Religion – Page 3 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Call for Volunteers to Clean Up Jewish Cemetery

You are invited to volunteer for what has become a beautiful tradition sponsored by the US embassy in Vilnius and various volunteers: to help maintain the old Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania. This time we’ll work on the old Jewish cemetery in the village of Turgeliai in the Šalčininkai region of Lithuania south of Vilnius.

Time: 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M., Sunday, June 2
Place: Old Jewish cemetery in Turgeliai in the Šalčininkai region
Link: https://shorturl.at/QILlI

Everyone is invited to take part. Come show your respect and concern for the history of the Jews of Lithuania and for Lithuania. It’s a small sacrifice, only a few hours, and no heavy lifting is involved!

2024-05-29

Commemorating Dubingiai Shtetl

An information stand commemorating the more than 100 pre-Holocaust Jewish residents of Dubingiai was unveiled in the town last weekend. The information stand is located where the synagogue once stood, and an outline of the synagogue on a transparent backdrop is the main feature of the stand. Next to the synagogue stood a mikvah, or ritual purification bath, and Jewish homes, some of which are still standing. One couple who lives in a former Jewish home there, Jolanta and Kastytis Žilinskis, financed the erection of the sign which was designed by historian Vaida Navickaitė. Other members of the local community also contributed financially and in other ways to making this small memorial possible.

“By taking this step, we contribute to keeping the memory of the Jews of Lithuania alive,” Navickaitė said at the unveiling ceremony.

Opera soloist Rafailas Karpis and pianist Darius Mažintas provided a musical component to the ceremony, invoking the atmosphere of shtetl life.

2024-05-29

Jews of Šiauliai Celebrate Lag b’Omer

The Šiauliai Jewish Community celebrated Lag b’Omer in their backyards last Friday evening. Lag b’Omer is a Jewish holiday which is also called the day of bonfires, weddings and the cutting of children’s hair. Because it coincided with the Sabbath of Friday, Jewish residents of Šiauliai celebrated both together.

The men kindled and fueled the fire, other men cooked the meat and the women cooked the potatoes in aluminum foil. Later the celebrants broke bread, and the women lit the Sabbath candles praying for the health and strength of their children and loved ones.

The Šiauliai Jewish Community thanks everyone who participated and celebrated these holidays in common.

2024-05-272024-05-27

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 9:16 P.M. on Friday, May 24, and concludes at 10:56 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2024-05-232024-05-23

Maoris for Israel

Rebel News in Australia attended and filmed a pro-Israel demonstration by New Zealand’s native Polynesian people, the Maoris, resident in and around Brisbane, Australia. According to the reporter, Avi Yemini, who was assaulted by pro-Hamas protestors in newer videos on the same youtube channel, the Maori demonstration began as a counter-demonstration to a protest to support Gaza, but the pro-Palestinians failed to show up. The local indigenous Destiny Church planned the counter-protest on St. George Square an hour earlier than the pro-Hamas demonstration. Maoris interviewed at the scene said the Hamas supporters had been scared off, despite police protection.

One man interviewed said the Jews were the indigenous people in Israel.

“I believe the Jews, it’s their land. They were there before. They’ve had so many civilizations that have been there, the Jews have always been there. They never gave up their land. They were scattered around the world, but they never once gave up their land.,” he said.

2024-05-232024-05-23

Shalom Culture and Music Festival Presents Wagon of Shoes

At 7:00 P.M. on June 4 the Shalom Culture and Music Festival presents a concert at the Church of St. Kotryna (aka St. Catherine) in Vilnius, with performances by opera soloist Rafailas Karpis, violinist Boris Kirzner and the Vilnius State Choir conducted by Artūras Dambrauskas. This will be the first performance in Lithuania of “Wagon of Shoes” by Lee Kesselman. The concert program is to include works by Jewish composers for solo and choir.

“Wagon of Shoes” is a work for choir, soloist, piano and violin by Lee Kesselman based on the poem by Abraham Sutzkever, Yiddish poet, Jewish partisan and survivor of the Vilnius ghetto. The Jewish composer lives in the USA and wrote the piece for the 700th anniversary of Vilnius under commission by the Lithuanian Consulate in Chicago and the Dainava Choir of the Lithuanian Community in Chicago. The premiere took place in June of 2022 in Chicago.

The Shalom Culture and Music Festival is being held in eleven Lithuanian cities and towns from May to October of 2024. The half-year tour will feature classical and contemporary music, klezmer, improvisational jazz, exhibitions and artistic activities. Musicians and singers from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Germany and Israel will participate in the festival. This year’s festival program includes over 20 concerts in concert halls in Vilnius, Kaunas, Šiauliai and Palanga, the Old Zapyškis Church, synagogues in Alytus, Joniškis, Kėdainiai, Pakruojis and Žiežmariai and at the former Telšiai yeshiva.

2024-05-232024-05-23

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 9:05 P.M. on Friday, May 17, and concludes at 10:40 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2024-05-172024-05-17

Ystreet Camp on Seaside in Latvia

Jewish children and young people aged 7 to 17 (in grades 2 to 11) are invited to attend a varied set of classes from singing to handicrafts on the Baltic Sea in Latvia in comfortable conditions under the tutelage of qualified adult consultants. Participants are expected from the Baltic states and beyond, and space is limited.

The camp will take place from June 26 to July 4, for nine days and eight nights, at the Minhauzena Unda Hotel (https://www.hotelunda.com) just outside Riga. The cost is 450 euros per participant with payment plans available, and 390 euros if you register before May 20.

For more information and to register, call +371 2918 7555 (Ilona) or +370 6300 3388 (Alina), or send an email to info@ystreet.lv. The YStreet organization is also on facebook and Instagram:

www.facebook.com/YStreet/
www.instagram.com/ystreetriga/

2024-05-14

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 8:52 P.M. on Friday, May 10, and concludes at 10:23 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Lithuanians will vote in national elections held this Sunday.

2024-05-102024-05-10

Dig Resumes at Shulhoyf

Archaeological digs have resumed at the Great Synagogue site in Vilnius this summer. With no local press coverage the team of archaeologists placed blinds around the eastern edge of what was a school and are excavating the fill used to protect the discovery of the bimah made several years ago. In past years South African Litvak Jon Seligman from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Hartford University and biblical archaeologist Richard Freund led the dig. Richard Freund passed away in 2022 at the age of 67.

2024-05-072024-05-07

Yom HaShoah Observed in Lithuania

While air-raid sirens blared in Israel to mark the Israeli Holocaust remembrance day Yom haShoah, in Lithuania a cantor performed kaddish for the dead. Beyond remembering the victims, the day also commemorates the Jewish heroes, the partisans who took up arms against the Nazis in World War II, as well as the prisoners of the ghettos who undertook spiritual resistance, creating literature, art, plays and music, in part laying the foundation for the future Jewish state. This commemorative day has never been more important and meaningful than it is today, where we see daily outbreaks of anti-Semitism around the world. Thank you to everyone who took part in our humble commemoration.

#IzraelioAmbasadaLietuvoje #JAVambasadaLietuvoje #NyderlandųKaralystėsAmbasada #PrancūzijosAmbasadaLietuvoje #VilniausŠolomoAleichemoORTgimnazija

2024-05-07

Bar and Bat Mitzvah Ceremonies

Last week the Lithuanian Jewish Community held bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies for young adults from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium under the tutelage of Rabbi Nathan Alfred who arrived from Geneva and Bnei Maskilim founder Viljamas Žitkauskas.

Sholem Aleichem principal Ruth Reches said during the ceremony: “Today’s ceremony is a crucially important step in the child’s life. It is crucial for us as a school to raise your children–although we call them ours sometimes–together, to unify our values, because we spend the most important part of children’s lives with them, the period when they come of age, become adults, from childhood through adolescence. We’ll only find out later how we did. So at school we are surrogate parents, and we love them so much and are so proud of them.

“Children, remember this moment, what you are like now, not just how well you’re dressed, but how spiritually exalted you are. Take this feeling and go with it for the rest of your lives. Whenever you’re tempted to wander from the path of truth, remember this moment, remember your parents and teachers and with what love they looked upon you, and then you’ll realize that behaving badly isn’t for you, it isn’t your level, because you are those we see today and want to see every day for the rest of your lives,” she said.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky congratulated participants as did Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein and the teachers in attendance.

2024-05-06

Passover in Kaunas

As always, members of the Kaunas Jewish Community celebrated Passover in fellowship and fine company, in high spirits to the sound music, eating matzo and all the other great dishes provided by the kitchen staff of the Višta Puode restaurant in Kaunas. As in prior years, they also held a quiz to test members’ knowledge of Passover traditions.

2024-05-06

Passover in Panevėžys

The Panevėžys Jewish Community’s traditional Passover celebration was overshadowed this year by the estimated 120 Israeli hostages left alive in Gaza.

All Passover traditions were adhered to, including reading of the Haggadah, the story of the liberation of the Hebrews from the Egyptian yoke and their desert journey to the Promised Land.

Why is this night like no other? Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman explained why we eat matzo, bitter herbs and the other traditional symbolic dishes.

One Panevėžys Jewish Community homemaker treated celebrants to her homemade gefiltefish which was much appreciated.

This Passover was more bittersweet than usual with Community members praying for the quick release of the Jews taken hostage by the barbaric Hamas terrorists who murdered around 1,200 Israeli civilians on October 7, many of them women and children, claiming they were enemy combatants.

2024-05-062024-05-06

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 8:39 P.M. on Friday, May 3, and concludes at 10:06 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

2024-05-03

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 8:26 P.M. on Friday, April 26, and concludes at 9:49 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Friday also marks the anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station accident in 1986 and is observed in many of the affected countries. On December 8, 2016, the United Nations General Assembly also proclaimed April 26 International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day.

2024-04-262024-04-26

Not Every War Crime Genocide

by Efraim Zuroff

In recent years, we often encounter various attempts by people adversely affected by historical tragedies, or intent on campaigning for ostensibly “humanitarian” causes, to claim that their issue is equivalent to the Holocaust, or is in fact a case of genocide.

Whether it is those like PETA, who are campaigning for animal rights, who invoke Treblinka, one of the worst Nazi death camps, to pursue their goals, or those campaigning against abortions, who compare the plight of the aborted unborn children to that of the victims of the Shoa.

The same is true regarding the use of the term genocide, which in recent years has been applied in cases which do not fulfill the criteria of the original definition of that crime. What has happened in the past few decades, is that accusations of genocide have emerged as a political tool to be used against enemies to attain geographic and/or financial gains by claiming lost territory and/or reparations for damages incurred.

2024-04-252024-04-25

Mimouna End-of-Passover Celebration

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and Bnei Maskilim invite you to come and usher out Passover week together with a Mimouna celebration, led by Rabbi Nathan Alfred. Besides leading the ceremonies, Rabbi Alfred will also deliver a lecture on Jewish love in English.

The cost is 10 euros per person, children ten and under are free. For more information and to register, send an email to viljamas@lzb.lt or call (+370) 672 50699.

Time: 7:00 P.M., Tuesday, April 30.
Place: Nykštukas Restaurant, Verkių street no. 27, Vilnius

2024-04-25