Listen to LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky‘s story in Yiddish and English!
Yiddish Book Center
Happy Birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya
Happy birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya, our living link with former Lithuania before the Holocaust. A Jewish partisan, she kept fighting after the war, educating generations about the truth of what happened. Most of us at a certain age in adulthood begin to slow down, to rise more slowly from our chairs, to walk more cautiously. Fania never did. She still walks with a spring in her step as if she were a teenager, with a smile for everyone and ready to talk to anyone without regard for social status. Happy birthday, Fania. Mazl tov! Bis 120!
Hirsh Glik’s Birthday Was April 24
Hirsh Glik authored the words to the Jewish partisan hymn Zog Nit Keynmol. He was born on April 24, ca. 1921 according to the US Holocaust Museum, in Vilnius and belonged to the Yungvald circle of Yiddish poets. Later imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto, he and fellow ghetto inmate and Vilnius native Rokha Margolis, both youth members of the FPO Jewish partisans group operating there, set his words to music and presented the song to the FPO leadership. He is thought to have been killed in 1944.
Small Children, Small Troubles
Kleiner kinder — klein zorgn, groise kinder — groise zorgn.
This Jewish saying means small children pose worries and bigger children bigger problems.
Natalja Cheifec invites you to her third lecture on the subject, “Raising Children in the Traditional Jewish Family,” in Lithuanian.
The lecture will teach you about innate features children have and how to encourage them, and why Jewish children end up learning their entire lives. The issue of whether children should pay attention to the opinions of others and which way to choose–to act like everyone else, or to go one’s own way–will be addressed.
Together with Natalja you will learn how to turn an enemy into a friend, how to teach children to behave morally and the effects loneliness and a bad environment have on children.
The lecture is free and will be held on the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s Zoom page from 5:30 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. on April 22.
The lesson will be repeated in Russian a week from now, on April 29.
To register, go to http://bit.ly/3arwHRn
#NataljosPaskaitos
Condolences
Milan Cheronskis passed away April 14. He was born in 1937 and grew up on Sakhalin Island in the Soviet Far East. Our deepest condolences to his wife Svetlana, daughter Polina and many, many friends within the Jewish community.
Cheronskis was a director at the Yiddish People’s Theater and a journalist. He was graduated from the Leningrad State Theater, Music and Comedy Institute in 1964. He directed the Yiddish People’s Theater in Vilnius from 1979 to 1999.
Besides serving on the board of directors of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Milan was the force behind the Community’s long-time press organ, Jerusalem of Lithuania, which was at one time published in four languages simultaneously. The newspaper was published from 1989 to 2010. Following the newspaper’s cancellation and his retirement, Milan continued to fight against Holocaust distortion and the falsification of Lithuanian history in the press and on the internet.
This is How It Was Done in Vilne…
Photo: Pinchos Fridberg, the only Jew left in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius who was born there before the Nazis invaded in 1941. By Brendan Hoffman for the New York Times.
by professor Pinchos Fridberg, an alter vilner id [an old Jew born and raised in Vilnius]
“Rebe, will there ever come a time when the words Vilne and Yidish will be inseparable again?”
“Saydn nor mit Meshiakh’n ineinem.” [Not unless it comes with the Messiah.]
Introduction
The article “Как это делалось ин Вилнэ…” [This Is How It Was Done in Vilne] became the main feature for issue no. 505 of the international magazine “Мы Здесь” [We Are Here] in 2015. More than 7,000 people read it, and I began receiving letters from people whom I didn’t know.
The largest Russian-language weekly newspaper in Lithuania “Обзор” [Review] reprinted this article on its website on March 8, 2021.
The article concerns the history of Jewish Vilnius.
I think it might be interesting to non-Russian-language readers as well. *
“This is How It Was Done in Vilne…”
As I was putting my archive in order, I came across a small program for a concert to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Jewish volunteer collectives. This program is more than half a calendrical century old. I think the reader might be interested to see “how it was done in Vilne.” The program contains over 30 photographs. I will present a few of them. I believe it has long been time for them to be revived on the wider internet.
Vilnius and Cape Town Celebrate Sabbath
A special joint internet Sabbath celebration was held between Vilnius and Cape Town, South Africa last Friday, February 19.
Cape Town Rabbi Greg Alexander greeted the internet celebrants in both cities and presented Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman to those in South Africa.
The Sabbath was ushered in with song. The rabbi and Millian Rivlin sang and played guitar, after which prayers were delivered. Despite the distance between the two cities, communication was almost instantaneous, and it felt as if everyone were in the same room at home.
The vast majority of Jews living in South Africa were and are Litvaks. That affinity was clear during the internet Sabbath.
Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman on Importance of January 13 to Nation’s Jews
Photo: Faina Kukliansky, by Vidmantas Balkūnas, courtesy 15min.lt
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky remembers January 13. Lithuanian Jews, who restored their community finally 30 years ago after decades of restrictions, took part in events in those days [in 1991] Nowadays when they talk about the struggle for freedom, members of the community emphasize the greatest gift: the opportunity to speak freely.
What do you remember personally about that fateful night at the TV tower, the Lithuanian Radio and Television building and the parliament? What does the Jewish community remember about these events?
Jews did the same thing as everyone else in Lithuania. We have collected the recollections of our community members of that fateful night. They watched the television broadcast until it was cut off and they went to the barricades, in Vilnius but also in Kaunas and other cities.
We were there where the majority of Lithuania was. I remember when I travelled from Varėna during that time and saw the road full of tanks. At that time I had an elderly guest from America who said he was seeing tanks for the first time in his life.
On that particular night my friends and I–all of us were together with our young children–followed events, held vigil, waiting for our husbands who were there in the crowd by the barricades or who were doing their job as doctors.
My children are now grown up and always remember that night and the tension. It wasn’t clear what would happen and the tanks were already in place in the city. We didn’t have any information, we had seen the final frame when E. Bučelytė had to quit the [television] studio. We learned that night from medics that there were dead and wounded people.
Interview with Simas Levinas, First Principal of the First Post-War Jewish School, Chairman of Lithuanian Jewish Religious Community
by Ilona Rūkienė
The entire Lithuanian Jewish community knows Simas Levinas as the head of the Lithuanian Jewish Religious Community, which includes two Jewish religious communities in Kaunas and the Klaipėda and Vilnius Jewish Religious Communities. Mr. Levinas was the first principal at the post-war Jewish school in Vilnius and has also served as the head of the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s Social Center.
Vilnius has only one working synagogue [excluding Chabad Lubavitch House], the Choral Synagogue on Pylimo street. How are prayer services conducted there?
Prayer services are held three times daily. There are sufficient numbers of those who come to pray. Judaism is complicated, people come to prayer in the morning, afternoon and evening. Life is structured by coming and going to synagogue. They only come once during Sabbath. There are a lot of people in attendance during the summer and famous rabbis come, the followers of the Vilna Gaon. People are frequently proud of their Lithuanian roots, because being Litvak means the continuation of the Gaon’s school, meaning that their parents or ancestors came from the Lithuanian Grand Duchy, many of them from [the smaller ethnically-defined nation-state of] Lithuania. They dedicate an entire day to prayer, then travel on to Volozhin, where Chaim of Volozhin [1749-1821], a disciple of the Vilna Gaon, taught the Gaon’s method of textual analysis at the yehsiva he [Chaim] established especially for that purpose. During the Jewish holy days the synagogue is packed, at least before the pandemic, and it’s not just Jews who come, many Lithuanian guests do as well. Ambassadors from many countries resident in Vilnius also participate.
Binyamin Netanyahu Likes the Vilna Gaon Commemorative Coin
Note: Triangular coins with Hebrew inscriptions are known from the ancient Jewish kingdom of Khazaria on the edge of Europe.
New Archaeological Discoveries at Pakruojis Synagogue Complex
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Pakruojis regional administration mayor Saulius Margis, administration director Ilona Gelažnikienė, deputy mayor Virginijus Kacilevičius and others attended a lecture by Dr. Ernestas Vasiliauskas presenting new archaeological discoveries at the Pakruojis synagogue complex.
The Pakruojis regional administration reports:
Dr. Ernestas Vasiliauskas gave a presentation October 14 detailing the newest archaeological discoveries in the winter synagogue and shtibl at the Pakruojis synagogue complex. The project “Maintenance of the City Park and the Banks of the Kruoja River in the City of Pakruojis” decided to perform the archaeology in concert with the Cultural Heritage Department of the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture.
There is a lot of surviving information about the summer synagogue in Pakruojis, but very little about the winter synagogue and the shtibl. Senior archaeologist Dr. Vasiliauskas said the wooden synagogue complex built in the 19th century in Pakruojis is unique in Lithuania and blends different architectural styles, including late baroque (summer synagogue), classicism (winter synagogue) and traditional architecture (the shtibl), and was an important part of the cityscape, one of the dominant buildings on the Pakruojis skyline.
Chiune Sugihara Statue Unveiled in Kaunas
A statue was unveiled Saturday to World War II-era Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara. He issued so-called visas for life, saving thousands of Jews from Lithuania and Poland as Nazi Germany advanced on the small Baltic country of Lithuania.
The bronze statue is almost 12 feet high and is located on Kaunas’s famous promenade, Laisvės aleja or Freedom Alley, next to the Metropol hotel where Sugihara continued to issue visas even after being ordered to stop, close down the Japanese consulate and to travel to a new assignment in Berlin. There are numerous stories Sugihara even issued visas from the train as it was pulling away from the station, and that he left blank visas and stamps with Jews in the city so they could make their own visas for life.
The sculpture designed by Martynas Gaubas depicts origami cranes which he says symbolize freedom. An inscription in Lithuanian, Japanese, English and Yiddish, reads: “Whoever saves a life, saves the world.”
Kaunas Commemorates Lea Goldberg
There’s a larger-than-life fresco painted on the wall of a building on Kęstutis street in Kaunas featuring a portrait of celebrated Israeli poetess Lea Goldberg, with a poem by her in Hebrew and Lithuanian. Her family fled their home in this building 85 years ago, with Leah making aliyah and settling in Tel Aviv in 1935, after receiving PhDs from universities in Bonn and Berlin in Semitic and Germanic languages.
Now the Lithuanian city is scheduled to become the European Union’s honorary European Capital of Culture for the year 2022. Now, in the run-up to that auspicious year, local and visiting Jews in Kaunas held a celebration of, perhaps, the town’s most famous poet, as well as its lost Jewish heritage.
Bella Shirin, who has been appointed “ambassador” of Kaunas, Capital of European Culture 2022, recited in selections from Goldberg’s corpus in Hebrew to musical accompaniment. Israeli exchange student Shahar Berkowitz sang Goldberg’s work.
President Gitanas Nausėda Speaks at Ceremony to Commemorate Victims of Genocide at Paneriai
Dear Holocaust survivors,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are gathered here today to pay our respects to the hundreds of thousands of Lithuanian Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust.
Shoah means catastrophe. But this is not just the tragedy and catastrophe of the Jewish people. The Shoah is Lithuania’s. This is the Shoah of all mankind. This is a Shoah of our humanity, compassion and ambivalence.
Here alone in Paneriai, we, the state of Lithuania, lost tens of thousands of our fellow citizens with whom we built the independent Lithuanian state together. Fighting together in the battles for independence, suffering together the young state’s most difficult years, together putting our hopes in the future of an independent Lithuania.
We lost talented scholars, artists, poets, doctors, businesspeople and artisans, teachers and clerics. Me lost elders who preserved the memory of hundreds of generations living together in friendship, and we lost the children who would have been this country’s future.
Ponar Calls on Us to Remember
I thank all of you who walked with the Lithuanian Jewish Community today along the route taken by 70,000 men, women and children 77 years ago.
While the bodies of the victims of Ponar, reduced to ashes, will not rise again, no attempts to burn the pages of history will liberate our fellow citizens from the guilt dwelling in the subconscious over the murder of the Jews, nor will it relieve the suffering of the experience of the Holocaust even of the generation which came after.
No actions will return the lives of the more than 200,000 people of Lithuania lost during the Holocaust while words, whether in Lithuanian or Yiddish, will only briefly return a glimmer of the crown of the Jerusalem of Lithuania.
The memory of the Holocaust, however, isn’t just filled with shame for one side and pain for another. Its memory awakens our conscience and our duty to the future: to remember and honor the dead, thus imparting some sense to the victims of senseless hatred, lessons written in innocent blood for humanity. As long as we’re alive we must insure through joint effort, testifying to the memory of the Holocaust victims, the tragedy of Ponar never recurs, and that it doesn’t become the object of new and error-filled forms of hatred.
As we recall the events of that era of pain, it’s just as important to remember those giants of the spirit. I don’t know how many times now here in Ponar I’ve talked about Liba Mednikienė, a heroine of Lithuania’s battles for freedom. Finally now, during the Year of the Vilna Gaon and the Year of Litvak History, a monument to her memory, to this Lithuanian patriot murdered at the hands of Lithuanians, has found a home in the town of her youth, Širvintos.
Today hope is reborn, listening to the words of the president and prime minister and watching the soldiers pay tribute to Lithuania’s Jewish victims of genocide, hope that our society and out state have matured, have reached a new stage in the dialogue between Jews and Lithuanians, devoted wholly to learning and recognizing historical justice. We have an history inherited and shared from the time of Vytautas the Great, and so I believe commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust and being an indivisible part of it will become, eventually, not a matter of just marking an event or opportunity, but an issue of civic dignity and our view of the world.
Thanks to all of you for being here today with us, the small Lithuanian Jewish Community, for blazing a path in remembering those who were innocent and were sentenced to death.
Faina Kukliansky
September 23, 2020
Ponar, Lithuania
Public Still Knows Little about 2021 as Year of Lukša-Daumantas
The Lithuanian parliament’s draft resolution naming 2021 the Year of Juozas Lukša-Daumantas is largely unknown to the public, as is the man Juozas Lukša-Daumantas. The Lithuanian parliament has made a tradition out of naming years after people and events, but this time it isn’t clear what is being celebrated, and perhaps only Lithuanian MPs know the answer.
So far we only have official explanations on the Lithuanian Activist Front and Juozas Lukša-Daumantas’s membership in this organization, including on the official website of Lithuania’s Orwellian Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, where Juozas Lukša-Daumantas is listed as an LAF member.
We are presenting additional information from Chaim Bargman, amateur historian and tourist guide from Kaunas, to try to elucidate the nature of the historical figure. We would very much welcome additional information from scholars and academic works.
Large Jewish Community Lived in Švenčionys Region Before Holocaust
The Švenčionys region of Lithuania is a multicultural place where Lithuanians live alongside Poles, Russians, Belarussians, Jews and people of other ethnicities.
The Švenčionys Jewish Community was reconstituted in 2013. It is now headed by the energetic Švenčionys native Moshe Shapiro (aka Moisiejus Šapiro).
There was a large Jewish community living in the Švenčionys region in the period between the two world wars. In fact there were five synagogues operating there.
Jews there set up an herbal pharmaceuticals factory and different workshops in the center of the town of Švenčionys. Jewish effort, initiative and expertise were involved in all fields of production and business.
This Year Marks 160th Anniversary of Birth of Famous Litvak Writer, Yiddishist, Journalist and Politician Abraham Cahan
Abraham “Abe” Cahan (July 7, 1860 – August 31, 1951) was Jewish American socialist newspaper editor, novelist, and politician. Cahan was one of the founders of The Forward, an American Yiddish publication, and was its editor-in-chief for 43 years. During his stewardship of the Forward, it became a prominent voice in the Jewish community and in the Socialist Party of America, voicing a relatively moderate stance within the realm of American socialist politics.
Abraham Cahan was born July 7, 1860, in Podberezhie in Belarus (at the time in Vilnius Governorate, Russian Empire), into an Orthodox Litvak family. His grandfather was a rabbi in Vidz, Vitebsk, his father a teacher of Hebrew and the Talmud. The devoutly religious family moved to Vilnius in 1866, where the young Cahan studied to become a rabbi. He was attracted by secular knowledge and clandestinely studied Russian, ultimately demanding that his parents allow him to enter the Teachers Institute of Vilnius from which he graduated in 1881. He was appointed as a teacher in a Jewish school funded by the Russian government in Velizh, Vitebsk, in the same year.
Yidishe Mama
Mother’s Day was on Sunday, May 3, in Lithuania. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. You make the world possible.
Musical Happy Birthday from the Kaunas Jewish Community
As spring finally arrives, the Kaunas Jewish Community sends birthday greetings to our beloved member Liuba Stulgaitienė.
Liuba is very active in Community events, a member of the Yiddish Club, a member of the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners and a woman who always radiates positivity, optimism and joy. She smiles at the whole world despite all injuries experienced and the world answers her the same way.
Dear Liuba, keep being so young at heart, so energetic, so thirsty for knowledge and someone who is able to say the years are not a burden, but a rich experience.
Mazl tov! May you live to 120!