The Sabbath begins at 5:53 P.M. on Friday, February 28, and concludes at 6:49 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 5:35 P.M. and completed before sunset at 5:53 P.M. Friday is also Losar, Tibetan New Year 2152, and Saturday is the related Mongolian New Year, Tsagaan Sar.
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.
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 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!
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.
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
This Thursday Natalja Cheifec’s discussion club will address male and female relations in Judaism. The Talmud says a God-fearing man vindicates an immoral woman and becomes immoral himself, but when an unjust man marries a God-fearing woman, he comes God-fearing.
This discussion will also talk about the hidden strengths of the Jewish family, the circumstances surrounding quick divorce, legends about Jewish weddings, the concept of love in Judaism and miracle-births by Jewish women.
To receive zoom credentials, click here. To make a donation to #NataljosPaskaita and/or the LJC, click here.
Time: 5:30 P.M., February 6
Place: internet
The Sabbath begins at 4:55 P.M. on Friday, January 31, and concludes at 5:55 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit starting at 4:37 P.M. and completed before sunset at 4:55 P.M. Different countries celebrate Lunar or Chinese New Year from before to several days after the weekend, and the United States and Canada celebrate Groundhog Day on February 2, which coincides with the Christian holy day Candlemas.
Mark Morri, crime editor for Ausralia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, reported January 29 a plot uncovered by New South Wales Police over a week ago involving a large amount of explosives placed inside a caravan, or van, to be used to bomb a synagogue, presumably in Sydney where the discovery was made.
According to Sky News Australia, the NSW Police, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian ASIO intelligence agency are investigating and several arrests have been made. Morri told Sky News Australia police believe they have arrested low-level operatives in the plot but not the ring leaders. Police also found a list of addresses of Jewish targets including at least one synagogue in the same van with the explosives, according to Sky News Australia and the Daily Telegraph.
Younger Community members exclusively again have the opportunity to meet with a representative of the NAALE Elite Academy at the Lithuanian Jewish Community this Sunday.
NAALE is a unique program providing Jewish adolescents the opportunity to receive a scholarship and to study from 3 to 4 years at an institution of higher learning in Israel.
The program was established in 1992 by the Society for Advancement of Education in partnership with The Ministry of Education and the Jewish Agency, as a response to the pressing need for quality education for Jewish youth after the dissolution of the former Soviet Union had left the educational system there in disarray. Initially intended for those repatriating to Israel, it came to include talented Jewish teenagers from around the world, providing them the best high school education and a priceless tool to achieve their future goals. NAALE Elite Academy also helps reestablish firm ties with Jewish roots and friendships which last a lifetime.
Different Israeli schools have NAALE programs which have their own individual features tailored to different styles, interests and religious and secular views.
Project leader of the NAALE directorate Igal Brantman will visit the Lithuanian Jewish Community this week to answer all your questions.
You must register to attend the event by sending an email to viljamas@lzb.lt.
Time: 11:00 A.M., Sunday, February 2
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius
OSWIECIM, Poland–The virulent anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust is still rampant around the globe today, World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder said against the backdrop of Monday’s solemn commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In a fundamental way, he added, a common thread links what happened at Auschwitz to the recent manifestations of Jew-hatred, including the October 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel: the age-old hatred of Jews. Anti-Semitism “had its willing supporters then, and it has them now,” Lauder, who also serves as chair of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation and who has dedicated decades to preserving the site, said. “It was fed by the indifference of people who thought they were not affected because they were not Jewish.”
Lauder also stressed that anti-Semitic acts undermine the central tenets of civil society. “These attacks are not just targeting Jews,” he said. “They are an attack on Judeo-Christian values, which are the bedrock of Western civilization.”
He delivered his remarks alongside four Auschwitz survivors and Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum.
Full text and video here.
The Šiauliai District Jewish Community marked the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust proclaimed by UNESCO in 2005 Monday with members and friends attending the remembrance ceremony.
Actors Juozas Bindokas and Monika Šaltytė read translations of texts and poems by Abraham Sutzkever accompanied by Motiejus Dudnikas on accordeon. The composition was called “Prayer Just to Myself” detailing Sutzkever’s life before the Holocaust, being imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto, liberation and the testimony he gave against Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.
Natalja Cheifec’s #EDUKACIJOS discussion club invites you to a zoom discussion on the place of vegetarianism in Judaism at 5:30 P.M. this Thursday, January 30. She will cite precedents mentioned in the Bible, for example, the hidden meaning of the story of Cain and Abel and their sacrifices, as well as tackling Nazi ideology about subhumans and the more recent controversy surrounding the ad campaign “The Holocaust on your plate.” She will also address a number of points about blessings over food, Judaism’s restrictions on meat consumption, the hierarchy of God’s Creation and others.
To register and receive zoom credentials, click here.
The United Kingdom’s newly-appointed ambassador to Lithuania Elizabeth Boyles and embassy staff visited Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas last week and asked him about current events in the Community and Community members’ views on political events in Lithuania and the world. Marija Oniščik guided a tour for the British delegation and Žakas of the history of Jewish Kaunas, and they were joined by the ambassadors of Japan and the Netherlands for a presentation of the new exhibits at the Sugihara House Museum in Kaunas.
Photo: Samuel Gochin, in Lithuanian military uniform of 5th Grand Duke Kestutis Doughboys Infantry. Source: Gochin Family Archive
by Grant Gochin
Dear Zayde,
Growing up in South Africa, you implored me to remember. Zachor. I was to remember who we Jews are, and where we came from. You showed me the photos and told me stories. You taught me only love. You asked me to visit our family cemetery in the “old country” and to recite Kaddish for our family. Zayde, I have.
So then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I travelled to the “old country,” specifically, Lithuania. Once there, my first destination was your shtetl. There was nothing Jewish remaining. They destroyed everything. Deliberately. I erected a new gravestone where I could say Kaddish.
The cemeteries were in utter disarray and in shambles. It was glaringly apparent to me that the overgrowth was intentional. No one wanted to remember that Jews had lived in Lithuania.
The Sabbath begins at 4:51 P.M. on Friday, January 24, and concludes at 5:43 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit at 4:23 P.M. and completed before sunset at 4:51 P.M. Sunday is also Australia Day and Monday is the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.
Dear Community members,
We invite you to a Kabbalat Shbbat prayer service led by Rabbi Robin Li-Paz from Los Angeles, California, at 6:30 this Friday, January 24, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Registration is required by sending an email to viljamas@lzb.lt. The cost is 20 euros for adults and 10 euros for children. All are welcome.
Last Friday Australian Hamas supporters attempted to vandalize the home of Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, in Dover Heights, a suburb of Syndey, Australia. The perpetrators in fact arrived at the Jewish leader’s former home. They pelted the home and garage with neon-pink paint and set two cars parked nearby on fire after being spray=painted with anti=Semitic slurs.
In the early hours of Tuesday, January 21, Hamas activists set a Jewish daycare on fire in the Maruobra neighborhood in southeast Sydney. The daycare center suffered extensive damage. Adjacent walls were spray-painted with the same anti-Semitic slurs as the cars in Dover Heights. The daycare is located next to Maroubra Synagogue on Anzac Parade. Sky News Australia reports there have been 13 major anti-Semitic attacks in the Australian state of New South Wales in the last 16 days alone, including the latest two attacks.