Religion – Page 49 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Vilnius Religious Jewish Community Chairman Inspects Electrical Work at Synagogue, Discovers Nobel Prize Winner by Accident

Around noon on Wednesday I went to take a look at the progress of the electrical wiring being installed in the prayer hall of the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius. I noticed a man who was looking over the synagogue carefully. I greeted him in Hebrew and he immediately began asking me questions about synagogue operations, Lithuanian Jewish life and in general “how are you living in Lithuania?” A usual Jewish question.

As a Jew I of course responded to his questions with questions: where are you from, why are you interested in the synagogue, are you perhaps in need of tefillin? … Then the visitor humbly introduced himself, explaining he was attending an academic conference at Vilnius University and had given himself an extra day especially for going to the synagogue, hoping to meet a Jew and get a chance to talk, maybe even in Yiddish, and then walk around the Vilnius Old Town a bit.

His family came from Poland and Vilnius looks a lot like where they came from. Then he said almost in passing, “I was invited to Vilnius University because I’m a Nobel prize winner…” I thought it was quite a good joke! In Yiddish I asked him to tell me the story of his life and how he had come to be the recipient of this most prestigious prize in the world.

2020-02-282020-03-13

Do You Want to Drive the Jews out of Lithuania? That’s Fine, Lithuanian Police Say

by Vytautas Bruveris, www.lrytas.lt

“You little Jewess, there is no place for you here.” This sort of statement, even made publicly to a woman of Jewish ethnicity, is nothing more than the impolite, unethical implementation of the constitutional right to self expression and freedom of belief.

This phrase in no way means the person who uttered it is predisposed against people of Jewish ethnicity, wants to sow discord against them or wants to discriminate against them. This is the firm belief of no less than the Lithuanian police. It turns out the police in such cases see no basis not only for punishing the author of such statements, but not even for launching an investigation.

Insult Made at Parliamentary Ceremony

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said she was called “žydelka” [little Jew-girl] and told “there is no place” for Jews in Lithuania at the Lithuanian parliament on January 13 this year when she attended events there to mark the day when protestors were murdered at the Vilnius Television Town back in 1990, a national day of mourning. Kukliansky said an older man came up to her dressed in a uniform and made the statements. She didn’t recognize what sort of uniform it was, but thought it was most likely from the Lithuanian Union of Riflemen.

2020-02-242020-03-10

Greetings on February 16, Lithuanian Independence Day

Students, staff and teachers of the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius marked Lithuanian Independence Day February 16 with a full day of events.

The program included song and dance in the late morning and afternoon Friday to celebrate the day in 1918 102 years ago when the modern state of Lithuania was born. Pupils performed Lithuanian folk dancing and sang the national anthem.

Acting principal Ruth Reches said: “Children of different nationalities attend our gymnasium and one of our aims is to teach them citizenship, and to teach both the children and young people dates and holidays important to both Jewish and Lithuanian families. The day of the restoration of Lithuanian statehood celebrated on February 16 is very important to all of us, to our freedom and self-expression, and we, the entire school community, celebrated this independence day enthusiastically and ethnically.”

2020-02-172020-02-24

Jewish Quarter of Vilnius: From Grand Duke’s Privilege to Soviet Demolition

Photo: Antokolskio street, 1940/Mečys Brazaitis

The spacious square by Žydų (Jewish) Street in central Vilnius now contains little else than a children’s playground, parking lots and a derelict kindergarten, but it was densely packed with houses before World War Two. Most of the houses were occupied by Jews and the area was the center of the city’s Jewish quarter.

Lithuania has dedicated the year 2020 to the Vilna Gaon and the History of the Jews of Lithuania. LRT English together with Vilnius University and Jewish Heritage Lithuania bring you a series of stories exploring Litvak history.

The official beginnings of the Jewish quarter of Vilnius date back to the 17th century when king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania Wladyslaw Vasa granted a privilege [charter] to the Jews to reside in this quarter. Jewish Street had this name even before that, so it is likely Jewish residents already lived there.

Full story here.

2020-02-11

The Vilna Gaon: The Central Figure Who Made Vilnius the Jerusalem of the North

by Mindaugas Klusas, LRT.lt

The Vilna Gaon, the 18th-century sage from the Jerusalem of the North, has left behind a significant legacy of Jewish scholarship as well as many legends about his erudition and idiosyncratic devotion to the study of religious texts.

Lithuania designated 2020 the Year of the History of Jews of Lithuania, and 2020 is also the 300th anniversary of the Vilna Gaon. Lara Lempertienė, an historian and the head of the Judaica Department at the Lithuanian National Library, spoke with LRT.lt about the 18th-century sage from Vilnius.

While other nations are proud of battles and glorious buildings, Jewish history is about writing and books, Lempertienė quoted a modern rabbi. The Vilna Gaon and his town Vilnius, often dubbed the Jerusalem of the North, played a crucial role in this history.

Full text here.

2020-01-202020-01-21

Kosher Lithuanian Wheat Arrives in Israel, 13 Rabbis Supervised Shipment

Karolis Šimas, director of the Agrokoncerno grūdai company, says they have been preparing the sale of wheat to Israel from early in the summer of 2019. Certain procedures had to be follow to insure the wheat was certified kosher. Winter wheat can be found kosher but according to the requirements it cannot have contact with other kinds of grain. Israel’s special Office of Rabbi Landa service has to and did certify this. Even before the start of the winter wheat harvest, the grain elevators for the winter wheat were sealed under the supervision of a rabbi and a representative from Agrokoncerno grūdai. Several months later, before being loaded on a ship, the rabbi opened the storehouses and supervised the transport of the grain by automobile and railroad to the port.

At the port as the grain was being loaded onto the ship it was again checked thoroughly. Thirteen rabbis supervised and a total of 11 grain elevators and the storage facility at the port were sealed and unsealed, as was every train car and automobile carrying the grain. The elevators and the storehouse at the port had to be made extremely clean and so did the machinery for loading it, in order to receive the kosher seal.

Kosher grain cannot have contact with other grains, so all the storage spaces were cleaned to make sure not a single grain from earlier remained.

Full article in Lithuanian here.

2020-01-17

Reconstruction of Sports Palace Agreed, First Event Scheduled in 2023

Press release, lrytas.lt

Representatives and technical coordinators from Lithuania’s Turto Bankas, which administers and maintains real estate belonging to the state, the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe have arrived at joint solutions for renovating Vilnius’s Palace of Sports as a conference and cultural venue and preserving the territory of the old Šnipiškės Jewish cemetery which surrounds the building.

The reached basic agreement on solutions for reconstruction and maintaining the cemetery territory.

The decisions made regarding the technical project are based on a protocol signed by Lithuanian Government and the Lithuanian Jewish Community in 2009 on heritage protection for the site and a buffer zone and on reconstructing the former sports arena for conferences and other cultural events. The Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe approved the protocol in 2016.

2020-01-072020-01-23

AJC Jewish and Proud Campaign

Dear reader,

I was going to tell you about the importance of being #JewishandProud in the face of rising anti-Semitism.

I was going to try to string together some eloquent words about our responsibilities to our fellow Jews.

I was going to tell you that #JewishandProud is already being used around the world in 28 countries and counting; that it has attracted support and pledges of participation from Hollywood stars, to members of Congress, to British lords.

Find out how you can participate at AJC.org/JewishandProud.

2020-01-062020-01-20

Lithuanian Jewish Community Wishes Lithuania a Merry Christmas

We wish you a merry Christmas as the Jewish community celebrates the festival of lights, Hanukkah. May the spirit of the holidays carry on and underpin the New Year. Both holidays, Christian and Jewish, are a time for the tranquility of the home hearth and for reflecting on what has passed and what is yet to come.

Merry Christmas! We wish all health, happiness and that we all find a way to respect one another, now and in the future.

2019-12-242019-12-29

Hanukkah Begins

Lithuanian Jews and Jews around the world began celebrating Hanukkah, the festival of lights, December 22, lighting the first light on the menorah. The Lithuanian Jewish Community has a menorah set up on the balcony of headquarters in Vilnius.

Because the Jewish day begins at sundown, Hanukkah actually began on the evening of December 22. Members of the Community, friends and Israeli ambassador Yossi Avni-Levy attended the lighting ceremony.

LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said Hanukkah is folklore as well as a religious holiday lasting eight days, symbolizing the miracle of the lamp oil which lasted eight days at the Second Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabee uprising. She wished everyone a happy Hanukkah, and that the festival of lights would impart happiness, health and joy among all families.

2019-12-232019-12-31

Kaunas Jewish Community Lights Public Menorah with Rabbi

From kauno.diena.lt Photos by Laimutis Brunza

The Kaunas Chabad group lit a large public Hanukkah menorah located in Kaunas on Sunday, December 22. Kaunas Chabad Lubavitch rabbi Mendel Krinsky organized the public ceremony.

2019-12-232019-12-24

Happy Hanukkah!

2019-12-23

It’s My Personal Affair What I Write, Orwellian Genocide Center Historian Claims to Lithuanian Media

Just when the roiling waters surrounding the Noreika controversy in Lithuania started settling, Lithuania’s Orwellian Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania (abbreviated to Genocide Center among almost all vulgar mortals) has stirred the pot yet again with a new “historical finding” exonerating the Holocaust perpetrator, whom they plainly stated was a Holocaust perpetrator in their earlier “findings.”

Based on a deposition and/or court testimony allegedly made in Chicago in 1984 or 1986 by a Lithuanian Jesuit, the latest finding by Lithuania’s state-funded Holocaust distortion agency says Jonas Noreika set up a network of priests to smuggle Jews out of the Šiauliai ghetto to safety on the farms of sympathetic farmers, and that he was the leader of some mythical anti-Nazi underground resistance movement during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania.

Lithuanian Holocaust distorters in the past, including at the Genocide Center, have dismissed almost all Holocaust survivor testimony as hearsay which cannot be taken at face value without a deep review of the facts. Facts they claim only they are privy to. In actuality, when independent Holocaust researchers conducted studies on Noreika for Grant Gochin’s court case against the Genocide Center for the crime of Holocaust distortion and denial, the Center fired back on their website claiming Gochin’s research was amateurish and “might be” in violation of both the Lithuanian criminal code and the Lithuanian constitution. Gochin’s research, incidentally, turned up testimony by an eye-witness that Jonas Noreika as LAF commander in Žemaitija, the western region of Lithuania, directly issued the command to execute a group of over 1,000 Jews.

2019-12-202020-01-07

Come Celebrate Hanukkah at Kudirka Square and the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community invite you to attend the lighting of the second light on the menorah in Kudirka Square in Vilnius at 5:30 P.M. on December 23, followed by a service at the Choral Synagogue at 6:30. The Rakija Klezmer Orchestra will perform.

2019-12-162019-12-20

Property of Murdered Jews Cannot Be Shrugged Off

by Vytautas Bruveris

How should the state and its politicians act when they come across some sort of passionate, sensitive issue, or one which causes controversy: should they stick their heads in the sand, or nonetheless speak and discuss it?

It seems as if it’s a lot more useful and clever to talk. This seemingly self-evident matter, though, seems to be a mystery to almost the complete majority of Lithuania’s political elite.

This eternal truth was again confirmed last week at a conference held by the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC) and the Goodwill Foundation on restitution of Jewish property stolen during the Holocaust.

2019-12-132020-01-03

Paideia Jewish Studies Program

2019-12-12

New Book by Dr. Aušra Pažėraitė

The publishing house of Vilnius University has published a new book called “Nesuk į kelią iš takelio. Lietuvos žydų religinės ir filosofinės minties paveldo trajektorijomis” [Don’t Quit the Path for the Road: Along the Trajectories of the Litvak Religious and Philosophical Thought Heritage]. The Lithuanian-language book contains extracts from the texts of the Vilna Gaon, Chaim of Volozhin, Grozdinsky, Israel Salanter and Emmanuel Levinas with commentaries.

Dr. Aušra Pažėraitė has written a bit about her book especially for the www.lzb.lt website:

“It has long been my dream to write a book talking about, examining and interpreting the heritage of Litvak religious and philosophical thinking. … [Among others,] another problem which arose was the time-period and the range of what Litvak means. I mean the problem of geographical boundaries in which we can look for the Litvak heritage, which has changed drastically over history, and it happens that the same historical figures are assigned to Lithuania’s, Poland’s and Russia’s legacy… So I chose a narrower problem, the Litvak-ness which is associated with religious tradition, historically connected with the Vilna Gaon and his circle of followers. So this allowed for choosing a specific perspective which would allow me to connect schools of thought otherwise hard to reconcile: the Western understanding of religion which is still forming in the modern period, which seems to so many people self-evident… i.e., between the written sacred texts and the oral texts, the traditional of passing traditions on orally. …”

The book is available at the Vilnius University bookstore, at the Versmė chain of bookshops and on the internet sites patogupirkti.lt, knygos.lt and humanitas.lt

2019-12-112019-12-19