Lithuanian Jewish Community youth programs coordinator and camp programs director Pavel Gulyakov reported the only negative at the camp this year was some not-so-great weather, it rained, preventing the children from visiting beautiful Lake Asveja at times. The camp went international this year with children from Jewish communities in all three Baltic states.
Happy birthday, Jeni Vilen!
We all wish you endless health, a playful spirit and smiles from all your friends and family on the happy occasion of your birthday!
Mazl tov! May you live to 120!
Even your small donation today can help the Lithuanian Jewish Community achieve great things tomorrow.
The Lithuanian Jewish community has roots going back 700 years. Only a remnant survived the Holocaust. Although the current community is small, we are extremely active and are working hard to foster Jewish identity, maintain traditions and culture, commemorate Holocaust victims, provide social services to our members and promote tolerance in society.
We invite you to contribute to reviving at least a small portion of the legendary Jerusalem of Lithuania. Perform your mitzvah (good deed) today!
The Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes member Dr. Eva Ščupak a happy 75th birthday! Eva is a neuropathologist who has devoted so much of her time to doing volunteer work at the Community. We wish you great health and long and peaceful life! Joy and success to you, your children and your grandchildren! Mazl tov! May you live to 120!
With deep sadness we announce the death on August 29 of Rachilė Gandelsonienė. She was born July 4, 1930, and was for many years a member of the Vilnius Jewish Community and our volunteer doctor who worked and sacrificed for the good of the community.
On August 14 the Jewish Family Service of the Lithuanian Jewish Community hosted a wonderful outing for children. The Forum Cinema of Vilnius has been showing different animated films for children with discounted prices for groups of children. The Jewish Family Service decided to make use of the opportunity and Sunday morning parents and children attended a showing of the Little Prince. Although it is an animated film based on moral values for children, the parents were also able to take some real insights away from the experience. Twenty-eight program participants took part and the program coordinator said it was a great success.
“This is a way to spend some very meaningful time and it also compels thinking and discussing the film viewed,” one mother who took part said.
The program coordinator plans more such trips to movies, selected by hand and heart.
A delegation from the Jewish Heritage Trip to Lithuania led by Peggy Mosinger Freedman visited the Lithuanian Jewish Community July 1. The organization supports the “Food to Homes” program for the elderly conducted by the LJC Social Center. Members of the group are not infrequent visitors to Lithuania, where they always take a keen interest in Jewish life. This time the delegation included Canadian Alex Bronsteter, who said he can make the trip to the land of his roots now that he retired. He wants to bring his children to Kaunas next year as well. His mother survived the Kaunas ghetto, but most of her relatives were murdered.
With sadness and our deepest condolences to those who survive him, we announce that Mema Epštein died on July 2. He was born May 16, 1938 and was a member of the LJC Social Club.
May he live in health to 120!
Levas Jagniatinskis and his family were active participants in the reestablishment of the Lithuanian and Vilnius Jewish Communities around the time of Lithuanian independence from the Soviet Union. In 1992 he was elected to the Community’s Council of World War II Veterans and worked with recompense, putting finances in order and organizing events with the veteran’s council and the executive board of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Those first years were financially hard for the Community, and so he donated his car three times per week winter and summer, parking it in the courtyard of the LJC for use by the Community. He was very active in preparing documents for the Claims Conference and tried to find greater funding for the Community. His son was one of the organizers of the Community’s union of scholars, Vilnor, and later became its director. When he left, the union stopped operating. The family’s third generation, his granddaughters, began attending children’s events put on by the Community, and now, in adulthood, continue their activities, trying to mitigate the losses from the Holocaust.
With sadness we announce Yuri Alesin, a member of the LJC Social Center, passed away June 22. He was born on April 26, 1930.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community send our deepest condolences to his widow, Frida Alesin, his son Ernestas and his grandchildren and many friends and relatives.
The Dubi Club invites kids to the summer day camp!
A day camp for children aged 3-and-a-half to 7 will be held at the naturally scenic recreation complex Viva Green Resort.
Camp program:
Educational activities with experienced teachers, excursions, nap-time for the younger kids, and three meals a day.
The day camp will be held from July 18 to 29, 2016.
Cost is 130 euros per child, or 110 per child for two children.
Registration is open until July 8.
An exhibition of works by students in Raimundas Savickas’s art classes held at the Lithuanian Jewish Community opened June 16 on the third floor. Friends and family congratulated the students with flower arrangements. Lithuanian Jewish Community deputy chairwoman Maša Grodnikienė opened the exhibit, saying: “Thanks to the accomplished teacher Raimundas Savickas, many new talents have blossomed. Thanks to him, the talent and desire to paint was discovered by elderly people, opening up a new outlook on life, and creativity is the key to longevity. All the new artists have become friends, connected by a newly discovered world, and life has become significantly more interesting, while your spiritual lives have been enriched.”
The Abi Men Zet Zikh and the Social Club of the LJC invite members to meet on the eve of Shavuot at 1:00 P.M. on Thursday, June 9, on the third floor of the LJC. Rabbi Shimshon Izakson will talk about the rise of King David and there will be traditional Shavuot dishes.
Registration is required. Please contact Žana Skudovičienė by telephone at 867881514 between 10:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. during the work week.
Dear Parents,
Ensure your children’s place at the Dubingiai recreational site!
Camp sessions and dates:
Dear parents,
You are invited to register for the Olameinu Mishpakha Baltic Camp for Young Families 2016 to be held June 21 to 26 in Dubingiai, Lithuania. The camp is intended for Jewish families with children 12 and under.
There will be a packed program of activities for the parents as well as the children, including discussion of current events, interesting lessons and lectures, unforgettable evenings and recreation for the entire family surrounded by friends.
Registration forms are available here.
Please register quickly because the number of places is extremely limited.
Matzo for Passover being distributed at the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s Social Center.
Happy birthday to Simas Levinas on his 70th birthday! Simas has been and is both an initiator and one of the most active members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community from its modern inception and earlier was the first principal and intellectual leader of the Sholem Aleichem school, among other things. He spoke forcefully and clearly for the creation of that school. Now that the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium is one of the best rated in Lithuania, no one questions the need for a Jewish school anymore. Currently Simas is doing very important work as both the head of the LJC’s Social Center and as the chairman of the Jewish Religious Community. Always bright, cultured, intelligent and professional, Simas greets everyone with a smile and is ready to talk to everyone without anger or rancor. He is also very moral man, and these qualities make him stand out in any crowd.
Happy Birthday, Simas. Allow us to wish you even more success and that good health would follow you always. Cheerfulness makes us all look younger than our years. You have chosen a meaningful and long path and you have lit up the hearts of those around you with love. Please accept our small thanks today and may your winning smile never fade from your face. Many happy and beautiful days lie ahead. The contented and generous heart never grows old and gray! May you live to at least 120!
Mazl tov!
Many came to give warm wishes and presents to Simas on this milestone occasion. For snapshots from the celebration, click here.
Dear members of the Vilnius Jewish Community,
Greetings on the upcoming holiday of Passover!
We are distributing matzo to VJC members again this year free of charge. Please pick up your matzo package from 10:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. on workdays from April 4 to April 11 at room no. 201 at the Lithuanian Jewish Community.
Each member is to receive one 1 kilogram package. You must provide identification or a VJC member’s card to receive the package.
Members of the Social Club are receiving matzo separately from 11:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. in the computer room on the first floor from April 4 to 15.
This is also a good time for those who need to pay their membership dues to do so, from 9:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. in room 209, or by transferring funds to the Vilnius Jewish Community, institutional code 291199610, bank account LT137044060000908075, bank code 70440. Please indicate for whom the membership fees are being paid.
This isn’t the first time LJC Youth Programs coordinator Pavelas Guliakovas has organized a holiday celebration. This year he decided there should be costume play based on excerpts from the Book of Esther with all the heroes and villains: the Persian king, Haman, Esther and all the others. But there were also samurai, cowboys, doctors and princesses. The entire play was performed in rhyme. During the breaks between acts, the children rushed off to change masks, apply glitter and use it as coloring, then came back to the performance space. Dancers from the Fayerlakh ensemble danced. All of the children and several of the parents as well had grown up attending the small children’s club Dubi, and Dubi, Dubi Mishpakha and Ilan Club children aged 2 to 12 took part in the Purim celebration. Samuel Gar, a professional teacher of Jewish dance, taught dances to the children. Their performance was amazing and the celebration lasted for about two hours.
The Gesher Club of the Lithuanian Jewish Community invited members and friends to a ceremony to end the Sabbath, havdalah, on Saturday, February 13. Many community members attended a Gesher evening for the first time. The decorations, beautifully set tables and pleasant music set the mood for celebration. Organizer of the event and LJC program coordinator Žana Skudovičienė greeted each guest individually with a smile. Skudovičienė, who took over administration of the Gesher Club to fill the gap left by Junona Berznitski’s departure as administrator, has many years of experience doing organizational work.
Vilnius Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yatom led the havdalah ceremony. He spoke about the significance of the ceremony and of maintaining tradition. “The word havdalah, it’s verbatim translation from Hebrew means to separate or usher out. This is the meaning of this brief but beautiful symbolic ritual of Judaism which ends the Sabbath, because havdalah separates the Sabbath from other days, in other words, it separates the holy day from daily life. The ceremony is not mandatory according to the Torah. According to the Talmud, Sabbath celebration began in the fourth or fifth century before the Common Era. The havdalah ceremony evolved as the conclusion of the Sabbath to prepare the individual for the coming work week, and the havdalah ceremonies are for our soul, to provide another opportunity to become focused together before the beginning of the week, to gather strength and to ask for G_d’s blessing. According to Judaic tradition, havdalah begins at dusk when you can see at least three stars in the sky. After darkness falls, the havdalah candle is lit.”