The Sabbath begins at 5:39 P.M. on Friday, February 21, and concludes at 6:35 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 5:21 P.M. and completed before sunset at 5:39 P.M. Sunday is also the Emperor’s Birthday in Japan, observed on Monday, and National Day in the Sultante of Brunei. Monday is Independence Day in Estonia.
The first defense attaché from the State of Israel to Lithuania David Israely was accredited at a ceremony at the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense Tuesday.
David Israely previously served in Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Guatemala and El Salvador. He is currently posted in the Czech Republic representing Israel there and in Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Internationally-acclaimed violinist Evgenia Epshtein makes her debut appearance in Lithuania with pianist Donaldas Račys at 7:00 P.M. on Friday, February 28 at the Organum hall in Vilnius then at 5:00 P.M. on Sunday, March 2, at the Kaunas State Philharmonic in Kaunas.
Epshtein was born in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in the Soviet Union and now lives in Split, Croatia. She began her musical career at the Buchmann-Mehta school of music in Tel Aviv and has performed in Azerbaijan, Mexico, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and Croatia.
Račys is a professor of music at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. He received his musical training at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and has also performed around the world.
The program includes Nimrod Borenstein’s Quasi Una Cadenza solo work for violin, works by Brahms, Moritz Moszkowski and Edvard Grieg.
The Vilnius concert has tickets available starting at 12 euros. More information on the Vilnius concert available by clicking here or by calling +370 686 87510. Tickets for the Kaunas appearance cost 15 euros with discounts for seniors and students if purchased at the box office, and are also available here. More information is available here.
Marian Turski died February 14. He was born in Druskininkai in 1926. A survivor of the Łódź ghetto, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald and was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. He resettled in Poland where he advocated for the Communist regime and served as editor of the newspaper Sztandar Młodych and then as chief of the history department of the weekly Polytika, and authored at least seven books about the Holocaust and Communist politics in Poland. Our deepest condolences to his surviving daughter Joanna.
Garij Rudštein passed away February 15. He was born in 1943. He was a member of the Klaipėda Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. Our deepest condolences go to his friends and surviving family members.
Antanas Segalis died February 16. He was born in 1940 and came from Kalvarija, Lithuania. He was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. We extend our sincere condolences to his son and family.
Adolfas Rudzianskis passed away February 16. He was born in 1937. He was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. Our deepest condolences to his friends and family.
Natalja CHeifec’s #ŠALOM discussion club continues this Thursday, February 20, at 5:30 P.M. on the zoom platform. This week she’ll lead a discussion on Jewish tradition in general. To register and acquire zoom credentials, fill out the form here.
The International Jascha Heifetz Competition for Violinists held once every four years opened its 7th week-long contest at the Old Town Hall in Vilnius, the traditional location, last Friday.
More than 50 younger leading violinists from around the world are competing for combined prizes worth €30,000.Presented by the Center for International Cultural Projects, the competition runs from February 14 to 22 this year. According to the contest’s webpage, no more than 18 musicians will enter the second round, and a maximum of six competitors will qualify for the final. The first and second rounds will take place at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater.
Participants in the final round will perform with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Modestas Pitrėnas at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society. Chaired by violinist Gidon Kremer, the competition will offer a prize fund of €30,000, alongside other awards, according to the webpage. The first place winner takes €12,000, second €8,000 and third-place winner €5,000. Second-round finalists will perform at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater this week.
In the name of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, chairwoman Faina Kukliansky sends greetings to everyone on the Day of the Restoration of Lithuanian Statehood. May unity and respect become our guideposts. Happy February 16!
The Sabbath begins at 5:24 P.M. on Friday, February 14, and concludes at 6:22 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 5:06 P.M. and completed before sunset at 5:24 P.M. Friday is also Valentine’s Day and Sunday, February 16, is Restoration of Lithuanian Statehood Day celebrated now and during the first Lithuanian republic between the two world wars.
Today is the Jewish holiday of Tu b’Shvat, the 15th day of the month of Shvat, the New Year for trees also known as Israeli Arbor Day. It is traditional to eat of the shvat ha’minim (seven species endemic to the Land of Israel): wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Hag sameakh!
Australia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Wednesday two nurses at the Bankstown Hospital in Sydney promised to kill Israeli patients and claimed they already had in a half-Arabic video rant filled with anti-Semitism and expletive language.
The two nurses, a male and a female, have since been fired and their nursing licenses have been revoked. New South Wales Police have started an investigation to determine whether the pair had killed Jewish patients.
Ahmad “Rashad” Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh were on shift at Bankstown Hospital when they recorded video conversation with Jewish influencer Max Veifer via the social website Chatruletka.
A project to study the history of pre-Holocaust Lithuanian Jewish and Roma urban and rural communities has begun in Palanga. The aim is to recreate city, town, village and community history to understand how the former way of life connects with the present and future. Called “Children of the Holocaust: Illuminating the Shadows of Lithuanian History,” the Palanga Jewish Community said in a press release public understanding of the Holocaust is changing, with the history of the Jews now being told by creating a personal connection with the past.
This Lithuanian Jewish Community for implementation between 2024 and 2026 is supported by the EVZ Fund in Germany. The Palanga Jewish Community, the Jonas Šliūpas Museum in Palanga, the Old Gymnasium in Palanga, the Palanga Youth and Volunteer Center, the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius and the Roma Community Day Center are all partners in the project.
The goal is to encourage specific, novel, lively retellings of history to engage young people from Vilnius and Palanga. The focus is on children who were victims of the Holocaust from the Litvak and Roma ethnic communities and their experience, stories and recollections among survivors.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
The Šiauliai District Jewish Community held the 15th iteration of the sporting tournament to commemorate Liova Taicas (1952-2009) on February 9. The annual event began back in 2010.
The commemorative games not only honor Taicas’s memory and bring teams together from Jewish communities throughout Lithuania, but have also come to promote healthy living and an active lifestyle.
The Ukmergė Jewish Community sent athletes this year for the ping-pong competition and they made an excellent showing with Feliksas Lermanas taking first place and Lina Kuzmienė a respectable third. The Šiauliai district firefighters team of Jonas Poškus, Karolis Laukutis, Andrius Orlovas and Ugnius Tarasevičius won in basketball. Josifas Buršteinas took first place in the chess competition. Teams from Kaunas and Vilnius played in various sports and French soldiers from the NATO forces patrolling Lithuanian airspace took part in the basketball competition.
The Martynas Mažvydas Lithuanian National Library conserves a YIVO document collection of very significant volume and content. The YIVO was established exactly a century ago in Vilnius in 1925. It is the only Vilnius Jewish institution which did not stop operating during the Holocaust and which continues to operate today. After World War II YIVO made its main headquarters at its branch in New York City. This branch took over the institute’s functions as a center for the preservation of Jewish heritage and research.
Many traces of the institute’s work survived in Vilnius: fragments of its documentation, correspondence, library collection and archives, scattered among several commemorative institutions. The National Library is conducting a study of the institute’s archives which is revealing YIVO’s origins in Vilnius and its especially fruitful period of activity in Vilnius before WWII.
The 100-year anniversary of the founding of the YIVO was noted back in 2023 in a resolution by the Lithuanian parliament as being of special significance to world culture and the National Library. Lithuanian National Library director Aušrinė Žilinskienė spoke about this at the Lithuanian embassy in Washington, D.C., on December 9, 2024. That event to mark the anniversary was organized with YIVO headquarters in New York.
The National Library is holding an event in cooperation with a large number of Lithuanian and foreign partners with a spectacular program, including the publication of books on the history of the YIVO, an international academic forum and an exhibit of textual heritage.
Bunia Kaselman passed away February 10. She was born in 1925. She was a member of the Klaipėda Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. We extend our deepest condolences to her daughter, other family members and friends.
Newly-appointed United States attorney general Pam Bondi announced last Monday (February 3) the creation of an inter-agency task force to fight anti-Semitism using “the full force of the federal government,” according to Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, specifically aimed at protecting the rights of American Jews on college campuses.
Measures are to include arrests and the withholding of federal funds to universities which fail to protect Jewish faculty and students from harassment.
The Civil Rights Division was created in 1957 and came to prominence in protecting the rights of black students in America’s South during the Kennedy and Johnson era.
The Sabbath begins at 5:10 P.M. on Friday, February 7, and concludes at 6:08 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 4:52 P.M. and completed before sunset at 5:10 P.M.
Litvak Raffael Hletzer will speak at the Lithuanian Jewish Community Sunday. He was born in Lithuania but left for Israel with his family at a young age. He is currently the executive director of the renowned Kehilor Netaim Jewish educational program. His presentation will be about his roots in Lithuania, the upcoming holiday Tu b’Shvat and connections with the past and present. The event is free but registration is required by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt.
Time: 1:00 P.M., Sunday, February 9
Place: Room 306, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius