Today Hanukkah ends and the period in the run-up to the next holidays begins. We wanted to share some memories of the first light lit eight days ago and the light display at LJC headquarters at the former Tarbut Gymnasium in Vilnius.
Secrets of Jewish Graves Deep Underground
by Artūras Jančys
Should we restore desecrated Jewish grave markers and set up meditation and commemoration spaces in Jewish cemeteries, or should we leave the dead in peace and leave everything as it was? There is still no one good answer to the these questions.
Several years ago the municipality of Kaunas took resolute steps to include old Jewish cemeteries in the general context of the historical heritage of Kaunas. Students from Vytautas Magnus University were organized and sent to make photographic records, recording almost 6,000 Jewish headstones on film.
Each gravestone was photographed from several different angles resulting in well over 10,000 individual photographs. They will be entered in a general database which will aid in the continuing project to restore Jewish graveyards. The students’ work will also be displayed on a special internet site created for that purpose.
“Traditions are a sacred thing, but even they change, and now there are even female rabbis,” Gercas Žakas, chairman of the Kaunas Jewish Community, said.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Sabbath on Last Day of Hanukkah on Zoom
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Ilan Club invite all children to log on and keep the tradition of celebrating the Sabbath together this Friday, December 18, at 4:00 P.M. on the last day of Hanukkah. We will wish one another well and real Jewish nakhes! Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium Jewish traditions teacher Algirdas Davidavičius will lead the Sabbath celebration. The virtual meeting will take place on Zoom. Please register by sending an email to sofja@lzb.lt or by calling +370 601 46656
With One Hand the State Comforts Jews, With the Other It Points Them to the Street
by Vytautas Bruveris, lrytas.lt
The country is marking the end of the ceremoniously declared Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History, while the Lithuanian Jewish Community is looking at its front door and thinking it might have to leave its home. Because disagreements with state institutions are driving the Community from its longtime building in the center of the Lithuanian capital, located near the remains of Jewish Vilna and the city’s working synagogue.
Bailiffs and bricklayers in broad daylight have walled off one of the corridors in the building housing the LJC. This is the grotesque turn of events these days resulting from continuing disagreements between the LJC and the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum along with the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. And even before this there were also episodes which seem rather odd, for example, letters from the museum to the members of the executive board of the LJC with accusations against the latter’s leadership, attempting to put political pressure directly upon the ethnic community/
With the new wall built, the LJC is now deciding on its future course: whether to dive headlong into legal battles, or simply pack its bags and hit the street. So why is all this happening? Because of disputes on how to share the courtyard which both the museum and the LJC, housed in the same building, claim. Instead of trying to act as moderator and as a moderating force, the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture has done the opposite. The neighbors are there next to each other, but separate.
AEPJ Wishes You Hag Hanukkah Sameach
Hag Hanukkah Sameach!
On behalf of all the members of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage, the AEPJ, we would like to send you our deepest wishes for joy, happiness and health on this Hanukkah 5781.
Chanukah Illuminates the Jewish Heritage of the Mediterranean
EJC President calls EU Court of Justice Ruling “Heavy Blow to Jewish Life in Europe”
Thursday, December 17, 2020–European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor has slammed a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which allows member states to require stunning before religious slaughter of animals for meat as a fundamental attack on the basic rights of Jewish religious expression and practice.
The Court was responding to the question on a preliminary ruling by the Belgian regions of Flanders and Wallonia (and, by extension, other European authorities) to make an EU-law based religious slaughter exception meaningless by banning religious slaughter.
“The right to practice our faith and customs, one which we have been assured over many years was granted under European law, has been severely undermined by this decision,” president Kantor said.
Hanukkah Greetings from Israeli President Reuven Rivlin
Happy Chanukah to all of you in Israel and around the world.
At Chanukah, we celebrate the victory of the Maccabees.
We remember the miracles of that time. We come together as a family and we light together the Menorah. We sing together Maoz Tzur (מַעוֹז צוּר). Each verse reminds us of the enemies our people has faced, over our long history, and our strength as a community as a people. I have celebrated many Chanukhas and I remember nearly all of them; I love all of them; but this Chanukah is for sure a little different.
This has been a year with all kinds of challenges we have all been dealing with the corona virus pandemic. We have lost loved ones; our schools, synagogues, and community centers have been closed; and we still face great uncertainty about the future. The virus has forced us to stay apart, although in our hearts we feel closer than ever.
Chanukah shows us that united we stand together, we are strong.
May the lights of Chanuka give us all strength and bring light to all Jewish people, wherever they are.
Happy Chanukah and Shalom from Jerusalem.
Candle of Solidarity on Hanukkah Menorah for International Human Rights Day
Today the world marks International Human Rights Day which began when the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Human Rights Declaration on December 10, 1948. The call to stand up for human rights invites us to get involved and engaged in creating solidarity and societies respecting human rights, and calls on us to learn more about ethnic, religious and cultural communities and the way they live. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky calls it symbolic that this year’s International Human Rights Day coincides with the beginning of the traditional Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, a celebration of victory in perhaps the first battle for freedom of worship and freedom of conscience.
“The victory for our religion two millennia ago has continuity with modern Lithuania where all people have religious freedom. Hanukkah is an opportunity for the broader society to undersant and discover traditional Jewish culture as well as the activities of our community. We believe that it is only through understand and communication that we can overcome miscommunication and stereotypes, to insure respect for the rights of all people living in Lithuania,” chairwoman Kukliansky said.
Respect for human rights is urgent right now, she continued, because Jewish communities around the world are facing anti-Semitic sentiments. The European Union Council has responded to increasing attacks against Jews and all manner of anti-Semitic expressions, and on December 2 adopted a declaration on joint-efforts to fight anti-Semitism. The European Jewish Congress representing the Jewish communities of EU member-states and other European countries is asking national leaders to listen to the words of the declaration, follow it and pay additional attention towards creating a relationship of solidarity with the Jewish communities.
Binyamin Netanyahu Likes the Vilna Gaon Commemorative Coin
Note: Triangular coins with Hebrew inscriptions are known from the ancient Jewish kingdom of Khazaria on the edge of Europe.
Two Jewish Holidays Aren’t Mentioned in the Torah
All the important Jewish holidays are described in the Torah except for two: Purim and Hanukkah. These two holidays celebrate the victory of the Jews over their enslavers and persecutors. They are celebrated because our sages have decided so, both of them following the revelation of the Torah to the Jews.
Hellenistic rulers ruled the land of Israel from 198 B.C.E. onward. They destroyed Jewish traditions, forbade the reading of the Torah and banned celebrating the Sabbath. They weren’t anti-Semites per se, they didn’t seek the physical destruction of the Jews, they more pressed for the spiritual destruction of Judaism.
After the victory of the Maccabees and the liberation of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Most High apparently emphasized the importance of this event. The vessel of oil intended for the purification of the Temple miraculously lasted eight days instead of one. That was the time needed for making more ritual oil.
Dear colleagues and friends, I greet you on this wonderful, bright and memorable holiday! It is not celebrated by military parades, but by candlelight, with doughnuts and traditional games.
Hag Hanukkah sameakh!
Simas Levinas, chairman
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community
Hanukkah Greetings from Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky
Hanukkah Lighting Ceremony Live
The Lithuanian Jewish Community announces the start of Hanukkah, the festival of lights.
Watch live from 5:00 P.M. (UTC+2) December 10.
Hanukkah begins December 10 and ends December 18 this year.
The holiday begins in Lithuania with the lighting of the first Hanukkah light at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius at 4:00 P.M. At 5:00 a light show begins at the LJC building in Vilnius.
The video above will feature a live streamcast. For more information see our facebook page as well at https://www.facebook.com/zydubendruomene
Lighting the First Light of Hanukkah
Press release
December 4, 2020
Vilnius
The Jewish Community Announces the Beginning of Hanukkah
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is preparing to celebrate one of the most important holidays of the year, Hanukkah, which will begin this year on Thursday, December 10, and will end December 18. The beginning of the holiday is set for 4:00 P.M. when the first Hanukkah light is lit at the Choral Synagogue, Pylimo street no. 39, then at 5:00 P.M. the first light will be lit at the Lithuanian Jewish Community building in Vilnius. Hanukkah, which was mainly traditionally a family holiday, is celebrated at home by lighting a candle daily on the traditional nine-branched hanukiya candelabrum, more commonly known as the menorah..
Hanukkah is known as the Festival of Lights and the Jewish community as we light the candles sends out light and community to all the ethnic minority communities in Lithuania and to Jewish communities around the world. Light and music will accompany the ceremonial lighting of the first candle, with a laser-generated light show on the LJC building at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius, hopefully adding a new perspective on the building which housed the Tarbut Jewish gymnasium before the Holocaust. Because of virus fears, the lighting ceremony can also be observed via our website www.lzb.lt and on our facebook profile.
Year of Vilna Gaon Final Event to Discuss Future Direction
The Lithuanian Jewish Community in partnership with the Lithuanian History Institute and others invites you to a series of virtual discussions called “Litvak History: Directions for Today” beginning December 9. This is the final event to mark Lithuania’s Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History and is open to all who are interested in Jewish culture and history in Lithuania.
Litvak History: Directions for Today
A virtual academic discussion
Live streamcast with synchronous translation to English
The discussion begins at 9:45 A.M. and will run till 4:00 P.M., UTC+2, December 9, 2020. Participants will be able to pose their own questions live.
Event page: https://renginiai.puslapiai.lt/diskusiju-ciklas-lietuvos-zydu-istorija/
Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/704750490450977
Event program: https://bit.ly/3mGsr5g
For more information contact Marija Navickaitė Kajotienė, tel.: +370 628 71246, marija.navickaite12@gmail.com
Lithuanian Jewish Community Presents Year of Vilna Gaon and Litvak History Commemorative Medallion to Lithuanian President
December 4, 2020
As Lithuania’s Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History draws to a close, Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda met via internet with Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and discussed current issues of concern to the Community.
“Lithuanian Jews are an inseparable part of our society and have been since the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For centuries we built our country together, strengthening our learning, culture, business and security. Lithuanian Jews living in their homeland and abroad publicize Lithuania’s name,” the president said.
The Litvak contribution was celebrated around the country and the world as Lithuania marked the 300th anniversary of the birth of the great Lithuanian rabbi and Talmudist Elyahu ben Solomon Zalman, better known as the Vilna Gaon, and the 700th anniversary of Jewish history in Lithuania. The World Litvak Congress scheduled to meet in Vilnius and Israeli president Reuven Rivlin’s planned visit to Lithuania were postponed because of corona virus fears.
Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky presented the Lithuanian president a medallion commemorating the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History in the name of the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community. The medallion and commemorative coin issued by the Bank of Lithuania bears a symbol composed of the Jewish Menorah and the Post of Gediminas, an early symbol of Lithuanian statehood and power. The medallion also bears an inscription in Lithuanian from Moshe Kulbak’s poem Vilne: “You are a dark cameo set in Lithuania…”
In their discussion the president said the state is solving and will solve issues involving historical memory and will maintain a policy course of intolerance towards expressions of xenophobia.
The head of state thanked the Jewish community for its active role in society and wished the community light and peace as the holiday of Hanukkah approaches.
Communications group of the Office of President
Veisiejai Synagogue Testifies to Multicultural Past
Photo: Kostas Kajėnas
Veisiejai is one of the oldest settlements in Lithuania and was first mentioned in an act in 1253 by Lithuanian king Mindaugas. Later in 1409 Lithuanian grand duke Vytautas also mentioned this town set on the banks of Lake Ančia. The old section of the town has been declared an urban monument.
Town synagogue. Photo courtesy Yad Vashem.
The network of streets, the layout of the square from the latter 18th century and early 19th century, portions of constructions, the panorama of the old town and the natural surroundings are all protected. The town is surrounded on all sides by water and it seems as if you are on an island as the waves of the emerald lake lit by the autumn sun lap along its banks everywhere.
Beginning in the 18th century, Veisiejai became one of the homes of the Lithuanian Jewish communities. Just a few weeks ago on November 3, the 79th anniversary of the extermination of the Veisiejai Jewish community was commemorated. When Nazi Germany went to war with the Soviet Union, Wehrmacht units occupied Veisiejai on the first day of hostilities, on June 22, 1941. At the end of June and in early July the Jews living in different parts of the town were forced into the area around the synagogue and then removed to a ghetto. On November 3, 1941, the once-thriving and large local Jewish community was no more. Soldiers from the Kaunas self-defense battalion aided by local police shot them all. Post-war exhumation indicated at least 1,503 people had been murdered. The corpses were laid in several rows without clothes and shoes, only in their underwear. Only a very few manages to escape and hide in neighboring villages and the forest. Items left behind by the Jews were sold, their farms were inventoried and parceled out to Lithuanian neighbors and some Jewish buildings were turned over to the local municipality.
The History of the Veisiejai Jewish Community
Full text in Lithuanian here.
International Day for Tolerance Event Darna on Facebook
The International Day for Tolerance will be marked around the world on Monday, November 16. The Lithuanian Jewish Community has prepared a virtual celebration called Darna which will run from 10 A.M. to 10 P.M. that day, including well-known performers Jurgis Didžiulis, Erca Jennings, Afrodelic and Paulius Kibauskas. It will also include yoga and meditation activities, a discussion on the topic of tolerance and other activities.
The first Darna festival for celebrating the International Day for Tolerance invites the public to celebrate tolerance, harmony and concord, and to do so through the creation of art and community. The LJC had planned to hold the celebration as a real event, but decided to make it virtual because of concerns about the corona virus and to make an entire day’s worth of events available to those homebound.
Event organizer Rafael Gimelstein said: “We are trying to encourage the celebration of human ties and a harmonious and tolerant life through this event. We wanted to bring together all people who think the same way and to commemorate these values through creative work. To show we have very diverse and talented people who are united by a shared idea, and that tolerance is a very topical idea to them.”
Searching for the Synagogues of Pakruojis, They Found Part of the Old Town
by Živilė Kavaliauskaitė
Archaeologists working in Kranto street in Pakruojis, Lithuania, found the foundations of the Winter Synagogue and also uncovered cultural strata from the 17th and 18th centuries of the Old Town there. They were unable to locate a shtibl believed to be located at the Tailors’ Synagogue there. Team leader Dr. Ernestas Vasiliauskas said there is still no comprehensive historical or archaeological studies of the Winter and Tailors’ Synagogues.
Shtetl by the River
Archaeological digs took place at Kranto street no. 8 in Pakruojis in later August and early September. The public entity Archeologijos Centras performed the work by order of the Pakruojis regional administration.
The regional administration is preparing a project for putting the banks of the Kruoja River and the city park in order and the Lithuanian Jewish Community is offering observations for the identification and investigation of Jewish heritage buildings there.
“Almost nothing is known about the sites being sought, except for material from 1938 in an expedition by Chaim Lemchen and the Aušra Museum of Šiauliai, and the research by synagogue researcher Marija Rupeikienė, but this is comprised of just a few sentences. Everyone writes about the Summer Synagogue,” Dr. Vasiliauskas commented.
Condolences
The Lithuanian Jewish Community together with the World Jewish Congress mourn the passing of UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
We have lost an extraordinarily profound intellect and theologian of deep moral convictions. Rabbi Sacks was a moving speaker and a wonderful writer whose teachings reached Jews and Gentiles, connecting Jewish tradition with modern thinking. His writings, especially his weekly Torah portions, will set an example for future generations.
We extend our deepest condolences to Lord Sacks’s wife Eilaine and their family. May his memory remain as a source of great inspiration.
Vilna Gaon Commemorative Coin Causing Consternation among Collectors
Some coin collectors who weren’t able to purchase the Vilna Gaon 300th birthday commemorative coin issued recently by the Bank of Lithuania are saying the release was a carefully-planned scam for a small group of people to get rich.
Bank of Lithuania officials said they found this reaction strange because anyone who wanted the coin was able to purchase two of them in early sales on the internet. The coin was officially released to the public on October 20, but weren’t available for sale at banks in Vilnius and Kaunas that day. Instead there was a flood of resellers offering the coin at inflated prices. The central Bank of Lithuania sold the coin for 62 euros, while in the initial days of the official release internet speculators offered it for hundreds of euros, and the asking price later climbed.
A week later vendors were asking for up to 990 dollars, or 846 euros, on ebay.com, and one Lithuanian internet commerce site asked for 1,500 euros for one coin. That vendor’s offer was exceptional, but others sold the coin for from 500 to 600 euros.