News – Page 56 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Vytautas Bruveris’s Presentation at Fifth World Litvak Congress

Lithuanian journalist Vytautas Bruveris gave a presentation at the Fifth World Litvak Congress held in Vilnius last month called “Jews in Lithuania: A Still-Undiscovered or an Already-Lost Shared History?”:

Many here have spoken about the war in the Ukraine. That’s natural, because it is continuation and horrific metastasis of the same story we are all talking about. I would like to talk about a different aspect, however, about empathy. Lithuanian society is showing they are very capable of human empathy and solidarity. We see that especially clearly in the huge and praise-worthy movement to receive war refugees from the Ukraine.

A question arises in this context, however, for me: is it not true that Lithuanian society are most able to feel empathy for those whom they understand as their own people, as participants of the same history?

2022-06-222022-06-22

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 9:40 P.M. on Friday, June 17, and concludes at 11:31 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2022-06-17

Jews of Kaunas Honor Rescuers

On June 9 the Kaunas Jewish Community honored those who rescued Jews from the Holocaust and their family members at an informal gathering.

“When you save one person, you save an entire world,” Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas said.

Child Born in Basement

Several dozen people came to the dinner at the Višta Puode restaurant in Kaunas. They shared their thoughts and impressions and generally chatted. There were songs performed in Yiddish and Hebrew using the Lithuanian folk instrument the kanklės, saxophone and harpsichord. Juozas Straupis was there with his granddaughter Monika. He had only just turned 4 when his mother and father, Bronislava and Juozas, later named Righteous Gentiles, rescued 24 people. They took seven into their home and found safe places for the others among their neighbors. Priests and the community helped take care of these people.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2022-06-15

Faina Kukliansky: June 14 Recalls Agony of All Lithuanian Citizens

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky participated in a commemoration at the Lithuanian parliament to mark the Day of Mourning and Hope and the Day of Occupation and Genocide, and also attended a ceremony at a memorial in Naujoji Vilnia.

“Lithuanian Jews didn’t just experience the tragedy of the Holocaust, but also the repressions of the Soviet regime. The system sought to do away with the Jewish national spirit and the values. All sorts of means were used to achieve this, including the deportations already mentioned, but also communal and personal property seizures, the monument at Ponar blown up because it bore an inscription in Yiddish, synagogues nationalized and the closure of the YIVO institute. The Sovietization of the educational system dealt a huge blow to Jews, with private and communal schools banned. Some of the Jewish schools were destroyed, others were made into state schools where Hebrew was no longer taught and the traditional ethnic curricula–Jewish curricula–formed over many years were abolished. In their place new subjects were introduced, including mandatory Russian language and classes on the constitution of the USSR. The goal was obvious: to erase and replace the identity of the Jewish people. So when we talk about these horrific days in June, we are talking about a tragedy for Lithuanian citizens, no matter what their ethnic identity,” chairwoman Kukliansky said.

June 14 to 18 are remembered in Lithuania as an especially brutal part of history which destroyed the lives of many people of Lithuania, including Lithuanians, Jews, Poles and Russians. There is a public misconception the deportations during those days in 1941 only affected ethnic Lithuanians. Actually more than 3,000 Jews from Lithuania were among the deportees. The Lithuanian Jewish Community marks this painful anniversary annually in common with all the people of Lithuania and we will not forget the pain inflicted on Lithuania during this period in 1941.

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Play “Ghetto” at Kaunas Drama Theater

Next Sunday, June 19, the two-part play “Getas” [Ghetto] will be performed at the Kaunas Drama Theater, directed by Gintaras Varnas.

2022-06-13

Condolences

Markas Gliauberzonas has died following a long battle with chronic illness. He was a member of the Vilnius Jerusalem of Lithuania Jewish Community. We extend our deepest condolences to his daughter Judita and many friends and family members.

2022-06-13

Guided Tour of Gedimino Prospect Followed by Sabbath Ceremony

Jewish tour guide Mark Psonic will lead a walking tour of Vilnius’s main street, Gedimino prospect, on June 17 as part of a larger event being held by the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s Gesher and Kaveret Clubs.

Those wishing to take the tour will assemble at the bell tower of the Cathedral in central Vilnius at 6:00 P.M. Friday. The walking tour will conclude at the Cvi in the Park Israeli street food kiosk located in the former Petras Cvirka square across the street from the LJC, where the Sabbath will be ushered in in the traditional manner.

The cost per person is five euros with registration by internet till June 15 and no later. Send an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt to register.

2022-06-13

Tzedekah Lecture

Tzedakah or Ṣedaqah, literally “righteousness” in ancient Hebrew, is the duty to charity in Judaism, often directed towards coreligionists living in poverty.

The Talmud says mercy is an essential Jewish characteristic, and that the rich man has a duty to give and the poor man a duty to receive. Giving charity isn’t so much a burden as a privilege and a mitzvah.

During this lecture Natalja Cheifec will present various aspects of tzedekah, including why we are obligated to give, to whom are we obligated to give, when charity should be given, how much should be given, how the giver should behave towards the receiver, charity and numerology, and others.

The lecture and discussion will take place via internet at 5:30 P.M. on June 16, most likely in Lithuanian and/or Russian. Register here: https://bit.ly/3K73kEE

2022-06-13

Lithuanian Roots of Holocaust Denial and Distortion

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

Reading through the writings of various Lithuanian historians engaged in “historical memory policy” (an interesting term recalling totalitarian order in and of itself), texts which distort and even deny the Holocaust, I often wonder when it began. It began before the mass murder of Jews in Lithuania.

For instance, the Lithuanian Activist Front’s call to action “Dear enslaved brothers” appeared March 19, 1941, and was published in several versions. At least, two different versions have survived.

2022-06-132022-06-13

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 9:35 P.M. on Friday, June 10, and concludes at 11:26 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2022-06-10

Marking 100th Anniversary of Birth of Matilda Olkinaitė

The 100th anniversary of the birth of Matilda Olkinaitė took place June 6. She was a Lithuanian Jewish poet from Panemunėlis who was murdered with her family and the neighboring Joffee family in July of 1941 at the Sahara peat bog in the Rokiškis region before larger mass murders began there.

Events to mark the date at the Rokiškis Regional History Museum began with the play “Nutildytos mūzos” [Silenced Muses] by the Rokiškis People’s Theater. This was followed by a screening of the films “Atrandant Matildą” [Finding Matilda] and “Dangaus stulpai – skambančios sinagogos” [Pillars of Heaven: Singing Synagogues], and the opening of a museum exhibit.

Other events were held in her native town Panemunėlis just outside the city of Rokiškis. Rokiškis librarians set up a folk-art monument to honor Olkinaitė on the lawn of the Panemunėlis railroad station near Olkinaitė’s house. People from the Rokiškis People’s Theater also placed a stone monument at the site of Holocaust mass murder victims at the Sahara peat bog where Olkinaitė’s family and the Joffee family were murdered. Flowers were also laid at their family graves.

2022-06-10

Discussion Club #ŽydiškiPašnekesiai with Arkadijus Vinokuras

Back in the time of King David, 3,000 years ago, the king was considered the best singer, and under his reign the professional musicians dynasty of the Levites from the tribe of Levi began. Music schools were established for singers of hymns and players of instruments. Hymns and instrumental music accompanied rituals for the offering of sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem built by Solomon in 959 BCE. During sacred rituals the priests blew 120 trumpets at the same time.

Of course we won’t go that deep into history. We’ll just discuss the period of Jewish music from Smetona’s Lithuania till today, discussion club #ŽydiškiPašnekesiai initiator Arkadijus Vinokuras promises.

The next discussion is called “Jewish Music: What Is It, and Why Doesn’t It Ever Grow Old?” on June 14, 2022.

~~The club will meet outside this time at the site of the former statue to Petras Cvirka where the Cvi in the Park Israeli street food kiosk is operating for the summer.~~ The meeting will take place inside the Bagel Shop Café due to rain at 5:00 P.M. It’s open to everyone and will be live-streamed on the LJC facebook page.

Participants are to include Leonidas Melnikas, Boris Traub, Boris Kizner and Masha Dushkina, moderated by Arkadijus Vinokuras. The discussion will likely take place in Lithuanian.

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Students from Miami University Visit Community

Students from Miami University in Ohio recently visited the Lithuanian Jewish Community to learn more about the Jewish community in Lithuania, our history and Jewish life in the country. We baked bagels together at the Bagel Shop Café, gave them a tour of the recently opened Saul Kagan Welfare Center and invited them to our Israeli street food kiosk Cvi in the Park.

#OurCommunitiess #MūsųBendruomenės EVZ Foundation

2022-06-082022-06-08

Condolences

Anna Kaplan passed away June 6. She was born in 1943. Our deepest condolences to her daughter Tatjana and her family and friends.

2022-06-082022-06-13

Condolences

Our deepest condolences to the family on the death of honorary Lithuanian consul in South Africa Ivor Feinberg, whose family came from Panevėžys. Our condolences to his wife Miri, children Shirley Dorfan and Josi Feinberg and his brother Alfie.

2022-06-08

Silvia Foti Releases Paperback Edition Renamed “Storm in the Land of Rain”

A year after the publication of Silvia Foti’s book about her Lithuanian Nazi grandfather Jonas Noreika, she has published a paperback version renamed “Storm in the Land of Rain: A Mother’s Dying Wish Becomes Her Daughter’s Nightmare.” According to the press release, it is already available from internet vendors and the plan is to offer it for sale at supermarket chains including Costco, HEB, BJ’s, Target, Fred Meyer, Kroger and Meijer.

Full press release here.

2022-06-082022-06-08

Ger Tzadek Count Potocki Story Likely a Myth

Abraham ben Abraham (Hebrew: אברהם בן אברהם, lit. “Avraham the son of Avraham”) (c. 1700 – May 23, 1749), also known as Count Valentine (Valentin, Walentyn) Potocki (Pototzki or Pototski), was a purported Polish nobleman (szlachta) of the Potocki family who converted to Judaism and was burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church because he had renounced Catholicism and had become an observant Jew. According to Jewish oral traditions, he was known to the revered Talmudic sage, the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Elijah Ben Shlomo Zalman [1720–1797]), and his ashes were interred in the relocated grave of the Vilna Gaon in Vilna’s new Jewish cemetery.

Although the Orthodox Jewish community accepts the teachings about Abraham ben Abraham, including the involvement of the Vilna Gaon, secular scholars have largely concluded that it is a legend.

Jewish Traditions

The Vilna Gaon (1720-1797) was according to the Jewish tradition a mentor to Abraham ben Abraham.

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Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 9:28 P.M. on Friday, June 3, and concludes at 11:16 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2022-06-03