The Sabbath begins at 5:28 P.M. on Friday, February 25, and concludes at 6:43 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
LJC and Partners Begin S4Change Project
The Lithuanian Jewish Community in concert with the Lithuanian Human Rights Institute and the Padėk Pritapti organization are carrying out a project called S4Change which will assess anti-discrimination policies in Lithuania, present comprehensive recommendations and increase resistance among teachers and young people to anti-Semitic, anti-Roma and xenophobic narratives. Besides assessing the state of anti-Semitism and Romophobia and providing recommendations to legislators and national institutions to encourage a strategic response the discrimination and xenophobia, the project will work to increase Roma resilience to hate narratives in society and will hold workshops for Roma children, young people and women. The project will work with teachers and students in the majority population to encourage critical thinking regarding anti-Semitism, Romophobia and xenophobia with teaching workshops and an additional “inconvenient cinema” class for educators to acquire teaching methods and aides. The project will hold an international conference intended to strengthening the state’s strategic response to anti-Semitism, Romophobia and xenophobia and will include a public education campaign.
The full name of the project is “S4Change: Strategy for a Change in Anti-Discrimination Policies in Lithuania” and is financed jointly by the EU’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Program. The project will run from February of 2022 to January of 2024.
Table Tennis
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is sponsoring ping-pong classes for beginners and skilled players. Classes/matches for adults will take place Sundays from 2:00 to 4:00 P.M. at the Community, and from Monday to Friday from 5:00 to 8:00 P.M. at the Simonas Daukantas pre-gymnasium in Vilnius. Classes for primary school students will take place on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:00 to 4:00 P.M. at the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, as will classes for students from higher classes, on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00 to 5:00 P.M. For more information contact Rafael Gimelštein by telephone at 866283856 or Neta Alon at 862957005.
Grant Gochin Brings New Suit against Genocide Center
South African born Los Angeles-based Litvak Grant Gochin is bringing another lawsuit against Lithuania’s Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, or Genocide Center, over the latter’s mendacious claims Lithuania Nazi collaborator Jonas Noreika actually let an underground anti-Nazi network to rescue Jews. Gochin says Noreika was directly responsible for the murder of his relatives in Šiauliai and calls Genocide Center apologies and equivocations Holocaust denial.
Kabbalat Shabat
The next Kabbalat Shabat ceremony will be via internet on the zoom platform at 6:30 on Friday, February 25. To register contact viljamas@lzb.lt.
Acting Classes for Children
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites your children to attend acting classes taught by the actresses Emilija and Elžbieta Latėnaite. Topics include improvisation, stage acting and performing entire plays before an audience. The first class is at 3:30 P.M. on March 1 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. For more information and to register, contact Žana by email at zanas@sc.lzb.lt or call +370 67881514.
Snapshots of Last Friday’s Kabbalat Shabat
Progressive Rabbi Nathan Alfred from Israel led a Kabbalat Shabat ceremony with about 50 members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community including our seniors and families with children. In the afternoon prior he attended the LJC Seniors Club Abi Men Zet Zich and sang the hymns to usher in the Sabbath. One of our oldest members, Libė Britaniskina, lit the Sabbath candles and the meeting concluded with songs in Hebrew and Yiddish. He led the prayer service and delivered the weekly Torah portion.
Sabbath Times
The Sabbath begins at 5:14 P.M. on Friday, February 18, and concludes at 6:30 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Lithuanian State Radio to Air Documentary on Young Jews Who Left for Israel in 1991
LRT Radio-Documentary: An Unknown Story from 1991
On the last two Sundays in February Lithuanian State Radio listeners will have the opportunity to hear an extraordinary two-part radio documentary called “Roots: The Story of One Journey.” This story involves a group of about 27 children who left Lithuania in 1991 to study in Israel.
“We immediately listened up when we heard from historian Violeta Davoliūtė about children who travelled abroad at those times without their parents,” writer Rimantas Kmita recalled. He and the journalists Vaida Pilibaitytė and Vita Ličytė produced the documentary. “Right away we were unable to understand who and how. Why didn’t their parents travel with them? How did these high school students live there by themselves? Back in those times when there were no mobile telephones or internet [in Lithuania]? Why did they send them there at all? What did they do there, where did they live, how did they adapt, what sort of lives did they have? Our imaginations immediately began painting all sorts of different stories and dramas.”
The radio documentary made in cooperation with the Goethe institute in Vilnius tells the stories of five adolescents from the period: Judita, Laurina, Nira, Rašella and Rananas. It includes recollections by the organizers of the trips, Daumantas Todesas and Ilja Bereznickas. Ilja Bereznickas escorted a group of students to Israel at the time.
Chess Classes for Children
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Rositsan and Maccabi Elite Chess and Checkers Club will hold classes to teach children chess from 5:30 to 6:30 P.M. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Virginijus Dumbrauskas will be the instructor. Registration is required by calling +370 676 07907. The classes will take place at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius and by internet.
Israeli Dance Club Rekudim
The Israeli dance club Rekudim will meet on Sundays from 11:00 A.M. to 12 noon for beginners and from noon to 1:30 P.M. for more advanced dancers. Julija Patašnik will teach the classes. For more information call +370 569 60512.
Seasonal Jewish Dishes for Spring
Condolences
Arkadijus Šeinker, one of the last survivors of the Riga ghetto and the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps, passed away on February 13 in Lörrach, Germany. He was born in Riga on May 4, 1921. Our deepest condolences to his wife Hanna, sons Ilya, Igal and Garik, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
February 16 Greetings
The Lithuanian Council signed a proclamation declaring the reconstitution of the Lithuanian state on February 16, 1918, and disavowing all former dependences on foreign states. To insure the future course and constitution of the state they called for the formation of the constituent Seimas, or parliament, which enshrined the principles of Western parliamentary democracy and freedom of belief, conscience and speech, ethnic equality under law and individual privacy and freedom from the wanton exercise of power. The Lithuanian State Council and the constituent Seimas ushered in the period of national rebirth. This Seimas adopted the national constitution and land reform legislation, and considered and adopted various laws regulating different areas of national life.
Let’s appreciate and take pride in our country.
Take Part in the “I Love Lithuania” Campaign
The Šiauliai District Jewish Community invites all the Jewish communities to take part in the “I Love Lithuania” public campaign by taking photographs with the Lithuanian flag on February 16, the pre-World War II Lithuanian Independence Day.
Šiauliai Resident Ida Vileikienė Donates Medals to Museum
Ida Vileikienė [was] scheduled to donate Lithuanian and Yad Vashem medals awarded to her adoptive parents Zofija and Adolfo Staškas to a local museum at a ceremony there on THursday, February 10.
Ida Vileikienė is one of only a handful of surviving city residents who were imprisoned in the Šiauliai ghetto. She was born in the ghetto in the summer of 1942. Following several operations to murder the children of the Šiauliai ghetto, her parents Aaron and Liuba Rozengard sought a safe haven for their daughter and turned her over to Zofija. The Staškas family protected and raised them.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Photo album on facebook here.
Kabbalat Shabat with Rabbi Nathan Alfred
The Choral Synagogue in Vilnius will host a Kabbalat Shabat ceremony with Rabbi Nathan Alfred from Israel at 6:30 on February 18, followed by a Sabbath meal. To register contact Viljamas by telephone at 867250699 or write viljamas@lzb.lt
Sabbath Times
The Sabbath begins at 4:59 P.M. on Friday, February 11, and concludes at 6:16 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Lithuanian Jewish Community Children’s Clubs
The LJC children’s club for our youngest members–Dubi Mishpakha if for those under 3 and Dubi for children aged 3 to 6–will resume February 15. Dubi Mishpakha will be held on Tuesdays and Fridays starting at 11:00 A.M. and Dubi on Sundays from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. For more information call Alexandra Žitkauskienė-Khenkin at telephone number 370 672 50 599.
Lithuanian State Auditor Says Good-Will Compensation Being Used Legally
Good-Will Compensation is being used in compliance with legal acts. The National Audit Office of Lithuania carried out the audit of the compliance of management, use and disposal of state budget funds allocated in 2021 to the public establishment Foundation for Disposal of Good-Will Compensation for the Immovable Property of Jewish Religious Communities. The audit determined that the compensation is being used in accordance with legal acts.
The Law on Good-Will Compensation for the Immovable Property of Jewish Religious Communities entered into force on December 1, 2011. It established the amount of monetary compensation to be paid annualy: EUR 37.07 million. The total amount is planned to be paid by March 1, 2023.
Each year the Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas, approves within the state budget the amount of EUR 3.62 million for this compensation. The compensation is paid to the Foundation by the Office of the Government as manager.
Full story here.