Religion

New Commemorative Plaque Marks Old Synagogue in Panevėžys

New Commemorative Plaque Marks Old Synagogue in Panevėžys

Following vandalism in January of 2022 to the commemorative plaque marking a former synagogue in Panevėžys, a new plaque has been placed on the building located at Valančiaus street no. 4.

That certainly wasn’t the only recent act of vandalism against Jewish sites in the area, including at Jewish cemeteries, at Memory Square and the “Sad Jewish Mother” monument to Holocaust victims where vandals poured paint. That’s been cleaned up as well and there are now video cameras monitoring the square.

The stone stele commemorating 100 years of activity by the Joint or Jewish Distribution Committee in Panevėžys and Lithuania was also vandalized.

Over the last decade anti-Semitic vandalism also occurred at the mass murder site in the Žalioji Forest and at the monument in the Kurganava Forest. Around 5500 Jews were murdered at the former and around 8000 Jews at the latter site.

Congratulations to Joana Viga Čiplytė

Congratulations to Joana Viga Čiplytė

Joana Viga Čiplytė, an historian who has written extensively about the history of the Panevėžys Jewish community, has been awarded the Gabrielė Petkevičaitės-Bitė medal “Tarnaukite Lietuvai” [To Serve Lithuania] in recognition of her work. Her first book was called “Mažosios Jeruzalės – Panevėžio žydų istorija. Holokaustas” [The History of Little Jerusalem, the Panevėžys Jewish Community: The Holocaust].

At the award ceremony Čiplytė said she was grateful to her family and to Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman for their support.

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Jewish Food Quiz

Jewish Food Quiz

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the outdoor Cvi Parkas vegetarian Israeli street food kiosk invite everyone to a quiz on Jewish cooking and food traditions. The winner gets an Israeli dish from the kiosk and the two runners-up get a free drink. The quiz will be conducted by Arkadijus Vinokuras most likely in the Lithuanian language. It starts at 5:00 P.M. on Sunday, June 18, at food kiosk located in the park across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. The quiz will be streamed live on facebook here.

Lithuanian City Vows to Preserve Ancient Jewish Cemetery

Lithuanian City Vows to Preserve Ancient Jewish Cemetery

by Canaan Lidor, Times of Israel, June 6, 2023

The decade-long controversy surrounding the Snipiškės (Shnipishok) Jewish cemetery in Lithuania’s capital appears to have reached a resolution: instead of building a convention center atop the burial ground, the Vilnius municipality will turn it into a monument for Lithuanian Jews.

The decision announced Thursday by Lithuanian National Art Museum director and former Lithuanian minister of culture Arūnas Gelūnas puts to rest concerns about disturbing the remains of Jews believed by some to be buried under a Soviet-era building authorities wanted to tear down and replace. The plan set off a highly publicized legal fight between some Jewish community members and authorities and Jewish groups.

“It’s a hugely welcome outcome to a dispute that has been going on for too many years,” Michael Mail, chief executive of the Foundation for Jewish Heritage non-profit working to preserve such sites in Europe and the Middle East, told Times of Israel Monday.

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Jewish Discussion Club to Meet Outdoors

Jewish Discussion Club to Meet Outdoors

The #ŽydiškiPašnekesiai Jewish discussion group led by author and actor Arkadijus Vinokuras is to discuss Jewish cuisine at the Israeli street food kiosk located in the former Cvirka scquare across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius at 5:00 P.M on Thursday, June 8. The panel is scheduled to include Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Vilnius Religious Jewish Community chairman and Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom, lecturer Natalja Cheifec, Cvi Parkas Israeli food kiosk director Rafaelis Gimelšteinas, a professor of communications from Vilnius University who has written several books about the history of cooking.

The outdoor discussion is free and open to the public and will be streamed live on facebook as well. It will be conducted in Lithuanian.

First Religious Ceremony at Žiežmariai Synagogue since World War II

First Religious Ceremony at Žiežmariai Synagogue since World War II

For the first time since World War II the wooden synagogue in Žiežmariai has hosted a bat mitzvah ceremony. Aleksandra and Viljamas Žitkauskas’s daughter Ariana read from the Torah in the ceremony conducted by Rabbi Nathan Alfred and cantor Alan Brava accompanied by Brian Drutman.

The wooden synagogue fell into disuse after the Holocaust and was used as a warehouse. In 2016 the Lithuanian Jewish Community began renovation work there in cooperation with local municipalities and Lithuania’s Cultural Heritage Department. In September of 2021 it ceremoniously reopened for European Days of Jewish Culture events. The wooden synagogues in Žiežmariai and Pakruojis have been fully renovated and restored by the LJC, local governments and the Lithuanian government agencies and are scheduled for use as venues for cultural events and exhibitions by their respective local populations.

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Seventh Graders Flood Community in Preparation for Bar and Bat Mitzvah Ceremonies

Seventh Graders Flood Community in Preparation for Bar and Bat Mitzvah Ceremonies

While the Lithuanian Jewish Community is never empty and devoid of activity, over the last few days the halls, corridors and every nook and corner have seen a flood of seventh graders from the Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium preparing for their bat mitzvah and bar mitzvah ceremonies. Besides reading portions from the Torah, their classmates have been planning a program of events for several months now, and are preparing for the ceremonies down to the last detail. Bar and bat mitzvahs are coming-of-age rituals ushering Jewish young people into adulthood. In this case Rabbi Nathan Alfred from the United States is presiding over the ceremony. The young people have to demonstrate in public their ability to read from the Torah in the original language to show they are ready to engage in religious and public life. The tradition has grown up of turning the ceremony into a kind of party with gifts, the utterance of good wishes and applause. The Lithuanian Jewish Community is proud to welcome the next generation into the community and adulthood.

Spiritual Leader of Lithuanian Haredim Dies at 100

Spiritual Leader of Lithuanian Haredim Dies at 100

Netanyahu mourns the loss of “a great scholar and leader” ahead of what is expected to be one of Israel’s largest funerals ever.

Israeli spiritual leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein died Tuesday at the age of 100 in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak.

He was the head of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, where a funeral procession was scheduled to depart in the afternoon. Hundreds of thousands are expected to participate.

Edelstein became the leader of the Lithuanian stream of Ashkenazi Orthodox Judaism following the passing of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky in Bnei Brak on March 18, 2022. He was also president of the Council of Yeshivas, an organization that supports Lithuanian-style yeshivas in Eastern Europe, and the president of the Council of Torah Elders of the Ashkenazi haredi political party Degel HaTorah.

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Jewish Orphanage Commemorated in Kaunas

Jewish Orphanage Commemorated in Kaunas

A commemorative plaque was unveiled on an important Jewish site in Kaunas from the period before and between the two world wars. The former orphanage building is located at the intersection of Gruodis and Smolensk streets in Lithuania’s second city which served as the provisional capital in interwar Lithuania.

The orphanage was for boys aged 7 to 18 who were left parentless or found themselves in dire circumstances. The orphanage opened in 1905 as part of a network of Jewish orphan houses. It was called Jewish Sirot House, but was better known as the Yitzhak Spector Orphanage, being tied in with the synagogue as an institution of education, primary education for the youngsters and evening classes for older people.

The commemorative plaque was the fruitt of efforts by the Benayahu and Blumenthal families in Israel to commemorate this historical institution. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, representatives from the Israeli embassy to Lithuania and from the city of Kaunas and guest from overseas. Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom performed a prayer.

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Sabbath for the Whole Family with Rabbi Nathan Alfred

Sabbath for the Whole Family with Rabbi Nathan Alfred

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to a Sabbath conducted by Rabbi Nathan Alfred and cantor Alan Brava at 7:00 P.M. this Friday, June 2, with kiddush at the Bagel Shop Café and prayer service at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. People 16 and under get in for free. To register, send an email to viljamas@lzb.lt or call +37067250699.

Community Celebrates Shavuot

Community Celebrates Shavuot

The Lithuanian Jewish Community held three different events to celebrate Shavuot or Shavuos, the Feast of Weeks, last Sunday. At the riverside north of Vilnius parents and children played games and the children learned how to barbecue and roast marshmallows, and sampled some more traditional dishes. At the same time Julija Potašnik taught Israeli dance at Cvirka Park across the street from the Community. Later more than a 100 people attended a concert performed by Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh featuring the Community’s younger singers and dances. The concert was followed by holiday food and drink.

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Shavuot Celebrations

Shavuot Celebrations

Shavuot or Shavuos, the Feast of Weeks, begins on the evening of Friday, May 26, and extends into May 27 until sundown this year. The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to attend several events to mark this important holiday on Sunday, May 28.

Israeli dance lesson with Julija Potašnik

Location: Cvirka Park, across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.
Time: from noon on

Enjoying nature with children

The LJC’s children’s clubs Dubi and Ilan are inviting youngsters and their parents to spend Sunday in a beautiful natural setting along the river. Every family is invited to bring their own food for a potluck and barbecue. Water and snacks will be provided.

Location: Valakupiai (Valakampiai) beach no. 2 at the northeastern reach of Vilnius, GPS coordinates 54.742762, 25.293022.
Time: noon

Registration is required for participants at both events. Please contact Žana Skudovičienė by telephone at (+370) 678 81514 or write an email to zanas@sc.lzb.lt to register and for more information.

Avoiding a Third Wife in Lithuania

Avoiding a Third Wife in Lithuania

“If I lived in Lithuania, I would be an active member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, at least in order to avoid a third marriage,” a guest from the United States visiting the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius while on a tour of Litvak heritage sites said.

The old joke goes like this: in Lithuania, a man must marry three times: a Polish woman, a Jewish woman and a Lithuanian woman. The first wife is to show him what true passion is. The second wife teaches him how to treat money, and the third wife will tend his grave beautifully.

The group from the Taube Center for Jewish Life and Learning are visiting Jewish heritage sites in Lithuania and Poland.

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Israeli Journos Fail to Fight Latvian, Lithuanian Holocaust Distortion

Israeli Journos Fail to Fight Latvian, Lithuanian Holocaust Distortion

Photo: Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a news conference with then-Latvian prime minister Maris Kucinskis in 2018. Photo credit: Ints Kalnins/Reuters.

Israel Has Failed to Fight Latvia, Lithuania’s Holocaust Distortion

A number of acclaimed films have shone a spotlight on the Holocaust in the Baltics. But Latvia and Lithuania have responded with Holocaust distortion.

by Efraim Zuroff, Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2023

During the past half year, three new documentary films devoted to the Holocaust in the Baltics, and especially in Lithuania, have been screened in numerous venues all over the world, except in Lithuania and Latvia, which are the subjects of these films.

One, titled When Did the Holocaust Begin, was produced by the BBC and focuses on the use of new forensic archeological technology to discover unknown mass graves of Holocaust victims in western Lithuania, where indeed the systematic mass murder of European Jewry began following the Nazi invasion of Lithuania, on June 22, 1941.

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Sunday Spent Cleaning Up Jewish Cemetery

Sunday Spent Cleaning Up Jewish Cemetery

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenbergu Silverstein and her family and US ambassador to Lithuania Robert Gilchrist spent last Sunday cleaning up the old Jewish cemetery in Paberžė, which is located about 20 kilometers north of Vilnius. They collected garbage, raked up leaves, cleaned off lichen and washed headstones. Kukliansky thanked the volunteers as well as Paberžė alderwoman Agata Puncevičienė who has worked hard to commemorate those buried there. There are over 260 historical Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, but most of them are in ruins, neglected and full of garbage. The Jews of Paberžė along with Jewish communities across Lithuania were murdered by Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators during the Holocaust. Chairwoman Kukliansky said we can all do something to honor their memories.