The Ilan Club of the Lithuanian Jewish Community invites children to attend a paper-puppet theater workshop at 1:00 P.M. on December 16 on the second floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. For more information contact Sofja at sofja@lzb.lt or call +370 672 57540.
Dear readers,
Thank you to everyone who donated to make sure a family in need was able to buy a washing machine much needed for their three young children! You’ve stepped up once again and made a real difference! The Family Services Department of the Social Programs Department of the Lithuanian Jewish Community received a hand-written thank-you note from the mother expressing her deep gratitude to all who came to their aid in time of need.
We are happy to announce that on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah the first meeting of parents took place in the Parenting Skills Program being conducted by the Social Programs Department of the Lithuanian Jewish Community under the program to support Jewish families. Many of the parents of teenagers following the meeting expressed relief that there is advice available for solving their problems in child-rearing.
The group for practicing parenting skills is based on the ideas of the authors of individual psychology. The founder of individual psychology was Alfred Adler (1870-1937). Parents in the LJC program meet and work in a group, share their experience, check that against theoretical advice for raising children and look for common answers to their problems.
Due to the large interest expressed by parents in the program, next year the LJC Social Programs Department is planning to offer a parenting skills program for parents raising children of different ages.
Happy Hanukkah from the Social Programs Department!
The Dubi Mishpokha, Dubi and Ilan Clubs of the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite children and parents to a Hanukkah celebration at 12 noon on December 2, 2018, at the Future Live room located at Upės street no. 2 in Vilnius.
Please register by 11:30 A.M. on November 30 by sending an email to sofja@lzb.lt or by calling Sofja at 867257450, Alina at 869522959 or Margarita at 861800577.
See you there!
This Hanukkah marks the 30th birthday of the restoration of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. The LJC will celebrate Hanukkah on December 9 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Vilnius with a concert by Gefilte Drive from Israel. Tickets cost 15 euros. For more information and to register, call 467881514 or stop by the LJC at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. Students can get a discount by calling Amit at 869227326 and senior citizens who are clients of the LJC’s Social Programs Department can as well by calling Žana at 867881514.
We hope to see you there!
The Ilan Club invites members and interested parties to attend a workshop on shadow theater at 1:00 P.M. on November 25. Those interested should send an email to sofja@lzb.lt or call 867257540.
The goal of the workshop is to create a short play based on traditional Jewish tales. The play will be expressed in light and shadow and without words. The director believes the lack of verbal content will enhance perception of the environment and people around us, thus increasing empathy and fostering new kinds of creativity. Participants at the workshop will discuss the play and will make scenography and shadow puppets with help from artists. Together with the director and actors, participants will explore different ways for characters to express themselves without using words.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community has received a thank-you letter from Liudmila Uvanova personally thanking Social Department Family Support coordinator Rašelė Šeraitė. Liudmila Uvanova said Rašelė puts her soul into her work and is sweet. polite, attentive and open-hearted. She said all the clients are lucky to have such a person on their side, and also thanked the Lithuanian Jewish Community for real help to people in need.
Dear readers,
A family with 3 children, clients of the LJC Social Department, recently had their washing machine break down, which they need very much, especially since one of the children is only three-years-old.
An anonymous donor has stepped forward for the family to buy a new washing machine. Thank you so much for the rapid response! The family still has a number of needs and if you can help, please contact family support coordinator Rashele by telephone at 8 652 13 146 or by email at rasheles@sc.lzb.lt
Thank you!
Feiga Koganskienė passed away October 23, 2018. She was born in 1926. For many years she served as deputy chairwoman for the Kaunas Jewish Community and was responsible for social needs of the community. She was also the director of the Community’s Yiddish Club and spoke the language fluently. Our deepest condolences to her many friends and relatives.
Dear readers,
A family with 3 children, clients of the LJC Social Department, recently had their washing machine break down, which they need very much, especially since one of the children is only three-years-old.
If you are able to donate a used or new washing machine, please contact family support coordinator Rashele at 8 652 13 146 or by email at rasheles@sc.lzb.lt
We thank you for your consideration.
The children’s clubs of the Lithuanian Jewish Community will hold a ceremony September 16 to open the new fall season.
Children and parents are invited to attend the Dubi -Mishpakha Club for children aged one-and-a-half to four at 10:30 A.M. on September 16 in the Dubi Club on the first floor.
The ceremony for the Dubi Club, for children aged 4 to 6, and the Ilan CLub, for children aged 7 to 12, will be held at 2:00 P.M. on the third floor.
The program includes games, a lottery, Rosh Hashanah treats and more and will be directed by our great team of counselors.
For more information contact Sofja at +370 672 57540 or sofja@lzb.lt
Dear Community members,
Today we ask for your help for a single mother raising four children, a client of the LJC Social Programs Department.
The family needs a computer for the children to do schoolwork. They also have no television and go to the neighbors’ to watch news. They have a washing machine which they have taken good care of, but it is already 13 years old. The mother is worried it will break down any moment and she doesn’t know where to wash her children’s clothes and bedding if it does.
The family lives in an old house which lacks utilities and infrastructure.
If you or someone you know can help this family by donating a used or new computer, television or washing machine, please contact Rashele, program coordinator for the Family Support Program of the LJC’s Social Programs Department, by telephone at 8 652 13 146 or by email at asheles@sc.lzb.lt
We are extraordinarily grateful for your active support. No good work goes unnoticed!
In July the Lithuanian Jewish Community sponsored a day camp for members’ children aged 5 to 12. As every year, this year’s camp was held at a beautiful natural location, the Karvys manor in Paežeriai village in the Vilnius region.
Parents and children alike look forward to the camp and the experience of nature, relaxing by a lake and playing with friends. The day camp includes educational activities, walks and breakfast, lunch and dinner. Buses take the children to the camp in the morning and return them home in the evening. The day camps were held from July 16 to 27 this year. This year 49 children attended, from Lithuania, Israel, Russia, Norway, the USA and Great Britain. Children learned songs and Israeli dance, performed skits and learned to bake challa bread for Sabbath. The educational program included discussions about Jewish traditions, art, swimming, athletics and other activities.
Camp counselors took the campers to visit dog trainers and to meet with scouts in Labanoras Forest. The scouts talked about what it means to be a scout and everyone had a nice picnic by the lake.
Lithuania’s Russian Drama Theater actress Yuliana Volodko created a play with the children called Noah’s Ship which the children performed for parents at the closing ceremony. The play was followed by a Sabbath celebration with children and parents, attended by about 90 people in total. The closing ceremony featured cake and fireworks, and children made wishes and then released helium balloons.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky thanks all the organizers, volunteers and guests who made this year’s Amehaye such a success, and also thanks the company Nikadita, the Bagel Shop Café and the Sluoksniai Café for their support and help.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites children aged 5-10 to the Amehaye 2018 summer camp at the Karvys manor estate in Paežeriai village in the Maišiagala aldermanship in the Vilnius region from July 16 to 27. The program includes educational activities and walks. Facilities will be provided for naps for the younger children and breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served daily.
Cost for one child is 160 euros, or to register two children at once 150 euros apiece. The cost for one week is 80 euros. Children in the LJC social program receive a subsidy. Registration is open till July 10.
Electronic registration form here.
For more information and to register, contact Sofja Sirutienė by email at sofja@lzb.lt or call +37067257540, or contact Žana Skudovičienė at zanas@sc.lzb.lt or call +37067881514.
Before the Holocaust there were huge groups of Jewish boy and girl scouts throughout Lithuania. Some groups were religious, others Zionist, others secular. The one thing they all had in common was having fun outdoors, learning together the basic skills and fostering a shared Jewish identity.
Now there are plans to revive the Jewish scouting movement in Lithuania, which now has a mostly aging population of just under 3,500 Jews.
President of the International Forum of Jewish Scouts (IFJS) and member of the board of Éclaireuses éclaireurs israélites de France (EEIF) Alain Silberstein arrived in Vilnius to discuss French cooperation in the Litvak revival with Lithuanian Jewish Community leaders.
Parents of children aged 12 to 17 were invited to attend a discussion at the Lithuanian Jewish Community Wednesday. In an underwhleming show of support, several scouting-age Jewish girls, an interested member of the Jewish community in Vilnius and a handful of others came and heard a presentation by president Alain Silberstein and LJC executive director Renaldas Vaisbrodas.
by Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community
Jews as with any people are not homogenous. The history of Jews in Lithuania stretches back almost 700 years and during that time all sorts of things happened, rises and declines, and the effects of the Holocaust were especially painful in Lithuania, and following the attempt at physical annihilation the Soviet occupation attempted to destroy the Jewish people spiritually.
People often ask me, Jews are so united, why is it different in Lithuania? It’s not different in Lithuania, divisions exist in secular and religious Jewish communities in Israel as well as the rest of the world. The wealth of the Jewish people is our diversity, our knowledge, our faith and our ability to remain Jews.
I am proud of my people. Unfortunately, all sorts of things go on inside the Jewish community. It’s sad, but we have only partially passed our “trial by money.” On the one hand, we have the well-functioning Goodwill Foundation, which only adopts decisions by consensus and allocates compensation for Jewish communal/religious properties, and which has been audited for many years now by the Office of State Auditor, the highest auditing institution, and has always received a glowing review. On the other hand, we have over-ambitious community members who believe they can do everything the best, in the most transparent manner and preferably all by themselves. They claim the opinion of the majority is merely a simulation of democracy.
In Lithuania, as in the world, volunteer leaders lead the Jewish communities. This post is for me first of all an honor and a pleasure. Before I assumed responsibility, I learned much from the earlier chairmen, Grigory Kanovitch and Dr. Simon Alperovitch. Much of what is needed for this work I learned from active Community members and intellectuals attorney professor Jurijus Bluvšteinas, Josif Levinson and Maša Grodnikienė.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community will hold its annual reporting conference May 28, 2018, during which annual financial and activity reports will be considered.
The conference is the highest governance body of the LJC convoked and organized once per year by the LJC board.
Under LJC rergulations only real members of the LJC participate at the conference, meaning association members which are corporate entities and whose activities are connected with Jewish culture, education, religion, tradition, learning, sports and so on. All the regional Jewish communities are LJC members.
The LJC was especially active in 2017 in the areas of social welfare, culture and Jewish heritage. We are happy that hundreds of Jewish senior citizens, community members in difficult financial situations and young families across Lithuania received home care services, aid in acquiring household and hygiene items, help in preparing for school and appropriate heating during winter. More than 400 people made use of aid provided by the Community for acquiring food and medicine.
The second week in May was especially busy and event-filled this year at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. May 8 and 9 saw different Victory/VE Day celebrations, with veterans and members laying wreaths at the Sudervės road Jewish cemetery and at the military cemetery in Vilnius. Veterans and LJC members were invited to a special concert May 10 with a performance by the Fayerlakh ensemble in Yiddish. LJC executive director Renaldas Vaisbrodas gave a moving speech and so did Lijana Jagniatinskytė, granddaughter of the veteran Levas Jagniatinskis, who was unable to attend. Other children and grandchildren of deceased veterans also attended.
The Sunday lecture series on May 13 was a lesson in Gaucher’s diseases, an inherited condition which affects Ashkenazi Jews disproportionately. A free screening for the disease was offered following the lecture.
The LJC youth clubs that same weekend took children to the theater and shot bows and arrows under expert supervision at Vingis Park in Vilnius.
A lecture on Gaucher’s disease.
Gaucher disease is an inherited disease which causes specific organs and tissues to accrete specific substances. Compared to the general population, Ashkenazi Jews have a much higher incidence of Gaucher’s.
This is a unique opportunity to learn more about this disease from medical experts and to take a free blood screening.
Come at 1:00 P.M. on Sunday, May 13, 2018, to office number 306 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius. For further information please call 8 678 81514
Long-standing member of the LJC Eta Gurvičiūtė, an especially active member of the community who worked at our Ezra medical consultation center, turned 98 today. We wish her a happy birthday and may she live to 220!