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 Presented to Lithuanian President at Vilnius Book Fair

Thursday, February 22, Vilnius–Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė opened the 19th annual Vilnius Book Fair. She said this year was special because the Republic of Lithuania is celebrating its 100th birthday, and that other states in the region represented at the fair are doing the same.

The book fair slogan this year was “I read Lithuania, I read the world.”

Grybauskaitė said: “If you can read and know Lithuania, that means you can read the world, too, and Lithuania as part of it.”

She was presented a copy of the Vilnius ghetto diary of Yitzhak Rudashevski in Lithuanian translation, to be officially launched at the book fair Sunday.

Rudashevski Diary at Vilnius Book Fair

A new Lithuanian translation of the diary by young Vilnius ghetto inmate and Holocaust victim Yitzhak Rudashevski will be presented to the public at the Vilnius Book Fair on February 25.

Faina Kukliansky, Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Sigutė Chlebinskaitė, Fania Brancovskaja and Akvilė Grigoravičiūtė are to speak at the event at 11:00 A.M. in conference hall 1.2 at the Vilnius Book Fair. Sixteen-year-old violinist Ugnė Liepa Žuklytė will perform Anatolijus Šenderovas’s piece “Cantus in memoriam Jascha Heifetz” at the event.

The boy and his parents survived the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto 75 years ago on September 23, 1943, but were arrested while in hiding, taken to Ponar and shot.

The Vilnius Book Fair is held annually at the Litexpo exhibition center at Laisvės prospect no. 5 in Vilnius.

For more information contact Monika Antanaitytė at + 37067240942

Jewish Attorneys Laid the Foundation of the State

As we mark the day of the restoration of the Lithuanian state and celebrate her 100th birthday, let’s also remember those who built this state, where the law is not just a paper concept but a category forming the foundation of the state and citizens and affecting our daily lives.

Jews comprised a large part of the community of Lithuanian attorneys. The majority of Jews had the experience of both being caretakers of the law and of having their legal rights taken away from them. The textbooks don’t talk about Jewish attorneys and it is only rare archival material which gives us a glimpse of their professional portraits. Very little is generally known about cases at the Lithuanian Special Archive which detail the fate of Vilnius attorneys arrested in 1939.

Full text in Lithuanian here.

Russian Films Screened at LJC

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is screening two films in Russian, on February 21 and 22. On February 21 “Romas, Tomas i Iosif” about Tomas Venclova and Yosif Brodski and on February 22 “Mne ne Strazhno” were shown with director Liliya Vyulina attending.

Today We Witness Lithuanian Freedom

The March 11th Hall of the Lithuanian parliament had an overflow audience Thursday during a ceremony to commemorate 100 years of Lithuanian independence. The commemoration began with the singing of the Lithuanian national anthem and a reading of the February 16, 1918, Act of Independence and the names of the signatories to that act.

Parliamentary speaker Viktoras Pranckietis delivered a keynote speech and said that we are all equal in the context of 100 years since the restoration of Lithuania.

“Today we all witness Lithuanian freedom. Each person gives rise to a small individual world, merging seamlessly into a community,” he said. The Lithuanian people have always fostered and defended their identity, he said, and noted the Order of Vytis was awarded to members of 15 different ethnic communities for fighting for Lithuanian independence. He said 100 years wasn’t a long time in the life of a nation which recently celebrated their millennium. “Many people and events went into the creation of Lithuania, including the heroic deeds of the grand dukes and of nameless citizens, unions and partitions, occupations and uprisings. The deeds in song of those who proclaimed freedom and the paths trodden by the book smugglers,” he said at the ceremony.

Pranckietis said although only 20 Lithuanians signed the Act of Independence, the entire nation saw Vilnius as their capital. He called for celebrating the present as well as the history of Lithuania.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Lithuania We Built Together, an Exhibit on Lithuanian Minority Communities

The Lithuanian House of Ethnic Minorities presented a new exhibit February 15 called “We Built Lithuania Together,” an overview of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities living in Lithuania, their history and famous figures from these communities.

The exhibit is the creation of students and teachers from the History Faculty of Vilnius University, the Lithuanian State Archive, the Vrublevskiai Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library, with help from other museums, archives and libraries throughout Lithuania.

Following the launch, exhibit organizers planned to present it all over Lithuania at libraries, schools and exhibition spaces. The exhibit is in Lithuanian and English.

Lithuanian State Auditor Gives Goodwill Foundation Clean Bill of Health Again

The Lithuanian State Auditor again performed their annual audit of the Goodwill Foundation. The auditor found the Goodwill Foundation managed, used and disbursed funds from the state budget correctly in 2017.

The Goodwill Foundation also has an independent auditor who performs an annual audit. The independent auditor found the financial accounting for the foundation in 2017 was correct and showed the real financial picture and financial operations as of December 31, 2017, in line with Lithuanian Finance Ministry directive No. 1K-372 on bookkeeping at non-profit organizations.

Chwoles Exhibit at Tolerance Center

The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum opened an exhibit of artworks by Rafael Chwoles February 17 called “They Watch Us: Portraits of Vilnius Residents, 1945-1949.” The exhibit will run till March 27.

Rudashevski Diary Published in Lithuanian

Knygų mugėje – penkiolikmečio Vilniaus geto kalinio palikimas

The diary of Yitzchak Rudashevski written in the Vilnius ghetto and providing an eye-witness account by the young man has been translated into Lithuanian and is to be launched at the Vilnius Book Fair Sunday. Although Rudashevski was only 14 when he began the diary, many who have read the book in the original Yiddish, English and other languages say he displays both incredible talent as a writer and a wisdom beyond his years. He was murdered at Ponar in late 1943. The original diary is conserved by YIVO with copies made available to other institutions and archives.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites everyone to read and learn about the Rudashevski ghetto diary.

The book is to be launched at 11:00 A.M. on Sunday, February 25, 2018, in conference room 1.2 at the Vilnius Book Fair.

LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Yiddish translator Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Sigutė Chlebinskaitė, Jewish partisan Fania Brancovskaja and Akvilė Grigoravičiūtė are to attend the launch.

Netanyahu Congratulates Lithuania on 100th Birthday

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent a letter to Lithuanian prime minister Saulius Skvernelis, a greeting from him and the people of Israel congratulating Lithuania on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the first Lithuanian Republic.

Netanyahu wished the people of Lithuania a memorable and happy holiday. He noted the close historical connections between the people of Lithuania and Israel and the importance of the Lithuanian Jewish community to the entire Jewish people and their religious and intellectual development. The Jewish people who lived in Lithuania earned great respect and included famous philosophers, writers and scholars.

The Israeli PM also noted the current Lithuanian Jewish community and Israeli citizens from Lithuania celebrate a spirit of solidarity and close cultural contacts between the two peoples. Netanyahu noted Israel appreciates highly Lithuania’s promises regarding Holocaust education and in fighting anti-Semitism. He called Lithuania one of Israel’s closest partners in Europe at the present time, and said Lithuania had contributed significantly to fostering constructive dialogue between Israel and the European Union.

Lithuania’s 100th Independence Day was also observed by the municipality of Tel Aviv where the municipal building was lit in the colors of the Lithuanian flag.

Sergejus Kanovičius Receives State Award

Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė awarded writer and founder of the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund Sergejus Kanovičius the state honor “For Merit to Lithuania” February 15. He received the award for his work to preserve the Lithuanian Jewish heritage. The bernardinai.lt website, where Kanovičius frequently contributes, published his acceptance speech:

I share, because I have received. That’s what my Parents taught me. That’s what my Parents learned from their Parents, my grandparents, to share what you get with others. Always, whether you have a lot or a little, and someone else has even less. I share because this is not all my doing. It probably isn’t even mine at all. It belongs to my Parents, to my entire family without whom I wouldn’t be able to work the work I do in Lithuania, it is my brother’s example to share, to support and help, and so it belongs to all of them.

What would I have been able to do for Lithuania alone? How would I have received this sort of award if not for the wonderful people who work with me? How would we be able to work without our hard-working patrons, without whose help we wouldn’t be able to make my vision and our mission happen?

I won’t lie, it’s very nice to be awarded. But it’s even nice to know this award doesn’t belong to me alone. It belongs to all of us. As it does to Lithuania, for whom we all must try to make a contribution, through work seen and unseen. Love and respect for our fellow man, respect for historical truth and justice, for commemorating the past. For commemorating that which has come down to us and must remain after us.

We have all done merit for Lithuania because we are her children. Let’s love her and be loved.

I sincerely believe this award, although it was given to me, really does belong to all of you.

My grandfather, may he rest in peace, the suit maker from Jonava, Shloime Kanovich, always used to ask any customer who came in, “Do you have material?” We have an abundance of material. What’s important is that we sew it together honestly.

Thank you, everyone. And as my Father wrote on a similar occasion and on completely justified grounds, thank you, Lithuania.

From Darkness to Light


by Linas Linkevičius

Lithuanian Jews helped build the country, and their legacy remains an integral part of Lithuanian history.

This year, while Israel is celebrating 70 years of modern statehood, Lithuania is celebrating 100 years of restored independence.

For centuries Lithuanian Jewry was part of the educated and intellectual elite of our society. One hundred years ago they took the most active part in the process of creating the Republic of Lithuania. They were elected to the Lithuanian Parliament, took up diplomatic posts, served in the army. I would like to particularly mention some of those great men.

Back in the 1920s the chairman of the Vilna Jewish community Jacob Wygodsky became the first Jewish affairs minister in Lithuania–the very post was a completely new phenomenon in our history. Shimshon Rosenbaum, a famous Zionist movement activist, became vice minister of foreign affairs and was a member the Lithuanian delegation to negotiate the peace treaty with Soviet Russia. Nachman Rachmilevich is yet another great example. He became vice minister of industry and trade.

Full text here.

Jokūbas Vygodskis: Lithuanian Jewish Affairs Minister, Lithuanian Taryba Member, Polish Sejm Deputy, Vilnius Jewish Community Chairman, Good Man



Jokūbas Vygodskis (Jakub Wygodzki in Polish, Yankev Vigodski in Yiddish) was born in Bobruisk now in Belarus in 1855 and his family moved to Vilnius in 1860, where he received a traditional Jewish education. He completed high school in Marijampolė and attended medical school at the University of Saint Petersburg, additional studies in Vienna, Berlin, and Paris, after which he returned to Vilnius with the city’s centuries-old Jewish community.

Vilnius always had sufficiently capable people who knew how to organize the life of the Jewish community according to ethical standards, providing a helping hand to the poor and weak. Vygodskis organized the Society of Jewish Physicians in Vilnius besides practicing medicine as a gynecologist, pediatrician and medical researcher, as well as writing; initially he published medical articles in Russian and German journals, but later contributed to the Yiddish and Hebrew popular press and wrote at least three books of memoirs in Yiddish.

In September of 1917 the Lithuanian Taryba (national council) was elected in Vilnius with the goal of establishing an independent state. Wygodzki was appointed minister for Jewish affairs. In 1918 he joined the World Zionist Federation and is called a general liberal Zionist in the literature available on him.

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Hermann Bernstein: the Litvak Julian Assange

While there are many Litvaks in the world who are known for great accomplishments and high intellect, a recent book in Lithuanian called “Pasaulio lietuviai: šlovė ir geda” (Alma littera, Vilnius 2016) [Lithuanians of the World: Glory and Shame] features a perhaps lesser known Litvak figure whose accomplishments were no less important, Hermann Bernstein.

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Condolences

Our deepest condolences on the death of Elena Zagorskaitė, mother, grandmother and wife to former LJC board member Tobijas Jafetas. We are filled with sorrow and wish the entire family strength in this difficult time.

Lithuanian Jewish Community Position on Statements by Academic Ethics and Procedures Inspector

On February 8, 2018, the Lithuanian Jewish Community learned Vigilijus Sadauskas, the academic ethics and procedures inspector for the Republic of Lithuania, possibly in a conflict of private and public interest, presented an invitation on his webpage to collect information “on people of Jewish ethnicity who contributed to deportations and torture,” for which a monetary prize was announced.

Based on the European Parliament’s resolution of July 1, 2017, adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, one form of anti-Semitism is a blanket accusation made against all Jews as a people, that we are responsible for a real or imagined transgression committed by an individual Jew or group of Jews, or even responsible for acts committed by non-Jews. Based on this definition and article 170, section 2 of the Lithuanian criminal code, Sadauskas’s internet post is anti-Semitic, causing ethnic discord, and must be judged correspondingly.

The LJC supports the initiative by members of parliament on a statement of no-confidence in academic ethics and procedures inspector Vigilijus Sadauskas and thanks speaker of Lithuanian parliament Viktoras Pranckietis for his understanding of the situation and call for the aforementioned person to resign from his post.

The LJC finds the actions by Vigilijus Sadauskas in violation of public service ethics and basic principles, and in violation of law, and therefore the LJC is considering taking the matter to the appropriate law enforcement institutions for initiating a pre-trial investigation into the actions by this person.

Arkadijus Vinokuras: Poland’s Way Is Not Lithuania’s Way

It’s not Lithuania alone who has problems with the emotional experience and historical interpretation of the Holocaust, but unlike in Lithuania where there is no idea even to ban by law statements with no basis in historical fact … the right-wing Government of Poland has chosen the path of prosecution.

What for? For wide-spread statements the death camps in Poland were Polish.

Well, there were no Polish death camps, as Angela Merkel has said.

So why this law politicizing the discipline of history and restricting free speech? Supposedly to defend Poland’s honor, the right-wing Government adopted a law carrying penalties of up to three years in prison for those who publicly call the death camps established in Poland by the Germans “Polish.” And three years as well for those who say the Polish people collaborated with the Nazis. Responding to Israel’s concerns on the attempt by Poland to possibly hoax history, the webpage wPolityce supported by the Polish Government has been publishing articles which accuse Israel of engaging in a conspiracy with Brussels, Jewish lobbyists in Washington, D. C., and the Polish opposition to harm the ruling Law and Justice Party in Poland. The state channel TVP on the evening news program showed anti-Semitic inscriptions claiming Israel was exploiting the Holocaust in order to pump billions out of Poland.

Full editorial in Lithuanian here.

Attack on Righteous Gentiles as Lithuania Celebrates 100th Birthday

The Lithuanian Jewish Community for many years now has been posing the question: does Lithuania even know and is she able to name her true heroes? As we begin to celebrate 100 years since the founding of the Lithuanian Republic and look back over all the people who contributed, we cannot forget the noble Lithuanian Jews and the noble rescuers of Jews from the Holocaust who managed to keep the flame of hope alive during the most shameful passage in Lithuania’s history. The Sondeckis family who saved Lithuania’s honor are now forced to defend their own.

At the start of Lithuania’s 100th birthday celebration, the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter Center) has on their webpage published a journal containing a registry of files on people from the KGB archive.

This list includes Saulius Sondeckas, the son of Jackus Sondeckis, a well-known Lithuanian public figure, a member of the independence movement over 100 years ago and a Righteous Gentile who saved Jews. On February 3, 2018, we marked the three-year anniversary of the death of Saulius Sondeckis, a true aristocrat of the spirit who represented Lithuania and put Lithuania on the world map with his exceptional musical talent and noble deeds. That these allegations of possible criminal activity leveled against Saulius Sondeckis, who is now dead and unable to defend himself, and against his family fall on the 100th anniversary of the modern Lithuanian Republic makes graver the circumstances surrounding the charges and increases the harm done to the family who so rightly deserve the honor of the Lithuanian nation for their contributions. This accusation treads upon the title Righteous Gentile and also inflicts damage on the Lithuanian Jewish Community, which considers Saulius Sondeckis an honorary member.

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