The US embassy to Lithuania paid a visit to the Kaunas Jewish Community. Ted Janis, adviser on policy and economics (on left in photo), and US embassy representative Renata Dromantaitė met KJC chairman Gercas Žakas and asked about daily life in the Community, its activities, relations with the municipality, Jewish cemeteries, projects planned and opportunities for working together more closely. The time allotted for the meeting passed very quickly and there wasn’t time to express many thoughts and address many issues, which will be part of the agenda for a future planned meeting. Embassy staff said they would like to and plan to participate in commemorations of the mass murder of the Jews of Petrašiūnai and the mass murder of intellectuals in the Kaunas ghetto at the Fourth Fort in Kaunas at the end of August.
Darius Udrys Uncovered How Unprepared We Are to Discuss Morality without Outrage
Darius Udrys. Photo by Kiril Čachovskij, DELFI, © 2017
by Andrei Khrapavitski
I have written a short facebook comment in Lithuanian regarding the latest meltdown within the local liberal circles, but this story is worth expanding on. The gist of the matter is that Remigijus Šimašius, the liberal mayor of Vilnius, fired Darius Udrys, the head of Go Vilnius development agency and my former colleague at the European Humanities University.
A formal reason for dismissal was lack of results, but this reason looks very improbable, given the short time both Darius and the agency had worked and could achieve those results. A more probable one is the scandal Darius provoked after posting a facebook comment in which he asked whether it was moral for forest brothers (Lithuanian partisans who waged guerrilla war against Soviet rule during the Soviet occupation during and after World War II) to kill organizers of kolkhozes, collective farms put in place by the Soviets on the occupied lands.
Darius raised a lot of eyebrows by simply asking on what moral grounds it was OK to kill the civilians who were organizing those kolkhozes. A group of conservatives immediately demanded his dismissal and put a lot of pressure on the mayor of the Lithuanian capital to do so. It seems quite likely that the liberal mayor gave in to the demands of the conservative members within the coalition and let Darius go. Apparently you can be fired in 21st-century Lithuania for asking a question about the morality of killing. The liberal mayor found neither the courage to stand for freedom of speech nor to acknowledge the real reason for the dismissal. As mentioned above, Remigijus tried to spin it by claiming that Darius lost his job for not demonstrating results.
Full text in English available here.
Annual Israeli Embassy Fun Run
The Israeli embassy to Lithuania invites the public to attend the third annual Vilnius Bike Ride fun run sponsored by the embassy, meeting at 11:00 A.M. noon on Sunday, August 27, 2017. This year the route will be 10 kilometers from the Vilnius Old Town Hall Square to the white bridge. Those who want to participate but are unable to ride are invited to join the cyclists at the white bridge in Vilnius at 12 noon.
The Israeli embassy strongly recommends wearing protective helmets and promises event t-shirts to teams who register before August 1, although supplies are limited. Teams are invited to send in the number of shirts and sizes required. For more information contact the embassy at +370-5-2502500 or info@vilnius.mfa.gov.il
The embassy team will assemble at Old Town Hall at 10:00 A.M. and the embassy suggests others come early as well, with the start set for 11:00 A.M. sharp.
Summer Dig Ends at the Groyse Shul in Vilnius
by Geoff Vasil
This summer’s archaeological dig at the Great Synagogue site in Vilnius wrapped up in the early evening of Friday, July 21, with volunteers working right up to the last minute.
This summer’s dig is the second by an international team led by the Israeli Antiquities Authority’s Dr. Jon Seligman and Hartford professor of Jewish history Richard Freund. The composition of workers and volunteers was significantly different this summer; only Shuli of Israeli Antiquities appeared again amid a group of others from Canada, Israel and the United States. Mantas Daubaras remained the chief Lithuanian archaeologist at the site and this year there were significant numbers of Lithuanian volunteers, almost all of them apparently university students. This year the focus was exclusively on the Groyse Shul or Great Synagogue site, whereas last year the Ponar Holocaust mass murder site was also part of the project, as documented recently in Owen Palmquist’s good documentary Holocaust Escape Tunnel, which aired on the PBS program NOVA earlier this spring. The lead archaeologists attended a Lithuanian screening of the documentary at the Tolerance Center a week before the end of their work at the Shulhoyf in Vilnius.
When Was Lithuanian Citizenship Rescinded for Jews and Never Reinstated?
According to the Lithuanian Migration Department, Jews with Lithuanian roots are making active use of the opportunity to restore Lithuanian citizenship following amendment to the law on citizenship adopted in July of 2016 to streamline the process. Following the changes, the number of Litvaks restoring citizenship has grown dramatically. The amendment was adopted by the Lithuanian parliament and signed into law by president Dalia Grybauskaitė, and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky contributed much to the initiative and lobbied heavily for it. The legislation now safeguards the right of Jews who left Lithuania during the period between the two world wars–and their descendants–to restore Lithuanian citizenship.
Many Litvaks died in the Holocaust and others are now spread around the world. Many of them identify themselves with Lithuania, but no longer have Lithuanian citizenship. The issue is not just one of morality, it’s also a legal issue. When we are speaking of Jews who survived the Holocaust and the war, they weren’t deprived of their citizenship in the concentration camps. They were deported, isolated and murdered not as citizens of Lithuania, but as Jews. People were exiled to Siberia because they owned property, or were lawyers, fire-fighters or volunteer soldiers. So the well-founded question arises: when exactly did they lose citizenship?
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky says: “The doctrine of the Lithuanian law on citizenship remains unclear to this day. State leaders and politicians associate citizenship with restitution. There is a wide-spread but incorrect belief that after granting citizenship or making that process easier, under some sort of reverse discrimination making it easier for Jews, there will be a flood of applications from people of other ethnicities for restoration of citizenship. The fact is often ignored that Polish citizens, arrivals from Poland, were never Lithuanian citizens, because they lived in a territory which at that time belonged to Poland, after Poland occupied Lithuania. Likewise, Germans from the German lands were never Lithuanian citizens because they lived in territories which were occupied by Germany.
“Speaking of restitution, we are talking about a very small portion of Lithuanian Jews who survived the war, who were deported violently and lost all their rights in Lithuania following the occupation. If we base our thinking on legality, then they were deprived of citizenship under the occupational regime and never got it back, or got it back after the deadlines for submitting property claims. This is equally urgent for Jews who left after 1990, they were included the newly drafted law on citizenship presented in parliament. Are they somehow opposed to the Lithuanian state because they live in Israel, which is neither a NATO nor an EU member? Is Israel really considered an enemy of the Lithuanian state?
“So I again ask, when were Jews deprived of certain rights and property by the laws and bylaws of the local or occupational government, and when did they lose Lithuanian citizenship? If they didn’t lose it, because the occupational regimes and the actions they carried out were illegal, then when should these people be issued documents testifying to their citizenship in Lithuania, and when should their illegally seized property be returned? The Lithuanian law on citizenship doesn’t address these issues.
“Reviewing the history of the first independent Republic of Lithuania and its sad fate, we find a lack of legal judgment regarding the occupational Soviet government, the Lithuanian Provisional Government, that of Nazi Germany, the second Soviet occupation and finally of the current independent Republic of Lithuania. So it remains who deprived Jews of citizenship, property and other civil rights, and when they did this, and whether these have been restored. I don’t deny there are a number of studies on this issue, but how do they affect the legal verdicts being issued now or those which will be issued in the future? I’d like to remind everyone we are not talking those who perished in the war, but about the Jewish citizens of Lithuania who were persecuted and murdered in the territory of the state of Lithuania.
“So far the state hasn’t been able to solve issues surrounding Jewish history and culture as well as legal status. Perhaps these matters need to solved serially, one after another: the problem of education, of Jewish history and issues around restoring rights violated. These matters are not for NGOs such as the LJC to solve, but for the state. The issues enumerated were solved long ago throughout Western Europe. They remain unsolved only in the former Soviet Union. We cannot forget Lithuania is in the lead among all former republics in the Soviet Union–the issue of restitution for Jewish communal property has been solved–but the cynical view of the individual’s civic, political and social rights as being of secondary importance remains more what it was in the USSR than anything else.
“I have heard rebuttals that Russia has also failed to make restitution with Lithuania, but this point of view and social attitude can hardly be expected to lead to further progress not just in restitution, but in a host of economic, social and other issues.
“The Lithuanian Jewish Community is concerned with all issues surrounding citizenship and restitution. This is a problem and a great injustice of urgency for Litvaks living abroad. The European Commission recently adopted a declaration again emphasizing remembrance and justice, which is what we seek and invite all Lithuanians to pursue with us.”
Panevėžys Jewish Community Youth Meet
Children of members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community and their parents gathered July 12 to consider the formation of a Panevėžys Jewish Community youth organization. They discussed how to stimulate organizational, cultural and athletic activities among youth. The goal of the meeting was to encourage more Community youth to learn Jewish traditions. The Community building includes a room with religious regalia, literature, albums, magazines and multimedia equipment for screening films and holding lectures. The proposal was made to use the room for youth activities, specifically for personal study of Judaism.
The meeting made plans to travel to Ventspils in Latvia on August 5 and 6 and learn about the former Jewish community there. The trip would include an excursion into Joniškis, Lithuania, to view the newly restored Red and White Synagogues there. The trip to Ventspils is to include meetings with the surviving Jewish community there and the conclusion of a cooperation agreement between the two communities. The trip is supported by the Goodwill Foundation and members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community. Members are invited to participate.
Jewish Unity: Call Me Naïve
Blogger and CEO of the American Jewish Committee David Harris explores the tortured route many Jewish couples are forced to take towards marriage.
Jewish Unity: Call Me Naïve
by David Harris
When I was growing up on the West Side of Manhattan, I recall elderly men from Jerusalem ringing our doorbell a couple of times per year. They were pious, and they were raising money for their institutions in Israel.
My mother and I lived alone, and, as a working woman, she had very limited disposable income, but she never let them leave empty-handed.
When I asked her why she would give money to people who, it was obvious, lived a very different lifestyle than ours, and why she never asked probing questions about the organizations they represented, she would simply say, in effect: “They’re Jews. We’re Jews. We need to support one another. Hitler made no distinction among Jews. We all were targeted for annihilation, irrespective of our beliefs, clothing, dietary habits, whatever. Why should I make a distinction?”
My mother survived the Holocaust. I took her words seriously. Indeed, I took them to heart and have sought to put them into practice on a daily basis. If we really are one people, then, whatever our differences, we need to act as one people.
Forty-two years ago, I joined the Jewish communal world, getting started in Rome and Vienna, the two transit points in Europe for Jews able to leave the Soviet Union and plan new lives beyond the grasp of the communist world.
Full text here.
People and Books of the Strashun Library Exhibit to Close July 28
For those who haven’t seen the exhibition at the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library, People and Books of the Strashun Library will close July 28. Judaica Center director Dr. Lara Lempertienė is planning to lead a tour July 28 for those interesting in learning why the Strashun Library looms so large on the Litvak cultural horizon, to be followed by a discussion. She is inviting interested parties to gather in the exhibition hall on the third floor at the library at 3:00 P.M., July 28.
Netanyahu Warns EU Will Shrivel and Die from Immigration from Middle East and Africa
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu attending a closed-door meeting of the leaders of the Visegrad group was overheard by Israeli reporters telling the leaders the European Union would “shrivel and die” unless it changes its open-door immigration policies allowing in a flood of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East, and again called upon the EU to change its policies towards the state of Israel which he described as a European Western country.
“I think Europe has to decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear,” he said. “I am not very politically correct. I know that’s a shock to some of you. It’s a joke. But the truth is the truth – both about Europe’s security and Europe’s economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy toward Israel,” Netanyahu reportedly said in front of a microphone accidentally left on.
“The European Union is the only association of countries in the world that conditions the relations with Israel, which produces technology in every area, on political conditions. The only ones! Nobody does it,” Netanyahu said before the feed was cut by embarrassed hosts in Budapest.
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community Chairman Visits Great Synagogue Archaeological Site
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community chairman Shmuel (Simas) Levinas visited the site of the Great Synagogue July 18 where an international team of archaeologists are now working for their second summer. Dr. Jon Seligman acquainted the chairman with current work, including the discovery of two well-preserved ritual baths with original tiles and a well-developed water system. The pieces discovered are washed by volunteers and excavated earth is sent through sieves to find smaller items. Some of the volunteers, mainly from the USA and Israel, and Dr. Seligman have Litvak roots.
On July 19 Dr. Seligman and fellow archaeological dig director professor Freund visited the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius and had a chance to see for themselves the revival of Jewish religious life taking place there.
The visitors saw the synagogue’s Torah scrolls and were especially interested in the scroll donated by Judah Passow which originates in the time of the Vilna Gaon. They were impressed by a matzo-making machine contrived after World War II at the synagogue and were most interested in fragments of the former Great Synagogue preserved at the Choral Synagogue, including plaques with prayers. The two visitors donated Vladimir Levin’s book History of the Synagogues of Vilnius to the library at the Choral Synagogue.
NOVA Documentary Holocaust Escape Tunnel Screened at Vilna Gaon Museum
The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum screened the NOVA documentary about Jewish Vilna which aired earlier in the spring on the PBS network in the United States on July 18. The event space was filled with audience members and staff had to find additional chairs for the large crowd. Many sat in the upstairs balcony overlooking the space. Also in attendance were current and former staff from the Vilna Gaon museum and MP Emanuelis Zingeris. The audience was mainly interested members of the Lithuanian public including a large number of young Lithuanians.
Speaking before the film, museum director Markas Zingeris praised the documentary about archaeological digs at the site of the former Great Synagogue in Vilnius and at the Holocaust mass murder site Ponar just outside the Lithuanian capital.
Deputy chief of mission at the United States embassy to Lithuania Howard Solomon also called the film important and reiterated long-standing US support for the Lithuanian Jewish community.
Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon noted Israelis remember the heroes as well as the victims during Holocaust commemorations, and said his personal hero was Fania Brancovskaja, the FPO partisan present in the audience. He also expressed the hope the documentary would be shown throughout Lithuania.
OSE Part 1
It seems the French social welfare system has no equal. We visited one of the oldest Jewish social support organizations, the OSE (Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants), whose origins extend back to St. Petersburg, Russia in 1912, when the Interior Ministry of the Russian Empire granted permission for the establishment of the OZE (Obshchestvo Zdravookhraneniya Evreev), the Jewish health-protection association. Russia was enveloped in heavy anti-Semitism at the time and pogroms were frequent. The granting of permission for the organization coincided in time with the beginning of the movement for Jewish cultural autonomy. The main goal of OZE was to establish a modern social welfare and health-care system for Jews for whom medical care was inaccessible in the Russian Empire. The organization established a branch in France in 1933.
During the Nazi occupation Jewish children were ruthlessly murdered. Various ways to save them were found, either sending them out of the country, or hiding them. One of the more active players in rescuing Jewish children was the Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants organization, or OSE, who saved hundreds of children.
Archaeologists Return to Digs at Shulhoyf, Ponar
from Jewish Heritage Europe
The second season of archaeological excavations is under way at the site of the destroyed Great Synagogue in Vilnius and the surrounding Shulhoyf complex of Jewish buildings. A team of Israeli, Lithuanian and American volunteers began work on July 10 and will continue until July 21.
The objective is to continue last year’s work researching the water system of the complex developed in the 18th century and two mikvaot, ritual baths. Plans are to open “an area … probably near the entrance staircase descending into the synagogue and around the area of the bimah.”
Screening of NOVA Documentary about Ponar
Dear all,
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum and the embassy of the United States of America in Vilnius kindly invite you to a screening of the documentary film “Holocaust Escape Tunnel” at the museum’s Tolerance Center (Naugarduko St. 10/2, Vilnius) on Tuesday, July 18, at 5:30 P.M. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the archaeologists featured in the film.
Newly Renovated White Synagogue in Joniškis Re-Opens
Just before Sabbath on Friday, July 7, 2017, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon hung a mezuzah on the doorway of the newly-restored white synagogue in Joniškis and he and members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community celebrated the beginning of Sabbath there together.
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community Statement on Conference to Commemorate Great Synagogue
The Vilnius Jewish Religious Community in great concern categorically stands against any plans to build new buildings on the remains of the foundations of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius.
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius was and is the holiest site for Lithuanian Jews. We consider any plans calling for new buildings to commemorate the supposedly non-extant temple blasphemy and the appearance of new buildings a desecration rather than a commemoration.
We consider it an expression of total disrespect that, without asking the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community and without regard to earlier public statements against this by the Lithuanian Jewish Community, certain organizations are undertaking initiatives whose implementation would, without doubt, offend Jewish religious sentiments and bring on criticism by the followers of the Vilna Gaon around the world. We hope organizations which are attempting to initiate construction projects at the Great Synagogue site will take into account the request made by the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community and give up the plans they have announced.
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius, destroyed by the Nazis and the Soviets, or more accurately its remains which are still being investigated by archaeologists, should be left in peace. At the same time, we note there is an abundance of heritage sites in Vilnius and throughout Lithuania which truly need greater attention.
The Vilnius Choral Synagogue, for example, needs greater attention. It still has no ritual bath or mikveh, and needs authentic restoration of its interior.
If something must be changed at the Great Synagogue site, we suggest the sign with incorrect information be replaced, and that the statue to the Vilna Gaon which looks like some sort of caricature be removed and given to some museum in the city. With all respect to the sculptor, it was made without any understanding of Judaic tradition.
We invite those organizations which want to undertake construction at the Great Synagogue site to take into account the real and urgent actual needs of religious Jews.
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius is important as a symbol of annihilated Jewish civilization. There are less ostentation, cultured and respectful ways to mark the site where it once stood, without earth-moving equipment and construction cranes.
Shmuel (Simas) Levinas, chairman
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community
July 3, 2017
Vilnius
Citizens. Fellow Citizens. People
by Sergejus Kanovičius
The weird memory wars continue. Thank God they are being waged only in the virtual arena and, it seems to me, the atmosphere surrounding these memory gun-battles is becoming calmer and more on-topic.
Just last year after one large public event, the term “fellow citizens” began to be used very widely to refer to Jewish Holocaust victims. In one discussion where I objected that it wasn’t useful to underline the fact that “our fellow citizens” were murdered, because beyond the limits of this invitation to repentance remain many non-citizens of Lithuania who were victims of mass murder in Ponar and the Ninth Fort in Kaunas, I was presented with a rather unique argument, which goes something like this: by saying “our” fellow citizens were murdered, we make the victims “our own people,” meaning they become closer or dearer to us. Perhaps. I have noticed that even refined and let’s say modern nationalists who before now have not wanted even to mention the Holocaust, much less the victims, have begun gradually to get used to the idea, which becomes for them a kind of indulgence of forgiveness for saying anything at all on the topic. From among those modern and rather square nationalists you might overhear the following: “Well, since it was our ‘fellow citizens’ who were murdered, that’s a bad thing; killing Jewish ‘fellow citizens’ is unpatriotic.” This is the deconstruction of the nationalist’s reasoning having undergone, excuse the phrase, some degree of liberalization. But what about murdering non-citizens?
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me this constant emphasis–sincere or not–on Holocaust victims being Lithuanian citizens tends to undermine any sort of human compassion expressed, whether it be Christian, Jewish or Buddhist, undermining the moral dimension of regret, the feeling when you want to say simply and sincerely: I am sad for them, that shouldn’t have happened. And it doesn’t matter in which country those people held citizenship.
And for those whom the legal aspect is important: let them determine and count how many holders of Polish passports from occupied Vilnius, how many French nationals, how many citizens of independent or Soviet-occupied Lithuania lie buried in those pits. If someone is truly sorrowed for these people, it’s surely not because they were citizens of a certain country.
I was moved to write this by a photograph posted recently on social media; it seems there are people who still remember and remind others of the Lietūkis Garage massacre carried out on June 27, 1941. The photograph has in common with the massacres that it is from another future site of tragedy, the Kaunas ghetto. The photograph secretly taken by Kaunas ghetto inmate Zvi Kadushin (Hirsh (George) Kadish) is of two children. They will be murdered. As will be so many children, so many it seems pointless to write the number.
When we think about regret and repentance (if we are really thinking about it), do we need to note or be interested in the citizenship of these two souls?
Full article in Lithuanian here.
Joniškis White Synagogue Re-Opens
Re-Opening of White Synagogue in Joniškis
During celebrations of Joniškis’s own city day next week the restored White Synagogue there is to host a re-opening ceremony. The synagogue was built in 1823 and its external face combines features of the late classicism and romantic styles.
Restoration of the synagogue was financed by European Economic Area grants allocated by the Republic of Lithuania, the state budget and the Joniškis regional administration for a total of 389,358.35 euros.
Larger Lithuanian cities but even smaller towns often featured two synagogues, built at different periods. Few double-synagogue complexes are still standing in Lithuania, only in Joniškis, Kalvarija and Kėdainiai.
The Joniškis synagogue complex is located on the eastern side of the town square. Two adjacent brick buildings, the White and the Red Synagogues, form the complex. They were built at different periods and have different architecture and interiors. Their location by the central town square but set back among other buildings is fairly typical. They are very visible from side streets but looking from the main street they are blocked by other buildings. Both synagogues have smaller one-storey and two-storey buildings surrounding them.
Jews settled in Joniškis around the middle of the 18th century when charter rights were granted the cities of Joniškis and Šiauliai. Jewish communal life was intimately connected with religion and the synagogues. In 1797 the Jews of Joniškis received permission to build a synagogue and acquire a piece of land for a Jewish cemetery. A synagogue is first mentioned in 1823. According to the inventory of the Šiauliai economy conducted in 1825 and 1826, there were 49 Jewish families in Joniškis. In the mid-1800s there were 1,042 Jews living there. A second synagogue is first mentioned in 1865, and in 1866 there are records of a third synagogue and a Jewish inn. By 1897 the Jewish population had grown to 2,277. The third synagogue located at Vilniaus street no. 8 was turned into a store and residential building in 1965 and 1966.
Jewish Community Proposes Cultural Museum in Vilnius Ghetto
Vilnius, June 27, BNS—The Lithuanian Jewish Community is proposing the creation of a cultural museum in the former Vilnius ghetto. There are considerations to include an open-air section beyond a single building housing the museum using modern technology. The LJC presented these ideas to Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius Thursday.
Creative analyst Albinas Šimanauskas, one of the authors of the idea, said they hadn’t decided on a specific location for the museum yet, but there was a proposal to establish it near Rūdininkų square.
“Rūdininkų square, for example, where there is a statue commemorating Tsemakh Shabad, could be the site for a memorial to Righteous Gentiles. It’s a fine square which could host international events, concerts, thematic festivals… this would be a Vilnius Jewish cultural museum exhibiting historical events and cultural phenomena through living story-telling,” he told BNS.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said they are waiting for basic confirmation of the idea from the municipality and will decide on a location for the museum after that.
Lithuanian Jewish Community Now Member of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage
As of now, the Lithuanian Jewish Community is a member of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage, better known by the French acronym AEPJ. The AEPJ supports the preservation, appreciation and promotion of Jewish culture and heritage in Europe. The association is especially devoted to making Jewish cultural and heritage buildings and locations accessible to the public. To achieve that goal, the AEPJ conducts two main programs: the European Day of Jewish Culture and the European Jewish heritage tourism routes.
For more information, see here.