By Robert R. Singer
This article originally published in Jerusalem Post December 20, 2018
As ISIS and Al-Qaida dominated headlines surrounding the omnipotent threat of global jihad in recent years, the international community’s memory appears to have dulled to the dangers of one of the most lethal terrorist organizations in history: Hezbollah, responsible for the large-scale murders of civilians, soldiers, and diplomats across the globe over the course of a 36-year reign of terror.
I sincerely thank you for the meaningful time we have spent together, for all different kinds of support, for your friendship and cooperation.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes you and yours a beautiful holiday season!
Dear friends,
We sincerely thank you for your warm communication and cooperation and greet you on the occasion of the beautiful winter holidays, hoping their special mood will awake the child within you, the child’s ability to take joy and find wonder in simple things, to have fun, to believe in miracles and to put every cell of the body into the task at hand. We wish you wonder, color and many pleasant surprises in the daily routine! We wish you a white Christmas and a successful new year!
Kaunas Jewish Community
The Panevėžys Jewish Community opened an exhibit of works by famous 19th century Litvak sculptor Mark (Mordechai) Antokolski to mark the 175th anniversary of his death at the Panevėžys Jewish Community headquarters in cooperation with the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum.
Antokolski was born in the Antakalnis neighborhood in Vilnius in 1843 to a religious Jewish family. From childhood he liked to draw and he learned to carve wood. He matriculated at the St. Petersburg Art Academy in Russia in 1862, was graduated in 1871 and thereafter embarked on a series of works on Jewish and other themes. His bas-relief “Jewish Tailor” won a silver medal. His works were much heralded in artistic and cultural circles in St. Petersburg.
His works reflect a variety of subjects, including scenes from antiquity and Christian, historical and ethnic themes. The sculptor passed away in 1902 and is buried in St. Petersburg. A small street in the Vilnius Old Town was named in his honor following his death.
The Panevėžys Jewish cemetery marked its 300th anniversary this December 18. It opened on the outskirts of the city back in the 18th century, on a plot of land bought by Jews who were moving to Lithuania. People of all different walks of life were buried there, including rabbis, scholars, businesspeople and farmers. During World War I Jewish volunteer soldiers who fought for Lithuanian independence against the Kaiser’s Germany were laid to rest there.
The cemetery expanded in the 19th and early 20th century. It is now listed on the Lithuanian cultural heritage registry as an historic monument and enjoys the protection of the state. Jewish burials ceased after World War II because there were so few Jews left in the city. The cemetery was closed in 1955. In 1966 city officials liquidated the cemetery and created a city park on the site. A fountain was placed in the middle of the cemetery. Headstones were taken and used for construction in Panevėžys, for building fences in the city center and also incorporated into a decorative wall at the J. Miltinis Drama Theater. Way back in 1980 there were attempts to correct the damage done; the fountain was moved to Senvagė leaving an open pit in the cemetery. The newly recreated Panevėžys Jewish Community and friends from Israel, the USA, South Africa and other countries called for fixing the damage in 1991, and in 2003 they all supported Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman’s idea to commemorate the dead with a statue. The architect Vytautas Klimavičius designed the ensemble and Panevėžys sculptor Vytautas Tallat-Kelpša made the statue which stands there today, “Sad Jewish Mother,” unveiled in 2009.
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.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community sincerely congratulates Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas on his selection as Lithuania’s new minister of culture.
Dr. Kvietkauskas will be the first member of the Lithuanian Government to speak Yiddish in many years. Likely the last was Jewish affairs minister Jokūbas Vygodskis who left the post when the interwar Republic of Lithuania annulled official Jewish autonomy in the country.
Kvietkauskas has translated a number of Yiddish works into Lithuanian. After completing Lithuanian literature and language studies at Vilnius University, he studied at Oxford’s Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He also acquired skills in Yiddish from Fania Brancovskaja, the Jewish partisan and Vilnius ghetto inmate.
At the behest of the Lithuanian Jewish Community an international Heritage Advisory Group consisting of renowned global experts on Jewish heritage was formed, including:
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, advisor to the director and senior curator of main exhibits at the POLIN Polish Jewish History Museum; Assumpció Hosta, general secretary of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ); Sergey Kanovich, founder of the Maceva NGO and project manager of the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund; Lyudmila Sholokhova, PhD, director, YIVO archive and library; Sergey Kravtsov, senior research correspondent, Jewish Art Center, Hebrew University; the Lithuanian Jewish Community was represented by LJC heritage conservation specialist Martynas Užpelkis and architect and designer Victoria Sideraitė-Alon.
The expert group now has issued a set of recommended guidelines for the memorialization of the Great Synagogue of Vilna.
Since it is basically clear that attempts to rebuild the Great Synagogue would send a false message, they instead recommended emphasizing the uniqueness of the site’s history and its current state. Commemoration should pursue the objectives of conserving what remains and proper education. The project should focus on recovering and expressing the centrality and unique meaning of the site in Lithuanian Jewish history and memory.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community ushered out 2018 with a concert Monday called Heart to Heart with Markas Volynskis and Marija Drukshna on vocals, Jurijus Sukhanovas on piano and Boris Kirzner on violin.
Shmuel Yatom, the cantor at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius, opened the concert by reminding the audience the synagogue is celebrating its 115th anniversary currently. His words and songs, some solo, some with Markas Volynskis, created a warm and comfortable atmosphere in the hall. Well-known Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Judita Leitaitė MCed the concert and sang to a great response from the audience. Her warm and funny introductions of the other performers also contributed to the entertainment. Musical works by Kern, Pakhmutov, Dunayevsky and Olshanetsky, classical Russian favorites and old-time Jewish favorites elicited much applause.
Viktor Chramcov, born in 1927, a Holocaust survivor who was imprisoned at Dachau, has passed away. The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends our deepest condolences to his wife Svetlana and daughters Neli and Tatjana.
Preliminary design
bernardinai.lt
Marija Rupeikienė on the webpage autc.lt writes: “It is a compact space something like a cube with a cupola, constructed of bright yellow bricks with two unplastered façades and a tin roof. The building has two storeys, a basement and three small one-storey side buildings in the corners. The floor plan isn’t standard, with a many-cornered outer shape with steps, with an elongated entrance-way, stairs built on protruding sides and auxiliary spaces: the second storey is surrounded on three sides by a gallery. The main façade on the north east side facing the street is plastered with horizontal indentations. The two-storey portion dominates with short one-storey side constructions hugging it. Protrusions mark the sides of the two-storey portion while an elongated entrance-way in the interior leads to a half-rounded ark with a triangular shield bearing an image of the Ten Commandments on inscribed on stone tablets.”
In 1899 the leadership of the synagogue acquired a plot of land on Zawalna, now Pylimo street.
In 1902 architect Dovid Rozenhaus drafted blueprints for the synagogue.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
The Choral Synagogue was lit with festive lights December 16 as Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinksy and Vilnius Jewish Religious Community chairman Simas Levinas greeted Lithuanian Jewish Community members and guests to a celebration of the 115th anniversary of the founding of the synagogue.
Lithuanian poet, publicist and professor Tomas Venclova, Lithuanian essayist and film writer Pranas Morkus and other well-known figures attended the event.
Professor Donatas Katkus directed a concert by the Vilnius Chamber Orchestra at the birthday celebration.
A complicated early history of seeking permission from authorities to build what was called the Taharat HaKodesh synagogue finally led to the opening of the synagogue at its current location in 1903. Architect Dovid Rozenhaus designed the synagogue in the Moorish-Romanesque style. The only classical Vilnius Jewish synagogue to survive the Holocaust out of more than 110 Jewish houses of prayer operating in the city before the war, the Choral Synagogue became the focus of the post-war Vilnius Jewish community during Soviet times and remains so today.
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.
Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas received the Lithuanian state’s award “For Merit” on International Tolerance Day. Dainius Babilas, the director of Kaunas’s Ethnic Cultures Center, called Žakas one of the most active members of the city working in the cultural and social activities of the ethnic communities, both as head of the Kaunas Jewish Community and as the leader of various projects.
Since taking the post as Kaunas Jewish Community chairman in 2000, Žakas has rallied many Jewish people, initiated dozens of cultural projects and educated people on the history of Lithuanian Jews and the Jewish legacy during public events. Thanks to his resolution and consistency, the city of Kaunas remembers so many of its famous citizens who have made major contributions to Lithuania and humanity.
The newspaper Kauno diena has published an article in Lithuanian about Gercas Žakas and his work, available here.
The mass protests in France by the “yellow vests” have taken on a sort of red-brown racist ideology and have gone on an anti-Semitic rampage on facebook. Slogans include “Seize everything and redistribute it” and “The Jews get fat while the French have nothing to eat” as well as others aimed at Jews. A banner appeared on the A6 freeway linking Paris and Marseilles with the inscription “Macron is a whore of the Jews.” Israel’s Ynet reported on activities by what they called organizers of pogroms last Saturday, during which for the first time in many years Chabad House on the Champs-Élysées remained closed. Community leaders reported they didn’t want to take any risks because the French police were not in control of the situation.
The social media have become a source for anti-Semitism with Jews now being singled out as France’s main enemies. Popular accusations include “The Jews brought Macron to power so he would serve as their puppet,” “It must be realized that the true enemy is the Jews,” “The Jews light candles while the French go hungry” and so on.
Israel’s Russian-language TV 9 has a report here.
Our deepest condolences to Social Programs Department director Mikhail Segal on the death of his grandmother. We are with you in this time of great loss.
Judita Rozin passed away December 12, 2018, following a battle with illness and a recent debilitating fall. She was born January 8, 1937 in the Birobidzhan Autonomous Jewish oblast (the Birobidzhan ASSR) located in the Soviet Far East. She was graduated from High School No. 6 in Vilnius in 1955 and matriculated at the Philology Faculty at Vilnius University specializing in Russian language and literature. After being graduated she worked for the next 32 years at the Vilnius Teachers School in Naujoji Vilna. She worked at the History Department of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum from 1992 until 2012, and volunteered at the museum even in retirement up to the present time. Judita was unusually fluent in English even by current Lithuanian standards and used to say she preferred being called Judith; “That’s my real name in Hebrew.”.
A wake and funeral for Judith will be held in hall 4 at the Vilnius Funeral Home located at Olandų street no. 22 on Friday, December 14, starting at 11:00 A.M. The coffin will be transported to the Jewish cemetery at Sudervės road no. 28 at 1:34 P.M.
Rest in peace, Judith.
kauno.diena.lt
A city bus in Kaunas has been decorated with war-time diplomats Chiune Sugihara and Jan Zwartendijk. Both rescued a large number of Jews from the Holocaust, issuing “visas for life” for Jews in Kaunas to flee Europe.
Full article in Lithuanian here.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community will host the concert Heart to Hear at 6:00 P.M. on December 17. The concert is free and will include singers Marija Dushkina and Mark Volynski, pianist Jurijus Suchanovas, Boris Kirzner on violin and an appearance by the soloist Judita Leitaitė. Shmuel Yatom, the cantor at the Choral Synagogue, will be the guest of honor. The program includes works by Kern, Pakhmutov and Dunayevsky as well as popular classic Jewish and Russian tunes.
Around 70 children attended the Hanukkah celebration the Lithuanian Jewish Community held at the Future Live hall in Vilnius. The candles were lit and songs were performed in Hebrew and Yiddish. Children spun the dreidl and took part in quizzes and competitions. Traditional doughnuts were eaten and Hanukkah gelt was passed out. Children also received dreidls to take home.
