Wooden Synagogue in Alanta Renovated
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LJC, International Comminission and Olga Lengyel Institute Holding Holocaust Seminars for Teachers
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LJC Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky Speaks at Commemoration of Grosse
Aktion in Kaunas
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Šiauliai Opens Righteous Gentile Square at the Intersection of Vilniaus and Ežero Streets at Former Ghetto Gates
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"Symphony from Jerusalem of the North” Mark Day of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide in Presidential Courtyard
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The renovated synagogue in Žiežmariai will become a new cultural center. The first synagogue in appeared sometime between 1690 and 1696. In the 19th century there three synagogues. Not surprising, since the majority of the population were Jewish. This synagogue which has survived and has now been renovated stands in the southern part of town between Vilniaus and Žalgirio streets, with the Strėva river flowing from southeastward from there.
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The Lithuanian Post Office has issued a stamp commemorating 300 years since the birth of the Vilna Gaon
The Lithuanian Post Office has issued a stamp commemorating 300 years since the birth of the Vilna Gaon
with a face value of 0.81 euros, enough to mail letters abroad.
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Lithuania Marks 300th Anniversary of Birth of Vilna Gaon, 2020 Named Year of the Gaon and Litvak History.
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Most important events at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in 2018
Most important events at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in 2018
Revival of Jewish Scouting in Lithuania: The first new Litvak scouting camping trip with children from Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Panevėžys and Molėtai took place August 24 to 26.
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Jewish newspapers and advertisements from Vilnius in the period between the two world wars. Jews and other minorities were given equal rights in the reconstituted Lithuanian state. Yiddish thrived with many newspapers and books published in the language.
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Rudashevski Diary Now Accessible for the Visually Impaired

Rudashevski Diary Now Accessible for the Visually Impaired

The Vilnius ghetto diary of Yitzhak Rudashevski is now available as an audiobook in Lithuanian, read by Justinas Gapšys. According to the card catalog of the Lithuanian Library for the Blind in Vilnius, the insert in the CD includes a text in braille. The very limited-edition CD is available at 5 branches of the Lithuanian Library for the Blind around the country. The book itself is bilingual with excerpts from the diary in Yiddish starting from the back cover and moving inward. The audiobook does not contain a reading of the Yiddish section.

More information available in Lithuanian here.

David Irving Not Welcome in Lithuania

David Irving Not Welcome in Lithuania

Friends abroad have contacted the LJC regarding a visit planned by Holocaust revisionist David Irving to Lithuania, Poland and Latvia from September 1 to 9.

Irving is a notorious and convicted Holocaust denier, and the LJC would like to thank Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius for his firm statement against Irving’s visit. Linkevičius said he had asked the Lithuanian Migration Department to add the British resident to the list of personae non gratae for whom entry to Lithuania is barred.

Poland’s foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz said Poland would also bar Irving. ““Negation of the Holocaust is not allowed by Polish law, therefore he will not be welcome here in Poland if he wants to come and present his opinions,” the minister said Friday according to the Times of Israel and Reuters.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Condolences

Our deepest condolences on the death of long-time Lithuanian Jewish Community member Edit Ptašek to her son Danielius and loved ones.

Condolences

With sadness we report the death of Herzl Gurvich at 72. Our deepest condolences to his son Vulf Gurvich. The funeral is being held in Hadera in Israel.

Response to Statement by Genocide Center “On Accusations against Jonas Noreika”

Response to Statement by Genocide Center “On Accusations against Jonas Noreika”

A response to the statement of the Genocide and Resistance Research Centrer of Lithuania of March 27, 2019, “On Accusations against Jonas Noreika (General Vėtra)”

THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THE EVALUATION OF THE CRIMES OF THE NAZI AND SOVIET OCCUPATION REGIMES IN LITHUANIA

The Sub-commission for Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi Occupation Regime and the Holocaust

April 10, 2019

A RESPONSE TO THE STATEMENT OF THE GENOCIDE AND RESISTANCE RESEARCH CENTER OF LITHUANIA OF MARCH 27, 2019, “ON THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST JONAS NOREIKA (GENERAL VĖTRA)

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Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Visits South African Litvak Community

Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Visits South African Litvak Community

Photo: Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky visits the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky is currently visiting the largest Litvak community in exile, the South African Jewish community, from April 8 to 13.

Although the Community and chairwoman Kukliansky have long maintained close ties with Litvaks in the Republic of South Africa, this is the first official visit by the LJC.

In meetings with South African Litvaks scheduled for the morning of April 10 at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre, Kukliansky planned to discuss issues surrounding historical justice, restoration of Lithuanian citizenship and possible joint projects to celebrate 2020 as the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Jewish History in Lithuania.

On Historical Begging

On Historical Begging

by Segejus Kanovičius

Beggars ask for all sorts of things–money, drugs, clothes. The average passer-by looks at the beggar trying to determine if he really is in need, and often passers-by pretend they haven’t seen him.

There is a category of beggar in Lithuania which everyone seems to see, and everyone seems to agree they are truly unfortunate, but these beggars only receive donations a few times during the year. From the microphone. And they get wreaths. These are the murdered Jews of Lithuania.

They have been asking for donations for a long time but they don’t ask for much, just historical justice. And it’s not they who should be ashamed, but those who are reluctant to offer historical justice. And stingily keep it from Jews and the public. When the living [Holocaust survivors] remind them the historical truth must be restored, they, those who keep the historical truth away from our eyes, immediately turn wild, and call the beggars, the living and the dead together, agents of the Kremlin. Even though no one serves the Kremlin better than in this way, by attempting to portray a lie as the truth, through avoidance and by presenting public arguments which don’t stand up to any criticism.

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On Tragic Characters and Armchair Murderers

On Tragic Characters and Armchair Murderers

by Sergei Kanovich, poet and essayist

I began to write about General Vėtra and collect signatures regarding him with 16 other people who were not reactionary and did not seek to annoy Lithuania about four years ago. As I attempted then to warn high-ranking Lithuanian officials (as did the late Leonidas Donskis), the little songs sung by the Genocide Center and their rewriting of history hands all the aces over to the Dugins of the Kremlin.

Therefore the preamble to the article about reactionary figures who are annoying Lithuania is not acceptable to me, because the causal relationship is being confused, since nothing compromises Lithuania more than the anonymous finding issued by the Genocide Center which basically denies the Holocaust.

About the title: let’s imagine a title in which some Soviet NKVD or MGB agent who has compiled a list of people to be deported is portrayed in this way: “Comrade X Was Not an Executioner, but Siberia Wasn’t a Health Resort.” It doesn’t really work.

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Vilnius University Recovering Memory Diplomas Presented

Vilnius University Recovering Memory Diplomas Presented


Vilnius University is continuing its Recovering Memory program to remember and honor members of the university community, both students and staff, who were driven out of the university because of actions by totalitarian regimes and local collaborators and who were prevented from receiving an education, from carrying out academic work and from teaching.

On April 2 memory diplomas were issued to 85 former VU students and staff who were forced out of the university by the Nazis or Soviets.

This included 47 Jews who were removed from the university because of their ethnicity in 1941.

More in Lithuanian here.

Family of Icchokas Meras Sends Thank-You Note

Family of Icchokas Meras Sends Thank-You Note

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, the Jakovas Bunka welfare and support fund, the Lithuanian Jerusalem Vilnius Jewish Community and the Kelmė regional administration held a ceremony March 13 to unveil a monument to the Lithuanian writer and Litvak Icchokas Meras at Icchokas Meras Square in the town of Kelmė attended by local students and teachers, members of the local government, fans of Meras’s work and guests from Vilnius, Kaunas, Šiauliai and Panevėžys.

The LJC received a thank-you letter from Icchokas Meras’s family in Paris in April.

Statement Regarding Destruction of Noreika Plaque

Statement Regarding Destruction of Noreika Plaque

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, based on the principle that justice does not flow from injustice, favors constructive methods for the solution of problems and outstanding issues, and therefore does not condone the wanton and perhaps even criminal destruction of the plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika in Vilnius.

This act, perhaps criminal, does not solve the underlying problems concerning the recognition of historical truth and insuring the respect due Holocaust victims. The LJC completely rejects any connection to this event and will refrain from further comment upon it.

Lithuanian Attorney Smashes Noreika Plaque

Lithuanian Attorney Smashes Noreika Plaque

At just after 10:00 A.M. on the morning of Monday, April 8, Lithuanian attorney and human rights activist Stanislovas Tomas and a camera operator filmed Tomas smashing the marble plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika on the façade of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius using a sledgehammer. Tomas then turned himself in to police. The event was live-streamed on facebook. In his live-streamed video, Tomas said in English he was proud to fight Naziism and would smash any replacement plaque erected at the same site again.

Tomas reportedly earned a doctorate in law at the Sorbonne. He is reportedly not an attorney at bar in Lithuania, but has pursued cases against the Lithuanian state at the European Court of Human Rights and at the United Nations.

Noreika is considered by some a Lithuanian hero, but others claim he was directly involved in the pillage and murder of Lithuanian Jews during World War II. A recent case involving his legacy filed by Grant Gochin was dismissed by the Vilnius District Administrative Court who claimed Gochin had no standing. Gochin, a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, says upwards of one hundred of his relatives were murdered in part because of Noreika’s actions. In a posting in response to Tomas’s action on facebook, Gochin expressed surprise and said this wasn’t how he had envisioned the removal of the commemorative plaque.

Gochin, the LJC and numerous other parties have been seeking the removal of the Noreika plaque for many years, appealing to the courts, the Vilnius city council and others. It has been known for some time the plaque was erected illegally, without the required permission from city authorities.

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Victims of Children’s Aktion Remembered in Kaunas

Victims of Children’s Aktion Remembered in Kaunas

This year marked the 75th anniversary of the horrific Children’s Aktion [mass murder operation] in the Kaunas ghetto. This year as in past years the event was commemorated at Robertas Antinis’s statue Torah of the Children, with an expanded commemoration to mark the milestone date at the J. Gruodis Concert Hall.

Lithuanian actor Aleksandras Rubinovas read excerpts from eye-witnesses and historians about what happened on March 27, 1944: “The aktion commanded by oberfuehrer Fuchs and oberscharfuehrer Kittel, was conducted in order to transform the ghetto into a concentration camp where only those fit for work would be held; the children and elderly were supposed to be liquidated.”

A passage from the book “Išgelbėti bulvių maišuose” [Rescued in Potato Sacks], a collection of memoirs by survivors rescued as children from the Kaunas ghetto: “We saw a bus. There was loud music coming from it which was supposed to drown out the children’s screams, the begging of the mothers and the barking of the dogs. Drunken berserk Ukrainians wielding axes and crowbars hunted the children and elderly out of their hiding places. The atrocities ended at about sunset.

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Makabi Swimmers Prepare for European Maccabi Games in Budapest

Makabi Swimmers Prepare for European Maccabi Games in Budapest

The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club held a swimming competition with participants from Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys and Šiauliai at the best swimming pool in Kaunas–at the Girstutis Sports and Recreation Complex in Kaunas–March 31. Different age groups competed in 25-meter freestyle and 50-meter breaststroke competitions. Select members of the Makabi team also swam 100 meters freestyle.

Vilnius swimming teacher Valentina Timofejeva and her students Erika Filipavičiūtė, Lingailė Bugvilionytė and Anastasija Mamčenko won two matches in the women’s group. Kristupas Kvitko won twice in the men’s, followed by Timofej Devkš, Aleksej Fadeev, Adrian Milevskij, Kristijonas Šreiberis, Aaron Galpern, Leonidas Levinas, Albertas Savinčius and Gennady Kofman and others with single wins. Raja Verblinskaja also won one match.

In the women’s 100-meter freestyle in the 50-meter-long pool Erika Filipavičiūtė placed first, followed by Kamilė Ilijonskytė and Anastasija Mamčenko.

Among the winners in the men’s competitions, Andrej Fadeev came in first, followed by Robert Nikitin and Aleksej Fadeev. All were from Vilnius. The Vilnius team was commanded by Vilnius Makabi chairman Artiom Perepelica and trainer Valentina Timofejeva. Aušra Štreimikytė refereed the event.

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Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel Responds to Noreika Case Dismissal

Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel Responds to Noreika Case Dismissal

The court’s decision on March 27 in Vilnius to leave intact the “national hero” status of Noreika, the murderer of Jews in World War II, is not just a miserable decision but also negates all Lithuanian government efforts over the last 25 years to fight anti-Semitism and to build better relations with Israel, and represents the desire to rewrite the truth of history. There is no doubt the court judges knew perfectly well Noreika shot and murdered infants, children, women and elderly Jews, those unable to protect themselves, surrounded by his supporters. The murderers, many of the same type as Noreika, can now proclaim themselves “heroes.”

Any murderer of Jews who wants to receive the title “national hero of Lithuania” need only apply at a Lithuanian court.

This is not the way to build new bridges with Israel, world Jewry and the world at large.

Wake up.

Arie Ben-Ari, chairman
Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel

Sacred Texts: The Story of the Talmud

Sacred Texts: The Story of the Talmud

Time: 6:00 P.M., April 4, 2019
Location: atrium, 5th floor, Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library, Gedimino prospect no. 51, Vilnius

The Sacred Texts of the World lecture series by the Philosophy Faculty of Vilnius University continues with a seventh lecture on the Talmud by Dr. Aušra Pažėraitė.

She will attempt to answer the questions of who the Talmudic sages were/are, what the structure of the Talmud is and what the special features of Talmudic discourse consist of.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Condolences

Panevėžys Jewish Community member Vanda Klug has passed away. Our deepest condolences to her son and grandchildren on the loss of their beloved mother and grandmother.

Amendments to Constitution Could Discriminate against Litvaks

Amendments to Constitution Could Discriminate against Litvaks

A group of Lithuanian parliamentarians initiated draft amendments to the Lithuanian constitution on September 20, 2018, under which a natural-born citizen of the Republic of Lithuania who acquires citizenship of another country which meets the criteria of European and trans-Atlantic integration to be defined in law does not lose Lithuanian citizenship.

Adoption of the amendments would take place in May during the upcoming referendum if voters approve of the measure for dual citizenship, with the constitutional amendments coming into effect in 2020, which the Lithuanian parliament has named the Year of the Vilna Gaon and the Year of Litvak History.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is concerned the privilege of acquiring dual citizenship according to geographical location reflected in the draft legislation contains indirect discrimination against citizens of countries which might not be included in the criteria for European and trans-Atlantic integrations, countries such as South Africa, Australia, Israel, Argentina and others.

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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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