultural Council is supporting the event.

The event will be attended by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky with family members, foreign ambassadors and guests.

For more information, contact Dovilė Rūkaitė, director of projects for the Lithuanian Jewish community, at projects@lzb.lt

Long Awaited Changes Come to Sugihara House

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Long-awaited renovation work has finally begun at the museum set up at the house and office of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara in Kaunas, Lithuania. So far renovation is going on inside the house. The façade also requires repair, but there are reports there are problems in financing all the repairs needed at this point in time.

The second floor of Sugihara House is currently being refurbished and all exhibits have been placed on the ground floor temporarily. The ground floor houses the diplomat’s office. When the second floor is finished, there will be more exhibit space drawing even more visitors from Japan, Lithuania and around the world fascinated by this man who rescued so many Jews from the Holocaust.

Full story in Lithuanian here.