Lithuanian Jewish Community

Zygmunt Bauman is Dead

Zigmunt_Bauman

Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman passed away at the age of 91 surrounded by family at his home in Leeds Monday following illness. Bauman was born in 1925 in Poznan (Posen) and in 1939 fled Nazi-occupied Poland for Soviet-occupied Poland. In the Communist Polish military Bauman did political education, took part in the battles for Kolberg (Kołobrzeg) and Berlin and worked in Communist security and espionage institutions.

Bauman took up sociology at the Warsaw Social Sciences Academy after the war and then transferred to philosophy at Warsaw University. He published his first book in 1960. Born to a non-observant Jewish family, Bauman left Poland during the anti-Semitic wave of 1968 and moved to Israel, teaching at Tel Aviv University. He soon moved from there to Leeds where he taught at Leeds University. Since the move to Leeds he wrote in English.

Bauman authored about 50 books and more than 100 articles on the topics of globalization, modernity, post-modernism, consumerism, morality and the Holocaust. His views concerning the Holocaust were extremely nuanced and included at times denouncements of Western Holocaust commemoration as a culture of death and a new religion with its own list of martyrs, “the Names,” intended to act as a sort of surrogate Judaism for the non-observant and Gentiles, or as a completely new religion but offering nothing of value to the human soul. Bauman’s most famous book, Modernity and the Holocaust (1989), draws upon Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno’s books on totalitarianism and the Enlightenment. Bauman argues he Holocaust should not be considered exclusively an event in Jewish history nor a regression to pre-modern barbarism. Instead, the Holocaust is deeply connected to modernity and its attempts to impose order. Procedural rationality, the division of labor into smaller and ever more specialized tasks, ever more refined taxa for species and seeing obedience as morally good all played a role in making the Holocaust possible. He said for this reason modern societies have not fully grasped the lessons of the Holocaust. It is viewed, according to Bauman’s metaphor, like a picture hanging on a wall, static, without utterance or meaning.

The late Lithuanian philosopher Leonidas Donskis counted Zygmunt Bauman among his friends and greatly respected his work. In 2007 Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas conferred an honorary doctoral degree upon Bauman.

Our condolences to his many friends and surviving family members.

2017-01-122017-01-12

Ponar Oratorio to Premiere at National Philharmonic

The premiere of Ponar Oratorio is to open at 6:00 P.M. on January 25, 2017, at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic in Vilnius. The new musical work was composed by Max Fedorov. The author of the libretto is Edward Trusewicz. Different parts of the oratorio are to be performed by Maciej Nerkowski, the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Choir and the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra. Martynas Staškus is to conduct.

“The motif of the oratorio is about the confession of a man who took the lives of many people at the Ponar forest. The executioner has kept silent for many years but has finally decided to show his blood-stained hands,” premiere producer Edward Trusewicz said.

The oratorio is to be performed in Polish with a running text translation in Lithuanian and English during the performance.

Reservations and tickets available here.

2017-01-122017-01-25

Defending a Murderer

cropped-gochin_family1
by Grant Arthur Gochin

On December 16, 2016, I posted this about the efforts to remove the honors for the man responsible for the murder of my family in Lithuania – Noreika:

https://ggochin.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/noreika-monument/

The Cultural Heritage Department has responded; their response is attached to this post.

The Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department will not do anything to remove the honors. They offer no explanations for how they come up with their decisions or why our facts were incorrect.

They say the plaque was installed in 1997 and belongs to the city, not the library. How do they know this when the city does not? Again they offer no backup.

2017-01-112017-01-11

Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem Extinguishes Four Young Lives

The terrorist attacks in Jerusalem just won’t stop. On January 8 in the Armon Hanatziv pedestrian way heavily walked by tourists in Jerusalem, four young Israeli soldiers were murdered and 16 wounded. The Palestinian attacker used a truck to attack, driving onto the pedestrian area and targeting young Israeli soldiers being led on a walking tour there. He killed four, mainly girls, before other soldiers fired into the cab of the truck, killing him.

Two elderly women were attacked at the same place, beloved of locals and tourists, in May of last year. Israeli law enforcement is calling both events an act of terrorism.

susi

We mourn with the families of the victims.

Rimvydas Valatka: Domestic Television + Household Anti-Semitism = The Domestic Regime of the Baukutės and the Livers

R. Valatka. Buitinė TV + buitinis antisemitizmas = buitinė baukučių ir kepenių valdžia

Can you imagine a television program where the MC is a former speaker of the House of Representatives and where a former democrat congresswoman screams “sieg heil?” No. The only one above the figures who have the mandate of the nation is Mr. God Himself. Despite that, your former elected speaker of parliament, the closes ally of then-prime minister Kubilius and the nighttime tax coup of the liberals, hosts a program where a former member of his Resurrection Party jumps up, gives the Hitler salute and screams: “Jew! Jew! Jew!” The former speaker of the very European parliament didn’t even bat an eyelash.

Full editorial in Lithuanian here.

2017-01-10

Ona Šimaitė: Quiet Warrior for Life

Ona Šimaitė in Israel. Courtesy Vilnius University Library

lzinios.lt

One hundred and twenty-three years have passed since the birth of Ona Šimaitė, who rescued dozens of Jews of Vilnius from death during World War II. Let’s recall the quiet heroism of this Righteous Gentile. Her name isn’t uttered often in Lithuania. Her commemoration consists of a plaque at Vilnius University and a small and narrow street named after her, winding from Kūdrų park at the edge of the Užupis district up, ending in steep steps leading to the Old Town. To the place which became the symbol of suffering and death to thousands of our fellow citizens 70 years ago who were fated to be born Jewish. To the Vilnius ghetto, where at the will of the Nazi occupier those condemned to die spent their final days. To the place whence the humble librarian Ona Šimaitė, without fear of death, rescued many who had lost hope.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2017-01-10

Postage Stamp Commemorates 25 Years of Lithuanian-Israeli Diplomatic Relations

There was public presentation of a Lithuanian postage stamp issued to commemorate 25 years of Lithuanian-Israeli diplomatic relations held at the central post office in Vilnius Monday. Israel and Lithuania opened diplomatic relations on January 8, 1992.

Participants included Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon, Lithuanian Post director general Lina Minderienė, Vilnius Art Academy rector professor Audrius Klimas, designer of the postage stamp Kotryna Opanovičiūtė and others.

2017-01-10

On the Position of Director General Siaurusevičius and Lithuanian National Radio and Television

lzb.lt

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky believes, as does the entire Lithuanian Jewish community, the position taken by Lithuanian Radio and Television director general Audrius Siaurusevičius and by the national broadcaster LRT in response to gestures depicting Hitler made by actress Asta Baukutė on the LRT television program “Atspėk dainą” is the right one and expresses the state’s position regarding its Jewish citizens. “I have to say Lithuanian National Radio and Television have demonstrated consistently and professionally their view on the centuries-long history of the Jews of Lithuania and have raised ‘uncomfortable’ Holocaust issues, something which even officials responsible for education haven’t done for many years. Also, LRT radio journalists are currently doing programs about painful historical events which to the present time influence life in the small towns after the destruction of the shtetls. I give them my gratitude for the work they’re doing and ask them to continue the radio series. No one should be afraid to say the word ‘Jew,’ but it’s important to understand and never forget what happened and how their Lithuanian fellow countrymen acted during the Holocaust, and why the Litvak community is so small today, and sensitive to all signs of anti-Semitism and Naziism,” chairwoman Kukliansky stated.

2017-01-102017-01-17

Behavior by Actress Unacceptable, Lithuanian State Radio and Television Director Says

Vilnius, January 7, BNS–Lithuanian National Radio and Television director Audrius Siaurusevičius says the behavior of actress Asta Baukutė was intolerable in a program broadcast in Lithuania Friday where she made gestures mimicking Adolf Hitler, and so the television series has been canceled on the national network.

“We truly do not tolerate this thing and decisions were made yesterday, the show is canceled. Since people are behaving without any sense of responsibility, grave measures were applied. I consider this a personal insult to all my principles,” Siaurusevičius told BNS. He said the national broadcaster broke all contractual ties with television show producer Modestas Karnaševičius’s company Viena Planeta [One Planet] and is not planning to renew any business relations with the company in the future.

“I think we will have nothing to do with them. Our trust has been broken. We work on the basis of trust and cannot supervise everything. They don’t meet the requirements which we demand inside LRT,” the director of LRT said.

2017-01-102017-01-17

Rav Moshe Shapiro Has Died

The Lithuanian Jewish Community reports with deep sadness the death of Rav Moshe Shapiro, the Petirah of Hagaon, the Litvak ultra-Orthodox community’s spiritual leader in Israel. The author of numerous seforim and the noted rosh yeshiva of Jerusalem’s Yeshiva Pischei Olam passed away January 6 at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital at the age of 82 following a lengthy illness.

His father Rav Meir Shapiro with his brother Rav Simkha Ziselom left Lithuania for Israel to study Torah at the Hebron yeshiva. Rav Moshe Shapiro studied both in Panevėžys and at the Hebron yeshiva. His mentors were the Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler and Rav Yitzchok Hutner.

By the age of 18 Shapiro already new the entire Babylonian Talmud by heart. The Rav Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz recommended he intensify his study of the Talmud.

Rav Moshe Shapiro is one of the first contemporary rabbis who performed Jewish outreach, returning Jews to the faith of their fathers and teaching Judaism.

Rav Shapiro visited Lithuania last year and spent some time in towns and cities connected with his family history. When he and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky met then, he told her the Lithuanian Jewish Community has a great future ahead.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is deeply saddened by the death of Rav Moshe Shapiro and express our deepest condolences to his family, friends and students.

Baruch dayan ha’emet.

2017-01-102017-01-17

Why Don’t Lithuanian Politicians Condemn Colleague Baukutė’s Behavior?

As Hitler’s Mein Kampf again becomes a bestseller in Europe, Russian-American journalist Mikhail Klikushin writing in the New York Observer, owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who is scheduled to leave publishing in order to devote all his time as president Trump’s senior advisor, wonders why Lithuanian politicians haven’t come forward to condemn former MP Asta Baukutė’s strange behavior on Lithuanian state television.

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Lithuanian Official Gives Nazi Salute on Live TV Show

by Mikhail Klikushin

Ex-MP grins, yells “Jew! Jew! Jew!” while saluting the führer as tensions mount to Russia’s west

This year, Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography, in which he laid the groundwork for a policy of extermination against the Jews, became a bestseller in Europe.

Having taken a look at what has been going on within recent additions to the European community—including former Soviet republics that broke loose from Russian dominance—one begins to see why the brutal dictator is experiencing a renewed wave of popularity.

Last Saturday, for example, it became known that the Lithuanian Radio and Television broadcasting corporation (LRT), funded by the Lithuanian government, temporarily took off the air the popular TV show Guess the Melody after a scandalous video surfaced causing public outrage, Delfi reported.

According to LRT assistant director Rimvydas Paleckis, on Friday night during a live broadcast of the show one of the participants—popular Lithuanian movie and theater actress Asta Baukutė—having recognized the melody, became so excited that she victoriously shouted “Yeah! Yeah!” and jumped up from her seat.

She was about to win the contest.

Standing to her full height in her leather coat and dancing out of excitement, she put both the index and middle finger of her left hand to her upper lip—to indicate Hitler’s mustache—and raised her right hand in a Nazi salute high into the air.

She could not contain herself.

“Žydas! Žydas! Žydas!” (Jew! Jew! Jew!) she yelled in Lithuanian—letting it be known to the cheering studio audience and the show host that the melody in question belonged to Lithuanian composer Simonas Donskovas.

Donskovas, as readers already might have figured out, is a Jew.

“I am in shock,” LRT assistant director Rimvydas Paleckis said the next day.

2017-01-10

Hitler Joke on National TV in Poor Taste

asta-baukute

Baltic News Service reported Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky responded after actress Asta Baukutė performed a gesture intended to imitate Adolf Hitler on a television program on Friday called Atspėk dainą [Name That Tune], saying the behavior was in poor taste.

“Since I haven’t looked into it, I can’t say that this is offensive, but my question would be, who needs to joke like that? There are a million other topics and perhaps this was a joke which failed. I don’t understand that kind of joke and likely others do not either, so a completely unfunny response is possible. In my understanding these sorts of things should be avoided generally. … Perhaps a little more talent and a deeper understanding is needed to pull this off, improvisation doesn’t really work. It’s even impolite and in poor taste,” Kukliansky was quoted as saying by BNS.

Friday Baukutė on the broadcast of Atspėk dainą guessed the tune by Simonas Donskovas, lept to her feet and apparently made gestures intended to imitate Hitler. The program was not live and was broadcast from material shot earlier.

Kukliansky, according to BNS, said she didn’t find Baukutė’s actions humorous and wondered why it was included in the final edit for the show.

“After seeing the initial information about, she acted very strangely. Or maybe I don’t have enough of a sense of humor, but it wasn’t funny to me at all. There might be a different subtext at work in the show which I didn’t get. I don’t understand in general why this is necessary. Aren’t there other topics? All the more since this was recorded, and perhaps there should be more caution exerted with respect to certain social groups, and more effort to make sure the program isn’t misinterpreted. Most likely Ms. Baukutė didn’t intend anything bad, she was probably making fun of Hitler, but she didn’t manage to pull it off completely successfully,” Kukliansky told BNS. simonas-donskovas2

BNS was unable to reach Baukutė for comment. On Saturday she told the internet news site 15min.lt she was sorry about her behavior on the Lithuanian National Radio and Television program. “This is a normal democratic state. I think it’s allowed to make jokes. In our wonderful Lithuania these kinds of talented ethnicities may establish schools and perform in show business. This is a country which shouldn’t get hung up because of that gesture, I didn’t have that intention. There was no politics in my gesture at all. I think we can be happy that such things as Jew-baiting do not happen in Lithuania. If someone wants to create a conflict, which I certainly do not, and if someone perceived a bad subtext, I truly apologize,” the actress told the news site.

2017-01-092017-01-17

Lithuanian National Radio: Slobodka

The Lithuanian National Radio and Television radio program Radijo dokumentika [Radio Documentary] for Sunday, January 8, rebroadcast Tuesday, January 10 after the morning news program at 9:00 A.M. The small area at the confluence of the Neris and Nemunas Rivers created by the Radziwiłłs in the 17th century, Slabada, a “serfdom-free zone,” was originally smaller and is called a village in the documentation, but by the second half of the 18th century the shtetl was a competitor in arts and crafts and trade with the city of Kaunas across the rivers. Industry developed quickly in the 20th century. Slobodka, as it came to be called, was the home to the world-famous Slobodka Yeshiva. Known in Lithuanian as Vilijampolė, the city on the Viliya River [a synonym for the Neris], the district became part of the city of Kaunas before World War II.

This is the eighth episode in a series dedicated to the Jewish shtetls of Lithuania in Lithuanian National Radio and Television’s retrospective on the forgotten past of the Jews of Lithuania.

2017-01-09

Presidents of Lithuania and Israel on Holocaust and Business

VILNIUS, January 8, BNS–The presidents of Lithuania and Israel on Sunday underlined the importance of preserving the heritage of Lithuanian Jews and of expanding business ties as they marked 25 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

“Everywhere you look, the ties between our two nations get deeper and stronger, the olive and oak, growing as one,” Dalia Grybauskaite and Reuven Rivlin said in a joint statement.

The two presidents underscored the need to ensure the Holocaust never happens again through remembrance and education.

“We have to commemorate the past by honoring the innocent victims and the righteous, by studying the perpetrators and collaborators as well as by building bilateral relations based on friendship and mutual respect,” they said.

Grybauskaite and Rivlin said: “There are numerous areas in which the relations between Lithuania and Israel are already quite strong and many more spheres in which the partnership could and will be expanded.”

2017-01-09

Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia: We Aren’t Ex-Soviet Republics

VILNIUS, Jan 6, BNS – Ambassadors of the three Baltic states have asked the German media to stop referring to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as former Soviet republics.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said the address had been inspired by the Soviet Legacy column on the German news portal Zeit Online. The Ministry reported the portal responded to the remark, pledging to stop using a concept which is inaccurate in terms of international law.

In the letter to the Germany portal, the ambassadors of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia noted the Baltic states did not join the Soviet Union voluntarily but were occupied and annexed, while the majority of Western democracies, including Germany, never recognized the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states.

The letter also notes that the Baltic states did not create themselves from scratch in 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union but restored their independence that had been severed by the Soviet rule, thus declaring continuity of their statehood. Therefore, the Baltic states are not successor states of the Soviet Union and therefore cannot be defined as former Soviet republics.

BNS_logotipas

2017-01-09

Lithuanian Political Illusions: The “Policy” of the Lithuanian Provisional Government and the Beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania in 1941

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is publishing a series of articles by the historian Algimantas Kasparavičius, a senior researcher at the Lithuanian History Institute.

kasparavicius

Part 1

In Lithuanian historiography and in the public socio-cultural discourse, Lithuania’s greatest tragedy is often considered the Soviet occupation of 1940, which quickly turned into annexation and the loss of statehood. While not denying the historical significance of this catastrophe for modern Lithuanian statehood, considering the wider and deeper historical view, this is not entirely fair or moral historically. The greatest 20th century tragedy really came upon Lithuania not in June of 1940, when freedom and statehood was lost, but a year later when the Holocaust began in Nazi-occupied Lithuania. The greatest 20th-century tragedy for Lithuania is the destruction of the Jewish community which had lived for half of a millennium and had created a civic Lithuanian identity. Even the loss of national statehood is not an irreversible process, as shown by the experience of many peoples. When a nation loses statehood during critical historical circumstances, after the geopolitical situation changes for the better it is possible to restore it. That’s what Lithuania did as well on March 11, 1990. But the former Lithuanian Jewish Litvak community, rich in all senses, will never be restored, unfortunately. And that can only mean one thing, that our Lithuania, which for many Lithuanians still represents, as Dr. Jonas Basanavičius said, “the home of the people,” will remain diminished, darker, emptier, weaker and more fragile. In terms of civilization. Emotionally. Culturally. Demographically. Geopolitically.

2017-01-092017-02-03

What We Lost in WWII

by Marius Debesis
15min.lt

You could characterize Vilnius today as a city emerging from post-traumatic stress syndrome, covered with the wounds of war still visible to the naked eye, or sometimes only visible under profound examination, scars testifying to the city’s losses, slicing through the street plan but every year receding into the distance, into oblivion. To really understand Vilnius, one must consider the totality of losses, summing up what the capital lost during the war.

vilnius-1944-58653a4296640

Walking through the city looking for the “heritage” of the war, it’s useful to define several categories for what the Lithuanian capital lost during the war. The one to begin with is not cultural, but rather personal losses, from the loss of people who were an indivisible part of the city of Vilnius. Consider the most painful loss—the Holocaust of Vilnius Jews, which deprived the city of one of its greatest portions of identity, so significant that in Jewish culture Vilnius was bestowed the title of Jerusalem of the North. Although this text talks mainly about Jews, death hovered above everyone in Vilnius without regard to social status or religious or political conviction.

mazasis-getas-vilnius-po-58653a4459f50

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2017-01-06

Israel’s Economic Miracle Up Close

by Milda Kniežaitė
lzinios.lt

Even employees from such famous companies as Apple and Google who work in Israel try to start their own businesses. There’s no pay-off, they believe, in working for others. Success is having one’s own business. Personal ingenuity, daring and business acumen are the strengths of the small country leading to what is called the Israeli economic miracle. Our country could learn a lot from it. These and other insights were shared by Tomas Navardauskas, who has been working for two years now at the Israel-Lithuania Technology Hub which is attempting to stimulate Israeli-Lithuanian business partnerships and trade. “I was always impressed by the ecosystem of Israeli start-ups which encourages totally new business ideas, the rapid adoption of high technologies and achievements in the biological sciences. There are more than 250 research and expansion centers operating in the country. Every larger international corporation working in the high technology field tries to start their own research center in Israel because the new and innovative technological solutions existing and being created ever more rapidly there, and the human resources based on professional knowledge and expertise,” he told the Lithuanian newspaper Lietuvos žinios.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2017-01-06

Condolences

News of the unexpected death of Ruvinas Taicas has reached the Lithuanian Jewish Community. He was born May 19, 1950, and passed away January 4. Our deepest condolences to his family and many friends.

Ruvinas Taicas, a Litvak with deep family roots in Ukmergė (Vilkomir), was one of the last native Jews in his hometown where he spent his entire life, working for many years in a furniture factory.

The entire Community mourn his loss and send our condolences to his widow Fausta, sons Artūras and Mantas, his brothers and all his relatives, friends and colleagues. We wish you strength and fortitude in overcoming the pain of our shared loss.

2017-01-06

LJC Birthdays in January

Happy birthday to all members of the communities celebrating their birthdays in January!

Vilnius Jewish Community

Nina Dubrovskaja (January 22)
Ninel Efros (January 15)
Malka Fišer (January 9)
Borisas Kacas (January 5)
Galina Matskevitch (January 19)
Judif Rozina (January 8)
Ilana Rozentalienė (January 16)
Mira Bloch (January 15)
Ela Kruglova (January 12)
Zinaida Vinickaja (January 12)
Zofija Tunkel (1942 01 10)
Jurij Riabov (January 13)
Jakovas Bumšteinas (January 26)
Polina Kurbanova (January 5)
Michail Safjan (January 26)
Dina Ščerbinkina (January 23)

Kaunas Jewish Community

Civa Čereškienė (January 13)

Panevėžys Jewish Community

Valentina Darinceva (January 28)

2017-01-06