News – Page 20 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Fayerlakh Fundraiser for Israel

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh invite you to a concert including performances by Rafailas Karpis with Darius Mažintas, Arkadijus Gotesmanas with Michailas Bolšunas and students from the Sholem Aleichem school.

All funds collected will go to Israeli victims of the brutal war underway through the agency of the Litvak community in Israel.

Time: 3:00 P.M., Sunday, October 29
Location: the dance theater at the Mykolas Konstantinas Čiurlionis Art School, Kosciuškos street no. 11, Vilnius

To register or find out more, contact Larisa Vyšniauskienė by calling+370 687 79309.

Direct donations for victims of the war in Israel may be made through the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s bank account LT097044060000907953 by indicating “MES KARTU” in the line or window for showing the purpose of the bank transfer.

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Kaunas Jews Deeply Worried about War in Israel

Photo from AFP

Kaunas resident Bella Shirin communicates with her relatives in Israel, which has turned into a kind of hell, day and night. She fears for her son, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are now spending most of their time in a hiding place in their apartment.

Eyes without Pity

Shirin returned to Kaunas from Israel seven years ago after experiencing two wars in Israel. She says she has looked into the eyes of an Hamas close-up.

All she saw there, she says, was hatred for Jews.

2023-10-17

Statement by Lithuanian Jewish Community, All 32 Constituent Members, about the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania

When terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 the world witnessed acts of incomprehensible brutality where women, children, the disabled and the elderly were taken hostage and murdered, taken hostage and used as human shields, and publicly tortured and executed.

We say with no reservations at all that Israel is a sovereign state. No one has the right to attack Israel, to invade Israel’s territory and to murder the people of Israel. There can be no justification nor mercy of any kind for the murderers.

Today, 50 years later, the words of beloved Israeli prime minister Golda Meir sound prophetic: we had a secret weapon in the war: there was no alternative. Again Israel is fighting for survival.

This brutal war is especially painful to the members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, there is no Jewish family in Lithuania whose members haven’t been touched by these terrific events. Our close relatives are fighting on the front lines, healing the wounded, rescuing people buried in rubble, helping those who are stuck and who could die. We are extremely proud of them.

Our thoughts and hearts are with our parents, brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren and friends who remain in Israel. With every person fighting for our historical homeland. With everyone who is experiencing the horror and loss.

Unfortunately it isn’t just our relatives in Israel who have found themselves in danger, but also in Lithuania. In the country where we were born, grew up and work, the country which we love, whose citizens we are, anti-Semitism is spreading, not just on the social media and at protests, but from the podium at the Lithuanian parliament, and even children are being attacked: they are being threatened and hurt on purpose. Yesterday a Bolt taxi driver of dark complexion who didn’t speak Lithuanian asked a minor, a child, what his ethnicity was, and when he found out his passenger was Jewish, he refused to take him to school. This is certainly not the only and not the worst incident, but it’s very illustrative of the situation.

These kinds of incidents make our community feel unsafe, but we are concentrated and unified, we are unified both by our thousands of years of history, but also by the future.

We are inn close cooperation with the Lithuanian Police Department and other security structures. Ee are in continual contact with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lithuanian embassy to Israel and international Jewish organizations. We are exchanging information and sharing data.

Despite the shock of it all, we are striving to help Lithuanian citizens stranded in Israel as well, and to help Israeli citizens in Lithuania to fly home. We are providing information, consulting, helping to provide solutions to the unexpected problems which have come up all at once.

We thank Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda, speaker of parliament Viktorija Čmilyte-Nielsen and prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė for the firm support for Israel and the Lithuanian Jewish Community they have expressed. We are very encouraged Lithuania has condemned unequivocally the actions of the terrorists and has stood for the right and just side.

We are extraordinarily grateful to the people of Lithuania as well who have sent us their messages of condolence and support and who are praying for our brothers and sisters taken hostage by the terrorists. At the same time we caution people should assess critically the information they receive and only share news from official Israeli institutions and agencies.

Am Yisral khai. The people of Israel live.

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

2023-10-162024-06-11

Lithuanian Parliament Adopts Resolution on Terrorist Attacks and Aggression against the State of Israel

During the morning sitting of the Lithuanian parliament on Tuesday, October 10, all 108 MPs present voted in favor of a resolution supporting Israel’s right to self-defense. Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein and the chargé d’affaires of the Israeli embassy in Vilnius were present for the discussion and poll.

Official press release:

Seimas adopts the Resolution on Terrorist Attacks and Aggression against the State of Israel

Press release
October 10, 2023

The Seimas has strongly condemned the recent bloody, unprovoked attacks carried out against the State of Israel by Hamas, an international terrorist group which is backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and which took over the Gaza Strip in 2005, and has extended its sincere condolences to the people of the State of Israel for the numerous victims.

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Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 6:08 P.M. on Friday, October 13, and concludes at 7:17 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2023-10-13

Lithuanian Schools Closed Due to Bomb Threats

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.

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Pro-Palestinian Protests, Rash of Attacks on Jews around the World

Israel War: Hamas Attacks Lead to Rising Anti-Semitism
by Beth Bailey, October 12, 2023, Washington Examiner

As another devastating side effect of the deadly October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israeli civilians, Jews around the world are becoming the targets of anti-Semitic hate. First came celebrations of the slaughter. In Cyprus; Sydney, Australia; Ontario and Toronto, Canada; Beirut; Damascus; Baghdad; Cairo and Ramallah supporters of Palestinian resistance came together to applaud attacks on the Israeli state.

The Anti-Defamation League tracked 39 anti-Israel rallies in the United States. They included events in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Tucson, Anaheim, San Francisco, Columbus, Tampa Bay, Albuquerque, Providence, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. In New York one reveler displayed pictures of dead Israelis on his phone. Another showed off a picture of a Nazi swastika. A speaker in Philadelphia attested that “every person who died yesterday wasn’t innocent. Every Israeli settler by default is a terrorist.” In Chicago, crowds chanted, “No Zionism in our town.”

“Make no mistake,” a speaker told crowds in D.C., “We are in celebration.”

These celebrations soon gave way to acts of outright anti-Semitism.

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Event to Mark 80th Anniversary of Kinder Aktion in Šiauliai Ghetto

On November 5, 1943, the Kinder Aktion, one of the most brutal Holocaust crimes perpetrated in Lithuania, was carried out in the Šiauliai ghetto. The mass murder operation aimed at Jewish children took 725 of them and they were sent to Auschwitz in cattle cars where they were murdered. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Šiauliai City and Šiauliai Regional Jewish Communities invite you to remember and commemorate the victims of this crime.

The event begins at 12:00 noon on November 5 at the stone monument on the corner of Trakų and Ežero streets marking the location of one of the former gates to the ghetto. At 12:30 P.M. a procession leads from there to the Chaim Frankel villa. At 1:00 P.M. there will be a ceremony at the villa to remember the children murdered. The villa is located at Vilniaus street no. 74 in Šiauliai. This will include the opening of a joint exhibition by the Šiauliai City Jewish Community and Yad Vashem museum of photographs of the child victims of the Kinder Aktion.

Please note: Those wishing to attend the commemoration on November 5 are asked to register by sending an e-mail to info@lzb.lt.

2023-10-12

We Stand with Israel Meeting in Šiauliai

Šiauliai Jewish Community chairman Sania Kerbelis said he was grateful so many people responded to the call to attend a gathering to show support for Israel on October 9, even though the meeting was only announced a few hours before it took place.

“We are all suffering, we all have relatives in Israel, many of us have relatives in the army who are engaged in combat. We are all worried about our loved ones and the cities are being shot up. The deaths are senseless. We are calling constantly and they keep trying to calm us down, but you know what is really going on. I was in Israel in May and we got caught in the fighting then, several hundred rockets were shot from Gaza. There were casualties but the [Iron] Dome protected many locations. But this time they also crossed the border, slaughtered people, slaughtered children. It associates in my mind that we’re preparing on November 5 to mark the Kinder Aktion. We keep saying ‘Never again.’ Usually other people, non-Jews, think subconsciously ‘never again’ [means ‘no more’] of something, but Jews subconsciously have it that after the Holocaust these kinds of things should be impossible in the civilized world now. Yet they are happening,” Sania Kerbelis said.

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Famous Russian/Soviet Blues Guitarist to Perform at LJC

Renowned blues and rock guitarist Yuri Naumov, originally from Sverdlovsk but transplanted to Novosibirsk and since 1990 based in the United States, will perform at the Jascha Heifetz Hall at the Lithuanian Jewish Community on October 21.

An accomplished song writer and composer, he gained fame in January of 1983 when he formed the band Prokhodnoy Dvor, which included Vladimir Zotov on drums and Oleg Kurokhtin on guitar. After the band issued a bootleg tape, they became popular in the USSR, and the KGB forced Naumov to leave Novosibirsk Medical University for “the promulgation of decadent Western values.” He initially sought refuge in Leningrad and Moscow. In 1990 Naumov moved to New York. Naumov plays a unique 9-string guitar custom-built for him by famous violin maker Sergei Nozdrin in the 1980s. He used to tour Russia once or twice a year.

Of Italian and Jewish origins, Naumov’s rock ballads have long been considered classics, including the Tale of Karl, King of Rock and Roll; Stanislov Theater and Starry Night. Many call him the greatest Soviet and greatest Russian bluesman ever.

Time: 6:00 P.M., Saturday, October 21
Location: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius

Tickets available at www.bilietai.lt.

2023-10-12

Guests from Kupiškis Join Sukkot Celebrations in Panevėžys

A delegation from the town of Kupiškis attended the Sukkot celebration by the Panevėžys Jewish Community and presented a new book and student art exhibit about the former Jewish community in the small town.

The local history book “Kupiškio žydų bendruomenės atspindžiai. Kupiškėnų atsiminimai apie žydų bendruomenė” [Reflections of the Kupiškis Jewish Community: Kupiškis Residents Recall the Jewish Community” was compiled by historian Aušra Jonušytė who also delivered an address at the Sukkot celebration about the former Kupiškis Jewish community and their fate. Book illustrators Augustė Žalkauskaitė, Nojus Pajarskas and Vytė Sabaliauskaitė spoke about their work on the book.

Kupiškis regional NGO coalition executive chairwoman Marytė Semaškienė and art school principal Daiva Šakickienė also spoke in Panevėžys. Šakickienė’s students from the Kupiškis Art School also presented an exhibit of their works of art revolving around the former Kupiškis Jewish community.

2023-10-12

Israel at War: Donate Now

Maccabi World Union Emergency Campaign

The Maccabi movement is asking for your help in supporting the Israeli communities affected by the horrible terror attacks on Southern Israel. We will make Kfar Maccabiah, the facilities of the movement home, available immediately to hundreds of citizens that currently await evacuation from the Gaza area.

We will:

-Accommodate 300 people from the affected areas.
-Accommodate 100 family members of injured soldiers & citizens who are hospitalized in Sheba Medical Center.
-Transform Kfar Maccabiah Basketball Hall into an overflow shelter for 200 evacuees.

Our estimated cost per day is $60,000 USD ($100 per person, per day). No gift is too small.

Any level of support will begin helping Israelis immediately.

Please give generously for those in real need.

Michael Siegal, president, MWU
Amir Peled, chairman, MWU
Amir Gissin, CEO, MWU

Donate here or visit the Maccabi World Union website here.

2023-10-11

Condolences

We are sad to report the death of long-time member of the Švenčionys Jewish Community and teacher Galina Kozlova. She was born in 1938. The Švenčionys Jewish Community, its chairman Moishe Shapiro and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community extend our condolences to her sons Aleksei and Boris, her grandchildren and her many friends and relatives.

2023-10-11

Opposition Joins Chorus Calling for MP’s Removal

In the on-going saga of the Lithuanian parliament’s attempt to remove MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis, opposition parties joined calls for his impeachment Tuesday following further statements by the MP on facebook. In May he made numerous statements against Israel and justifying violence against Jews.

“There are two ends to the stick, now the Israeli barbarians must suffer for murdering Palestinians,” Žemaitaitis wrote regarding Hamas’s attacks on Israel over the weekend. He said current events only confirm his earlier controversial statements on facebook, for which he is being currently being impeached.

Last week Žemaitaitis failed to appear on an internet conference held by the commission tasked with investigating him for possible impeachment. Žemaitaitis said he wasn’t obligated to appear and that the commission was formed in violation of statutory rules.

In Tuesday afternoon’s vote the Lithuanian parliament voted 88 in favor, 2 against and with two abstentions to continue the process by the impeachment commission for impeaching Žemaitaitis and removing him as a member of parliament.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2023-10-11

Condolences

Martynas Kuzmickas, an Israeli soldier, died Saturday during Hamas’s attack on Israel. He was born in Lithuania and moved to Israel in 1995 at the age of 17. Our deepest condolences to his sister Evelina and his many friends and family members.

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Intellectual Heritage of Vilner Jews

The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities invite you to attend an international conference called “The Intellectual Heritage of the Jews of Vilnius” on October 10 and 11 at the Lithuanian Academy located at Gedimino prospect no. 3 in Vilnius.

According to the Lithuanian Academy’s press release:

“Thanks to the support of the Research Council of Lithuania, we were able to invite such world-renowned experts in Jewish history and culture as Israel Bartal, David Fishman, David Roskies, Benjamin Brown, Alex Lubotzky, Marcin Wodzinski, Jon Seligman, Avner Holtzman, Tsvia Walden, Mordechai Zalkin and others.

“The conference will also feature presentations by prominent Lithuanian scholars: Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Lara Lempertienė, Jurgita Verbickienė and doctoral student Saulė Valiūnaitė.”

A program is available in English here.

For more information, visit the Lithuanian Academy’s website here.

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Holocaust Monuments Vandalized in Palanga

Palanga Jewish Community chairman Vilius Gutmanas contacted the city mayor and police regarding the desecration of Holocaust monuments in the Lithuanian seaside resort town.

Lithuania marked both the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto and the Lithuanian Day of Remembrance of Jewish Victims of Genocide during the third week in September. On September 22 the Palanga Jewish Community, city representatives, teachers and students lit candles, placed stones inscribed with the names of victims and read passages from the history of the Jews of the city at a Holocaust monument there. The next day all the candles and stones had been removed.

“This came as an unpleasant surprise to me and visitors from Israel who had read about the event which took place the evening before,” chairman Gutmanas said.

He also surveyed markers and monuments in memory of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in the area and discovered much damage, including a stele marking the mass murder and mass grave site of Jewish women and children from Palanga erected by British House of Lords member Greville Janner in the Kunigiškiai Forest, and the complete removal of a monument including its plinth on Vytauto street.

“This isn’t the work of some accidental passer-by. Someone really hates that Lithuania is commemorating Holocaust victims, that we are paying our respects to innocent citizens of our country who were brutally murdered, that we are telling young people the facts about this tragic period of history so they can learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat them,” the chairman of the Palanga Jewish Community said.

2023-10-09

We Stand with Israel Gathering

Hamas in Gaza has launched what they hope will spark a new, general Palestinian intifida against the state of Israel in the West Bank and Jerusalem as well. Over 300 Israelis including security forces but a majority of civilians have been killed inside Israel, about 1,600 people have been wounded and around 52 soldiers and civilians have been taken prisoner and taken into Gaza, including at least one UK citizen. Palestinian sources claim over 750 hostages have been taken into Gaza from Israel. In Ashkelon near the border with Gaza a synagogue and hospital were struck by Palestinian rockets.

The invasion began on Saturday with thousands of rockets sent into Israel from Gaza, with a few volleys now coming from Hezbollah locations inside Lebanon targeting northern Israel. Israel responded with aerial bombardment of selected sites inside Gaza City. Hamas reported more than 256 dead and 1,700 wounded in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas claimed the sneak attack was in response to Israeli attacks and provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a message which has resonated in the Islamic world with spontaneous pro-Palestinian protests erupting in Turkey, Iran and other countries. Military strategists say Israel is facing what is perhaps a three- or four-front war: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and a potential attempt by Syria to retake the Golan Heights. Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has declared a state of war against Hamas, and indicated it might be a long war. The Israeli defense minister said the coming hostilities will be ruthless and will degrade Hamas’s military capability forever.

We invite you to attend a gathering to show that we stand with Israel.

Time: 6:00 P.M. tomorrow, Monday, October 9
Location: Cathedral Square, Vilnius

There are some reports that extremists are planning attacks in Lithuania as well, so be careful and if you know anything about this, please report it to the police and the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

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