Wooden Synagogue in Alanta Renovated
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Lithuanian Jewish Community Statement on Genocide Center’s Newest Report on Kazys Škirpa
Let’s Give a Hanukkah Miracle to Our Senior Citizens
Jewish Veterans Commemoration
A ceremony to commemorate Lithuanian Jewish veterans is to be held at the Jewish Cemetery in Kaunas at 4:30 P.M. on November 23. Organizers include the Kaunas Jewish Community, the Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life and the Kovo 11-osios Gatvė Association. For more information send an email to kaminskas.raimundas@gmail.com or call +370 680 53 495
Second Hanukkah Candle
The Vilnius Jewish Religious Community invites you to attend the lighting of the second Hanukkah candle December 3, at Vincas Kudirka Square in Vilnius at 5:30 P.M., and again at 6:30 P.M. at the Choral Synagogue.
Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community Holds Anniversary Concert
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community invites the public to a concert to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the restoration of the organization to be held at 7:00 P.M. on December 3 at the Polifonija chamber concert hall at Aušros alley no. 15 in Šiauliai.
Šiauliai State Drama Theater and film actress Jūratė Budriūnaitė, teacher and composer Vadimas Kamrazeris and their daughter Sofija will participate.
Trade with Iran Feeds a Nuclear Monster
by Amir Maimon, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania, for DELFI.lt
The agreement with Iran from which the USA has withdrawn was not an effective way to turn Iran away from its nuclear program. The West must agree on universal sanctions quickly, or the consequences for the world will be dire.
Iran’s tentacles reach far beyond the Middle East. In the last several weeks the security services in a number of European countries have arrested Iranian agents who were planning terrorist attacks on European soil. The regime’s high technology is connected with financial and operational support to agents around the world, increasing the global threat the Iranian regime poses to basic Western values and freedoms.
Full editorial in Lithuanian here.
Exhibit: Simon Karczmar: From Juvenishki to Safed
Dear friends of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum in Vilnius,
We kindly invite you to the opening of the exhibition “Simon Karczmar: from Juvenishki to Safed” on November 22 at 17:30 in the museum’s Tolerance Center (Naugarduko street no. 10/2, Vilnius).
Parliamentary Cultural Committee Considers Jewish Heritage Issues
A sitting of the Lithuanian parliament’s Cultural Committee November 14 addressed Litvak heritage. The meeting was held at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Musum in Vilnius with committee chairman Ramūnas Karbauskis attending.
Three main issues were discussed:
1. Further expansion and financing of the Vilna Gaon Museum
2. Jewish heritage issues
3. Restoration of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius
MP Emanuelis Zingeris proposed a resolution for the restoration of the Great Synagogue at the meeting. The Lithuanian Jewish Community expressed a different position. LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said Lithuanian Jews are not asking and never had asked for the rebuilding of the Great Synagogue using state funds. She further noted that currently the LJC is engaged in studying other methods and problems in commemoration and preservation, having been tasked with drafting a study on Jewish heritage by the Lithuanian Government.
Special Focus on Ethnic Communities at Tolerance Day Celebration
The celebration of Tolerance Day supported by the Lithuanian prime minister demonstrated sincere and exceptional attention to representatives of the ethnic communities in Lithuania.
International Tolerance Day was marked for the fifth time in Lithuanian November 16 with an event at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences supported by the Lithuanian prime minister and organized by the Department of Ethnic Minorities under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. During the event prime minister Saulius Skvernelis and department director Vida Montvydaitė honored and awarded those who had contributed most to the establishment of civil society, celebration of ethnic cultures and the fostering of intercultural dialogue in Lithuania.
Condolences
Riva Feigina, born in 1928, passed away November 19. The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends our condolences to her children and loved ones during this time of loss.
From the Vilnius Ghetto: Sutzkever’s Memoirs in Lithuanian
by Danielė Ūselytė
Abraham Sutzkever (1913-2010) was one of the most remarkable Yiddish poets in the 20th century, a Holocaust survivor, one of the leaders of the cultural resistance and in his memoirs “From the Vilnius Ghetto” provides a testimony of his authentic experience.
These texts were written immediately following the tragic events of World War II and were published in Moscow in 1946. These memoirs contain the living memories in the author’s mind and thus are a testimony of history. Feelings and states of mind are presented, indirectly, through specific situations, sometimes with irony, feelings of hopelessness, fear, debasement, but always the infinite desire to survive, to fight to the last breath. Resistance is supported by intense creativity in an extreme situation, in the belief its power will fortify human existence, and the historical narrative is based on this, demonstrating the possibility to write poetry in the tragic moment.
Full text in Lithuanian here.
Kaunas Jewish Community News for October
In October the Kaunas Jewish Community experienced moments of celebration and painful losses, and commemorated the past.
The most momentous event in October was the celebration of the Community’s 30th birthday with a concert. The Kaunas State Philharmonic hosted the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra accompanied by harpist Gabrielė Ašmontaitė, baritone Stein Skjervold and VilhelmasČepinskis on violin. Orchestra art director Mindaugas Bačkus presented a rich program of well-known and lesser-known works by Jewish and Litvak composers of different times and in different genres. He both played cello and presented the event.
The historian Linas Venclauskas told the audience about the history of the Jewish community and current events. He spoke about the Litvak contribution to Lithuania and together with KJC chairman Gercas Žakas presented thank-you letters from the Kaunas mayor and municipal culture department to long-standing and outstanding members of the Community, including Fruma Kučinskienė, Judita Mackevičienė, Motelius Rozenbergas, Basia Šragiene, Julijana Zarchi, Simonas Dovidavičius and Gercas Žakas himself.
Happy Birthday to Ieva Rafael
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community wishes Ieva Rafael a happy birthday. We wish you great health, endless energy and all the best. Mazl tov!
Hanukkah Coming Soon
Hanukkah is coming soon and several events are already scheduled. On December 2 there will be a Hanukkah celebration for children at 12 noon at I Future Live, located at Upės street no. 9 in Vilnius. A Hanukkah celebration for the whole family will be held at the Radisson Blu Hotel at Konstitucijos prospect no. 20 on December 9, with music by the Israeli neo-klezmer band Gefilte Drive. More information to follow.
Netanyahu Justifies Cease-Fire in Gaza
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu Wednesday justified his decision for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip after the largest escalation in the conflict since 2014.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Reflections in a Broken Mirror Exhibit Opens
The exhibit Reflections in a Broken Mirror detailing Litvak life in the period between the two world wars opened at the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library November 12. Judaica Research Center director Dr. Lara Lempert presented the exhibit, talking about Jewish social life, modern art, literature, books, reading culture, publishing and medicine in the interwar period. The rich collection of multimedia exhibits presents Lithuanian and Vilnius Jewish life including the social welfare and medical system, education, art, learning and literature. It also demonstrates the importance of the Lithuanian and Vilnius Jewish communities in the context of world Jewry.
Commission for Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad Chairman Visits Lithuania
United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad chairman Paul Packer has visited the Lithuanian Jewish Community during his trip to Lithuania from November 6 to 8 to discuss Jewish heritage issues in Lithuania and participated in a prayer service at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius where he discussed the need for a mikvah with members of the Community. Chairman Packer also visited the Zavl shul on Gėlių street in Vilnius, currently undergoing renovation.
It was due to Packer’s initiative and concern that an information stand was erected to mark the old Jewish cemetery in the Šnipiškės neighborhood of Vilnius. He and members of the Vilnius municipality discussed future commemoration of the Jewish cemetery during his most recent trip to Lithuania. Packer visited the Jewish cemetery on Olandų street in Vilnius and said it, too, needs more information for visitors. He also visited the only working Jewish cemetery in Vilnius on Sudervės road.
In Kaunas Packer visited the Hassidic synagogue building which, if restored, could serve the needs of Lithuania’s second largest Jewish community and Israeli exchange students living in Kaunas. The chairman expressed unpleasant surprise at the state of the old Jewish cemetery in the Žaliakalnis neighborhood of Kaunas where a number of notable Jewish religious and cultural figures are buried. Many of the headstones are broken and overturned in the cemetery near the city’s center, and Packer said this didn’t serve to demonstrate the city’s pride in its rich Jewish history. LJC representatives also contacted the appropriate institutions regarding technical problems with video surveillance at the cemetery.
Condolences
Photo: Antanas Sutkus
With deep sadness we report the death of Dmitrijus Kopelmanas at the age of 90. He was born in 1928. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners send deepest condolences to his friends and loved ones.
Retrospective of Photography by Antanas Sutkus
The National Art Gallery Friday opened a retrospective called Cosmos on the work of photographer Antanas Sutkus. It is a comprehensive presentation of the 79-year-old artist’s work and the first exhibit of his work to appear in over a decade. It includes more than 300 items.
Photographer Gintaras Česonis, one of the curators of the Cosmos exhibit, said Sutkus is an exceptional figure in Lithuanian photography.
“Sutkus is extraordinarily important for all time. More than one generation has grown up with his work. It’s not a simple matter to take a fresh look at it. When people delve into Sutkus’s archives many come to the conclusion his creative work cannot be comprehended, it is the entire universe. And this is probably where the name Cosmos came from for the exhibit, the totality of unbounded things and time,” Česonis commented.
Curator Thomas Schirmböck said Sutkus is one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century.
An album of Sutkus’s photos of Vilnius and Kaunas ghetto inmates called In Memoriam with the text in English was published two years ago.
The exhibit will run till January 13.
Evening to Remember Pianist Nadežda Dukstulskaitė
The Lithuanian Jewish Community will host an evening to remember the pianist and teacher Nadežda Dukstulskaitė at 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, November 15. The evening will feature memories and performances by Rafailas Karpis, Robertas Bekionis, Dmitri Bulybanko and the Ąžuolai men’s choir. Dr. Leonidas Melnikas will moderate.
Nadežda Dukstulskaitė (1912-1978) was born into the family of a musician. In 1918 the family moved to Kaunas where from the age of 7 Nadežda attended private lessons in piano under Herbeck-Hansen. She was graduated from the Stern Conservatory in Berlin in 1926 and from 1926 to 1929 studied at the High Musical School in Berlin.
She was a concert master and soloist on Kaunas and Vilnius radio from 1929 to 1953. She toured Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden in 1934, 1937 and 1938 and performed works by M. K. Čiurlionis, Juozas Naujalis, Stasys Šimkus, Juozas Tallat-Kelpša, Juozas Gruodis and Juozas Karosas.
She escaped the Kaunas ghetto towards the end of World War II with help from the writer Kazys Binkis and his wife Sofija. She hid in different locations around Kaunas for several days and then walked to Vilnius. From 1953 to 1959 she was the concert master of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic’s philharmonic, and from 1959 to 1978 concert master and piano teacher for the Ąžuoliukas choir.
Her students included the opera singer Vladimiras Prudnikovas and the pianists Robertas Bekionis, Dmitri Bulybenko and Leonidas Melnikas.
Holocaust Memorial Unveiled in Vandžiogala
The Kaunas district administration and Litvaks living in the USA have unveiled a Holocaust memorial at the old Jewish cemetery in Vandžiogala, Lithuania, to remember the Jews murdered there in 1941. The unveiling ceremony was scheduled for November 8 with the US and Israeli ambassadors in attendance as well as representatives of the financial supporter Alex Lyon and Sons, the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department and members of the local community. The work by the Kaunas district administration, Vandžiogala alderman Vytautas Šniauka and the local community included clearing the Litvak cemetery of bushes, restoring upturned headstones, making a path to the cemetery and constructing a small parking lot in the forest.
Full story in Lithuanian here.