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Children’s Safety Questioned after Swastika Appears at LJC

Children’s Safety Questioned after Swastika Appears at LJC

Children’s events, workshops, clubs and so forth are held often at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, as are Hebrew lessons, chess matches and Jewish holiday events attended by children. The safety of children attending events at the LJC is being called into question by the appearance of a swastika just meters from the front door. Its appearance coincided with the Peoples Fair inside, where children were preparing to give a concert. The goal of the Peoples Fair is to bring together the ethnic minority communities who call Lithuania home.

While the children were getting ready for the concert upstairs, down at the Bagel Shop Café a group of 43 elderly religious Jews from Jerusalem were holding prayers and waiting for breakfast when the swastika appeared, even closer to the front door of the kosher food outlet.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliaksy said there should actually be reverse discrimination for the Lithuanian Jewish Community considering how small it is now following the Holocaust.

No other state in Europe fails to provide protection and security for its Jewish community.

Happy Birthday to Maja Moskvina

Happy Birthday to Maja Moskvina

Birthday greetings to long-time volunteer doctor at the LJC’s Social Department Maja Moskovina. We love and respect our doctor with her positive and comforting manner, smile and professional explanations to clients on medicine and infirmities.

May you live to 120! Mazl tov!

Amehaye Children’s Summer Day Camp

Amehaye Children’s Summer Day Camp

Children aged 6 to 12 are invited to attend the 2019 Amehaye children’s summer day camp. Parents with younger children aged at least 4 can also contact the organizers for their children to attend. This year the camp will be held at the scenic Karvys mansion estate next to Lake Karvys in the Vilnius region from July 1 to 12. Please contact Sofja at sofja@lzb.lt or by telephone at +370 601 46656 for more information on how to register before June 14. An electronic registration form is available in Lithuanian here.

Creative Activity

Creative Activity

The Ilan and Dubi Clubs of the Lithuanian Jewish Community are holding a creative activity at the Artistic Village traditional arts and crafts center in the Bebrusai village in the Molėtai region from 10:45 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. on Sunday, May 26. Registration is open till May 24. Transportation from the Community to the village and back will be provided. Call Sofja at +370 601 46656 or send an email to sofja@lzb.lt

Ilan Club Invites Children to Another Animation Workshop

Ilan Club Invites Children to Another Animation Workshop

The Ilan Club invites children to another animation workshop this Sunday, May 12, at 1:30 P.M., at the Ilan Club on the second floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.

Registration is required. Send an email to sofja@lzb.lt or call 8 601 46656

We will create scenes for an animated film. We will draw, move and film and use this material to create animated characters. The children themselves will be the main characters in the cartoon.

Hebrew and English Summer Day Camp for Children

Hebrew and English Summer Day Camp for Children

The Hebrew and English summer day camp in Vilnius is a summer camp for younger children where they will receive fun lessons and get a chance to use their knowledge of the Hebrew and English languages, to play with people their own age and dive into the wonderful and enthralling world of learning.

It is for children aged 6 to 11. The camp will run from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. from June 10 to 14.

Children will engage in four academic hours of Hebrew and English activities in the morning. According to age and level of proficiency, language group activities will work on all four aspects of language acquisition: listening, reading, writing and speaking.

Activities and excursions in the afternoon are oriented towards fostering creativity and learning about the social and cultural environment. Children will be guided by camp leaders at the creative workshops in carrying out creative tasks.

Snacks, lunch and excursions are included in the cost for the camp.

For more information and to register, contact Ruth at +37068689530.

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Happy Birthday to Eta Gurvičiūtė

Happy Birthday to Eta Gurvičiūtė

Eta Gurvičiūtė is a long-time member of the Community and worked at the LJC’s Medical Consultation Center for many years.

Dear Eta, the Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes you good health and all the warmth you have given to others. We always remember you and sincerely congratulate you on your birthday. May the coming years bring you happiness, strong health and fun.

Mazl tov! May you live to 120!

The World of Animation at the Ilan Club

The World of Animation at the Ilan Club

Probably all of us wanted to learn how to make animated cartoons in our childhood. This dream came true at the Ilan Club with married couple Jurijus and Milana Rozovskis. On Sunday, April 28, children were invited to make a cartoon with them. Ilan Club was transformed into a real animation studio.

The group decided to animate the classic Russian fairytale Turnip (репа) well known in Lithuanian translation (Ropė). They added to the story with new characters and they themselves became protagonists in the tale.

Milana and Jurijus told and showed the children how make the animation characters move and have facial expressions. The children enthusiastically listened, drew, cut out, painted and posed for the animated film.

Milana answered a few questions for us as well:

Milana, was this activity your idea?

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World of Balloons a Great Hit at Ilan Club

World of Balloons a Great Hit at Ilan Club

Ilan Club director Sofja and several assistants welcomed over 20 children aged from about 3 to 8 to a balloon workshop Sunday, March 31. Children were shown how to blow up long skinny balloons using a hand-pump, after which the adults leading the activity tied them off and showed the children how to shape them into various forms, including dogs, swords and crowns. Stickers were made available to decorate the balloons. Following the activity the children were treated to juice and snacks.

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Thank You!

Thank You!

We send a great big THANK YOU to Mr. Tadas who responded to our call for help and not only gave but brought to our door a washing machine needed so much by one of our families.

The washing machine is already operational and successful in its new home. Mrs. Yelena and her children who received the gift send their warmest wishes and greatest gratitude. Thank you, Tadas, from the entire community and from the Social Programs Department, and on behalf of the family. Your good deed will remain in our minds for long to come.

Happy Birthday to Riva Špiz

On March 20 long-time LJC member Riva Špiz celebrated her 95th birthday. She is an active participant in the Day Club as well as a great mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and war veteran. We send our warm wishes and sincere congratulations to Riva, and wish her happiness, strong health, love and long life. May you live to 120! Mazl tov!

Family Needs Help

Family Needs Help

Dear reader,

A single mother raising four children needs help. The washing machine recently broke down and now the mother is doing the washing by hand for four children. Due to illness the mother cannot work right now, and one of the children is disabled. She is not able to buy a washing machine on her own right now. If you or someone you know can help, the family needs a used or new washing machine, or money to buy one. Please contact the director of Family Support in the Social Programs Department of the Lithuanian Jewish Community by telephone at 8 652 13 146 or email at rasheles@sc.lzb.lt

Thank you.

Results of First Parenting Course

Results of First Parenting Course

The first series of parenting skills classes put on by the Social Programs Department of the Lithuanian Jewish Community has ended. The classes were held for three months and included practical tasks as well as theory with activities led by a specialist. Activities initiator and organizer Rashele Šeraitė said the parents were enthusiastic students, rarely missed a class, always had their homework done, openly shared their problems with the group and applied what they learned in real life, in their own families.

This time parents of teenagers were selected as the target group. These parents face perhaps the greatest challenges, from maintaining good relationships to teenage rebellion and the search for independence. Although it wasn’t easy for the parents, during group meetings they cheerfully shared how they had applied their new knowledge and how relationships in the family changed for the better, with new rituals, new rules and openness at home. There was more sincere discussion, confidence and respect within the family, they reported. Parents said their children had started finally to listen to them, and parents had also learned how to relate to their children as equals.

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Maushe Segal, the Last Jew of Lithuanian Kalvarija

Maushe Segal, the Last Jew of Lithuanian Kalvarija

Since 2005 we have marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day (officially “International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust” as designated by the United Nations) and have remembered the once-large Lithuanian Jewish community 78 years ago. There have been no Jews left in the shtetlakh for a long time now, although the Jewish legacy endures in the form of the old towns and synagogues they built, and the cemeteries and mass grave sites. We spoke with Maushe Segal (Maušius Segalis), the last Jew of the town of Kalvarija in western Lithuania, about his life and what Holocaust Remembrance Day means to him.


Maushe with grandson at the Kalvarija synagogue. Photo: Milda Rūkaitė

Segal: It’s important to me to remember, because this is a day commemorating the once-large community now dead. For many years we Jews gathered at the cemetery on September 1, since that’s the day all of the Jews of Marijampolė [Staropol] were murdered. That was before, now there are no Jews left in Kalvarija or Marijampolė.

What do you remember seeing as a child, or did your mother tell you?

They took my father and me to be shot on September 1, 1941. They shot him, but my mother grabbed me, I was small, from the pit in Marijampolė after the shooting.

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Golden Age Camp for Seniors

Golden Age Camp for Seniors

Senior clients of the Social Programs Department of the Lithuanian Jewish Community spent December 13 to 17 at the Gold Age Camp by the sea in Pärnu, Estonia. The seniors spent several wonderful days at the Tervis Medical Spa where they underwent health procedures, did morning exercises, walked in the fresh air, were consulted by experienced doctors, took part in educational activities, attended lecture/discussions with interesting lecturers, did art therapy and discussed their experiences with members of the delegation. They also played a game aimed at improving memory. Evening programs included Israeli dance, watching films, a talent show, and a play performed by actors from the Youth Theater in Tallinn. They also celebrated Sabbath.

The Golden Age Camp is held annually with seniors from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia attending.

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Condolences

With great sadness we report the death of Šlioma Šperling on December 19. He was born in 1940. Our deepest condolences to the Community’s long-time volunteer doctor Liusia Šperling on the death of her husband, and to their daughter.