The Šiauliai Jewish Community hosted the traditional Liova Taicas Memorial Tournament last week with athletes from Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda chapters of the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club competing in a variety of sports. This was the fourteenth time the memorial tournament has been held in honor of Liova Taicas (1952–2009).
The annual Liova Taicas memorial tournament organized by the Šiauliai Jewish Community and now the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club will take place for the 14th time on February 4 at the Šiauliai Athletics Gymnasium. Šiauliai Jewish Community chairman Sania Kerbelis said with Makabi’s involvement they expect to receive athletes from Makabi clubs in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda and other cities and towns this year.
Participants will contend in indoor soccer, 3-on-3 basketball and volleyball. Those wanting to participate should call Rašella at 869910621.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club will hold a general meeting and conference of members at 11:00 A.M. on Sunday, February 25, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.
Agenda:
1. Report by president
2. Report by revision commission
3. Election of members of executive board
4. Topical and operational issues
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club held their annual doubles tennis championship at Vilnius’s SEB Arena November 19, where new players as well as veterans made a very good showing.
Players competed in Light and Hard categories for newcomers and old hands.
Among the promising newer players were the brothers Danielis and Emilis Čeliadinas. Accomplished player Alisa Gaivaronskytė didn’t disappoint, and neither did the brothers Kęstutis and Norbertas Faktarovičius. Alisa with teammate Danielius Merkinas took first place, followed by the Faktarovičius duo, with Marius Zimanas and Donaldas Andziulis placing third. Danielis and Emilis took a very respectable fourth place.
In the veterans’ group Makabi’s Valentina Finkelštein with Aniceta Zamalaitienė came in first, followed by Ingrida and Raimondas Sklenys in second, Eduardas Gurvičius with Makabi’s Diana Zimanienė placed third and Ilja Bereznickas and Tatjana Podkolzina taking fourth place.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club invites you to take part in our tennis tournament from 10:00 A.M. till 1:00 P.M. on Sunday, November 16, at the SEB Arena, Ąžuolyno street no. 7, Vilnius. The format will depend on the number and level of participants. Registration is required by November 16 by writing manovilnius99@gmail.com or calling 8612 81088. See you there!
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club will hold target shooting competitions in three age groups from 10: A.M. to 1:30 P.M. on Sunday, November 12, at the GSKA shooting range in Vilnius.
Age groups include 13 to 18, men 19 and above and women 19 and above. The competition is shooting targets at 10 meters with pistols including 6.35 mm, 7.6-7.65 mm, 9×18 mm (9 mm Para and 9 mm Luger) and 10×22 mm (.45 automatic). Pistols, ammunition and safety equipment will provided by the shooting range.
For more information and to register before midnight on November 10, send an email to info.maccabilt@gmail.com. The cost is 10 euros per participant.
Vilnius athletics school Sostinės Tauras hosted the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club’s annual mini-Maccabee Games tournament October 15. Participants included Makabi Club members and students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium. Sports included volley ball, indoor soccer, basketball, table tennis and badminton. The games began with a minute of silence in honor of the victims of Hamas terror in Israel.
The Makabi Club team won in volley ball against the Sholem team as well as the third team, Kantora. Sholem placed second.
Makabi also took first place in indoor soccer against Sholem.
The latest issue of the Bagel Shop Newsletter has appeared in print and here in .pdf format.
Beigelių krautuvėlė-EN (1)
Schools, kindergartens and universities across Lithuania were closed in the early afternoon Friday as numerous emails in Russian and Lithuanian were received claiming bombs had been placed at these locations. This followed the same threats made to schools in Klaipėda Thursday as Lithuanian military and security forces were scheduled to carry out drills on the marine liquified natural gas terminal located there. Police spokesmen said the same threats were made in Latvia and Estonia over previous days. They said the threatening emails in Lithuania were in Russian with some in Lithuanian and contained two separate demands: ransom for “de-mining” the schools, and political demands Lithuania stop supporting the Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.
The Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius decided several days ago to cancel in-school classes Friday and to conduct lessons via internet instead because Hamas had called upon supporters to attack Jewish institutions around the world on October 13. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman told Lithuanian media the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius was closed and almost all staff at the LJC were working from home. All events and programs scheduled at the LJC have been cancelled for now, according to LJC executive director Michailas Segal. Chairwoman Kukliansky said the regional Jewish communities had all been apprised of growing security concerns.
Lithuanian police had started making regular patrols outside the Sholem Aleichem school and the Choral Synagogue since the Hamas attack on southern Israel last Saturday.
Update: Around 1,500 schools and educational institutions received bomb threats again on Monday, October 16.
Photo: Semionas Finkelšteinas and Olga Bliumenzon greet the winners.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club’s 6th annual fun-run was held on September 24 and there were so many wanting to participate organizers had to shut down registration.
Makabi president Semionas Finkelšteinas and vice president Olga Bliumenzon greeted participants wishing them success on the track.
Over 120 runners ran 1.5 and 3 km courses in three age groups. All participants received Makabi t-shirts and participation medals, with special medals for first-, second- and third-place winners and a special gift to first-place champions.
The annual fun-run has become popular with students and their parents from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, accounting for 58 participants this year. Physical education teacher Vilija Taralienė and school principal Ruth Reches were there to cheer on their team.
September 3rd is coming. The first Sunday in autumn, the day the Lithuanian Jewish Community will again celebrate the European Day of Jewish Culture, a day the Community has celebrated for a decade now. As in previous years, all events across Europe to celebrate the day are modeled on a general theme. This year it’s memory. This topic is like a bridge leading to the Jewish cultural legacy which remains to a great extent unknown by the wider population. #Atmintis or Memory doesn’t end on the first Sunday in September, of course, and in September and October the Lithuanian Jewish Community will hold and coordinate events throughout Lithuania.
Below you’ll find the events program for September 3, all of which are free and open to everyone.
Register here: https://bit.ly/459c4nZ
#EŽKD2023 #EDJC2023 #Atmintis #AEPJ #LietuvosŽydų(litvakų)Bendruomenė #CviParkas #BeigeliųKrautuvėlė Kultūros Paveldo Departamentas Tautinių mažumų departamentas prie Lietuvos Respublikos Vyriausybės #mūsųbendruomenės #OurCommunities
The Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club president Semionas Finkelšteinas a very happy birthday. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Over the weekend members and friends of the Lithuanian Jewish Community attended a Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club event at the Pailgio Perlas recreational park near Vilnius.
Proponents of the active life tried their hand at different kinds of sport, played, competed, danced to music from the DJ, gathered around the camp fire, fished, swam and relaxed in the beautiful natural setting.
Last week Baruh Yorex from the city of Kiryat Ono in Israel visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community. He is a high-ranking officer in the reserves of the Israeli army. He has Litvak roots and grandmother and grandfather named Jurotewski came from Poland.
A big fan of Tel Aviv’s Maccabi, Yorex used to play for the basketball team. Now he’s cheering on his three sons on the team, and was in Kaunas for the Euroleague championship last week.
He met with Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman and showed great interest in the Litvak legacy. While looking at period photographs in the Community’s archives, he was thrilled to learn almost every Lithuanian city and town had its own Makabi association before the Holocaust, with local tennis, soccer, gymnastics and basketball teams, as well as other kinds of athletics teams. Yorex was also delighted to see how active the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club is today, with members participating at international sporting events.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club’s women’s table tennis team took second place in Lithuanian play-offs held last weekend in VIlnius, meaning they’re now in the upper league in Lithuania and will play next year against the top dozen teams. Neta Alon made a strong showing and won 3:0 against the favorite. Makabi team players won against the teams from Šiauliai and Utena and only lost to Jonava.
This is the first time Makabi ping-pong players have risen to the upper leagues in Lithuania.
Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium students Uosis Račinskas and Jokūbas Kačerginskis won in team-play championship in the under-12 category. They began playing two years ago under the tutelage of Neta Alon, and are now training under Khen Alon. In singles-play Uosis Račinskas placed 5th in Lithuania and Jokūbas Kačerginskis 6th.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club invites athletes and the athletically-inclined at any and all levels of proficiency to a three-day sporting festival at the Pailgo perlas recreational area on a scenic lake 30 kilometers outside Vilnius. The celebration will include more than just sports in a beautiful natural setting, with a Sabbath celebration, singing, dancing, concerts, bonfire parties, fishing and swimming, among other activities. Sports include badminton, kayaking, ping-pong, volleyball, soccer and perhaps others, depending on the weather. The camp will run from April 19 to 21, but attendees aren’t required to spend all three days there. For more information and to register, send an email to info.maccabilt@gmail.com.
To mark international Human Rights Day on December 10, Lithuania’s Department of Ethnic Minorities held an awards ceremony at the M. K. Čiurlionis School of the Arts in Vilnius and recognized the work of a number of members and friends of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, including architect and designer Victoria Sideraitė-Alon, LJC executive board member and president of the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club Semionas Finkelšteinas, chairman of the Klaipėda Jewish Community Feliksas Puzemskis, Vilnius Jewish Public Library director Žilvanas Bielauskas, violinist and member of the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble Boris Kirzner, Fayerlakh chairwoman Larisa Vyšniauskienė and documentary filmmaker and television producer Lilija Kopač.
The Ethnic Minorities Department awards are distributed to members of ethnic communities, the media and NGOs for their work increasing ethnic harmony, encouraging cultural diversity and unifying multicultural Lithuania.
We sincerely congratulate all prize recipients on the recognition of their work forging a better future for the Lithuanian Jewish Community and Lithuania.
Last weekend Lithuanian men’s and women’s table tennis league held matches at the Daukantas pre-gymnasium in Vilnius. Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club women’s team members Neta Alon, Maja Bliumin and Orinta Ramonaitė, adult male team members Mathias Maindron, Ignotas Blaževičius and Justas Rutkauskas and second team members Uosis Račinskas, Arnas Federas, Ąžuolas Račinskas represented the Lithuanian Jewish Community at the competition. Arnas Juodelis from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium formed the youngest team in league competition and while they didn’t win demonstrated a fighting spirit and resolution to play on at future matches.
Arnas Federas celebrated a 3:2 point victory over his counterpart from the Vilnius Capital Team and significantly raised his point rating. First Makabi adult team members won 3:0 over the second Makabi team but then lost 2:3 against the Tauras men’s team. The Makabi women’s team won 3:1 against the Grigiškės women’s team and 3:0 against the Tauras women’s team, but lost against the Jonava team 2:3. The female Makabi team looks poised nonetheless to enter the women’s upper league this season.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club invites competitors who play badminton, indoor soccer, volleyball, basketball and/or ping-pong to apply to play in the continuing tradition of the Lithuanian mini-Makiabada. Send an email to info.maccabilt(at)gmail.com before October 23 if you’d like to participate and for more information.
