The Sabbath begins at 9:16 P.M. on Friday, May 24, and concludes at 10:56 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Maoris for Israel
Rebel News in Australia attended and filmed a pro-Israel demonstration by New Zealand’s native Polynesian people, the Maoris, resident in and around Brisbane, Australia. According to the reporter, Avi Yemini, who was assaulted by pro-Hamas protestors in newer videos on the same youtube channel, the Maori demonstration began as a counter-demonstration to a protest to support Gaza, but the pro-Palestinians failed to show up. The local indigenous Destiny Church planned the counter-protest on St. George Square an hour earlier than the pro-Hamas demonstration. Maoris interviewed at the scene said the Hamas supporters had been scared off, despite police protection.
One man interviewed said the Jews were the indigenous people in Israel.
“I believe the Jews, it’s their land. They were there before. They’ve had so many civilizations that have been there, the Jews have always been there. They never gave up their land. They were scattered around the world, but they never once gave up their land.,” he said.
Irish, Spanish and Norwegian PMs announce Recognition of Palestinian Statehood Next Week
The prime ministers of Ireland, Spain and Norway announced Thursday morning their countries would recognize Palestine as an independent state, and urged other countries to do the same.
Top European Union foreign policy official Josep Borrell said EU member-states need to adopt a common stance on recognizing Palestine.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu characterized the recognition as a reward for terrorism and Israel recalled its ambassadors to the three countries.
Shalom Culture and Music Festival Presents Wagon of Shoes
At 7:00 P.M. on June 4 the Shalom Culture and Music Festival presents a concert at the Church of St. Kotryna (aka St. Catherine) in Vilnius, with performances by opera soloist Rafailas Karpis, violinist Boris Kirzner and the Vilnius State Choir conducted by Artūras Dambrauskas. This will be the first performance in Lithuania of “Wagon of Shoes” by Lee Kesselman. The concert program is to include works by Jewish composers for solo and choir.
“Wagon of Shoes” is a work for choir, soloist, piano and violin by Lee Kesselman based on the poem by Abraham Sutzkever, Yiddish poet, Jewish partisan and survivor of the Vilnius ghetto. The Jewish composer lives in the USA and wrote the piece for the 700th anniversary of Vilnius under commission by the Lithuanian Consulate in Chicago and the Dainava Choir of the Lithuanian Community in Chicago. The premiere took place in June of 2022 in Chicago.
The Shalom Culture and Music Festival is being held in eleven Lithuanian cities and towns from May to October of 2024. The half-year tour will feature classical and contemporary music, klezmer, improvisational jazz, exhibitions and artistic activities. Musicians and singers from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Germany and Israel will participate in the festival. This year’s festival program includes over 20 concerts in concert halls in Vilnius, Kaunas, Šiauliai and Palanga, the Old Zapyškis Church, synagogues in Alytus, Joniškis, Kėdainiai, Pakruojis and Žiežmariai and at the former Telšiai yeshiva.
ICC Oversteps Jurisdiction
by Geoff Vasil
The recent request by an International Criminal Court prosecutor for a three-person panel of judges at the ICC in the Hague to issue arrest warrants for the prime minister and defense minister of Israel oversteps the court’s jurisdiction.
First, Israel isn’t a member-state to the ICC. Second, while the ICC recognizes Palestine as a state, Palestine doesn’t have the judicial abilities to act as a full-fledged state. Third, according to the ICC’s own rule or statutes, it must first petition the offending state aka defendant to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity itself.
Israel’s courts have already undertaken investigations into alleged war crimes by the Israeli Defense Forces against aid workers and civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Fourth, the ICC isn’t qualified to assess whether Israel is targeting Gazan Palestinians for extermination aka genocide by means of starvation and casualty attrition. In point of fact that’s the job for the UN’s International Court of Justice in the Hague. The UN has downgraded casualties reported by the Hamas suicide cult’s health department to about half of what the latter have been reporting, putting the ration of enemy combatants to civilian deaths to about 1:1, which is the lowest ratio in any war, let alone an urban house-to-house conflict, in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners Send Birthday Greetings
Today Fania Brantsovskaya celebrates a venerable birthday.
With the whole of our hearts we greet you and wish you great health, strength of spirit and the joy of spending time with loved ones.
Mazl tov!
Happy Birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya
Today we wish a very happy birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya, Vilnius ghetto inmate, Jewish partisan and living eye-witness to the Holocaust in Lithuania.
In the name of the entire Lithuanian Jewish Comuunity, chairwoman Faina Kukliansky extends our birthday greetings:
Dear Fania,
Your strength and tenacity in overcoming the most difficult obstacles and your passion in defense of the memory of Holocaust victims has become an example for all of us and inspire us to exert all efforts that future generations might learn the lessons of the past. We are so grateful to you for this, and wish you health, warmth, love and of course many more years to come.
Mazl tov! Bis 120!
Intensive Yiddish Course 2024
Embark on a journey to learn a 1000-year-old language with a rich cultural heritage in Vilnius, the fabled “Jerusalem of North!”
You will meet and learn from world-names in Yiddish education: professors Avrom Lichtenboim (Argentina), Dov-Ber Kerler (US) and Anna Verschik (Estonia). Apart from directly learning Yiddish, You will get tons of additional and fun educational events–museum and cultural site tours, film-screenings and Yiddish song–every afternoon!
ICC Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas Leader Yehya Sinwar
Associated Press, May 20, 2024
THE HAGUE, Netherlands–The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in connection with their actions during the seven-month war.
Karim Khan said that he believes Netanyahu, his defense minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders–Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh–are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Speaking of the Israeli actions, Khan said in a statement that “the effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known. … They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children and women.”
Of the Hamas actions on October 7, he said that he saw for himself “the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today. Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.”
Full article here.
Sabbath Times
The Sabbath begins at 9:05 P.M. on Friday, May 17, and concludes at 10:40 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Lithuanian Makabi Sporting Extravaganza in June
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club invites families with children to their summer sporting holiday at the Pailgio Perlas recreational site June 8 and 9. The two days of sport include the traditional competitions and fun, but this year there will also be a Makabi Challenge including orienteering, puzzles and tug-of-war.
Lithuania’s top players Ignas and Gerda Šišanovas and Rafaelis Gimelšteinas will be there to teach ping-pong. Registration is required before June 4 by sending an email to info.maccabilt@gmail.com.
Cost:
• Children under 7 free;
• aged 7-12 with overnight stay 25 euros;
• 13 and older with overnight accomodation 40 euros;
• 7-12 without overnight 15 euros;
• 13 and older without overnight stay 25 euros.
UN General Assembly Approves Hamas Genocide against Israelis with Vote for Full Palestinian Membership
On Friday the General Assembly of the United Nations meeting in New York voted to recognize Palestine as a full member-state of the organization, replacing Palestine’s observer status. The ballot was largely a straw vote and the smart money is on a veto in the Security Council, although embattled US president Joe Biden could allow it to pass in order to placate Muslim voters in Michigan to help secure votes in the upcoming US presidential election.
Voting in favor of full endorsement of Hamas’s policy of genocide against Israelis were 143 members, including Estonia, Russia, China, Iran, Syria, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Australia, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria and Norway, among others.
The nine voting against were Argentina, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia. Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the US.
Canada, Lithuania, Latvia, Austria, Fiji, Finland, Germany, Georgia, Italy, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Monaco, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and Vanuatu, among others, abstained.
Full results here.
Seminar to Celebrate 95th Birthday of Grigoriy Kanovitch
The Judaica Research Institute at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library in Vilnius will host a seminar to celebrate the life of Litvak writer Grigoriy Kanovitch on Wednesday, May 15.
Time: 11:00 A.M., Wednesday, May 15
Place: Events hall, Martynas Mažvydas National Library, Vilnius
Yom HaAtzmaut Today
Israeli celebrates its 76th birthday today on Israeli independence day, or Yom haAtzmaut. Israel’s Memorial Day or Yom haZikaron was marked Monday in Israel, the day of remembrance of all those who have fallen in defense of Israel, including Jewish partisans from Lithuania.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky issued a special greeting for the holiday:
“Today Israel marks Independence Day for the 76th time. It is darkened by the shadow of the lives of thousands of our dear people taken by the October 7 attack by Hamas terrorists and our thoughts for the 132 hostages still held in Gaza.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with them, the fallen soldiers and the victims to whose loved ones we send our deepest condolences and support.
Ystreet Camp on Seaside in Latvia
Jewish children and young people aged 7 to 17 (in grades 2 to 11) are invited to attend a varied set of classes from singing to handicrafts on the Baltic Sea in Latvia in comfortable conditions under the tutelage of qualified adult consultants. Participants are expected from the Baltic states and beyond, and space is limited.
The camp will take place from June 26 to July 4, for nine days and eight nights, at the Minhauzena Unda Hotel (https://www.hotelunda.com) just outside Riga. The cost is 450 euros per participant with payment plans available, and 390 euros if you register before May 20.
For more information and to register, call +371 2918 7555 (Ilona) or +370 6300 3388 (Alina), or send an email to info@ystreet.lv. The YStreet organization is also on facebook and Instagram:
Eurovision Fails to Ghettoize Israel
by Geoff Vasil
Opaque participation rules, a system of internal patronage, sad attempts at bad pop music and a voting system which emulates the worst Third World satrapy. Yet, the Eurovision Song Contest has a cult following in Europe, and has had for many decades. In practice this race to the bottom of pop culture has led to performers intentionally playing to the lowest common pop-denominator, making themselves and the contest into a complete caricature, or a caricature-within-a-caricature, if you like.
Besides the byzantine voting process, “reformed” in recent years for a proportional voting system where unelected local/national juries or commissions account for perhaps (no one really knows) half of the total vote, while nation-state-member audiences call in their votes amounting to perhaps half the total, no one has really defined what “European” means in terms of this odd competition. Earlier contestants included Morocco and Lebanon, Australia seems to have secured a permanent vote, and Israel has been an on-again, off-again participant and voting block.
This year around 20,000 protestors descended on Malmo in Sweden–Sweden is the venue because their team, band, or horde, won last year–to demand Israel be excluded.
In semi-finals whoever actually runs the Eurovision Song Contest demanded the Israeli group rename their entry from “October Rain” to something else, which became “Hurricane,” although the actual message of the song seems to revolve around Hamas’s unprecedented atrocities against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.
Sabbath Times
The Sabbath begins at 8:52 P.M. on Friday, May 10, and concludes at 10:23 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Lithuanians will vote in national elections held this Sunday.
Next Quiz
Those who like to exercise their mental faculties are invited to the next “Kas, kur, kada?” quiz with Irina Slutsker as MC. Registration is required by sending an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt or by calling (+370) 678 81514 by next Wednesday, May 15. This time there is also a participation fee of 5 euros, which can be paid by bank transfer to the Lithuanian Jewish Community, account number LT 06 7044 0600 0575 7425 with the word “PROTMŪŠIS” indicated in the appropriate line. The quiz will be conducted in Lithuanian.
Time: 7:00 P.M., Friday, May 17
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
LJC Invites Holocaust Survivors and Veterans to Commemoration Ceremony
Last Wednesday Lithuanian Jewish Community programs director Žana Skudovičienė invited so-called was children, now senior citizens, to a commemoration and celebration of the surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies in 1945.
As in past years, the LJC invited Holocaust victims and our veterans to celebrate the end of the Holocaust in early May, on Victory Day, celebrated on May 8 and 9.
Participants lit candles in memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the victims of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 and in hope for the safe return of Hamas’s Israeli hostages.
Liba Britanishkina and Samuil Retznik, both now in their nineties but still extraordinarily active, and our centenarians Jewish partisan Fania Bratzovskaya and Aleksandr Asovski, were singled out for special attentions and presented gifts and flowers by LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky who visited them personally.
March of the Living in Šiauliai
The Šiauliai Jewish Community and Lithuania’s International Commission for Assessing the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania held a March of the Living in Šiauliai last week. The procession included 55 Holocaust survivors from around the world including those who were attacked by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.