Wooden Synagogue in Alanta Renovated
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Lithuanian Jews Oppose Any Commemoration of Kazys Škirpa
Lithuanian Jewish Leaders Call on Biden to Make Clear the Ukraine’s Accession to NATO
Israeli Protesters Begin Day of Disruption against Controversial Judicial Overhaul
Jerusalem (CNN)–Demonstrators took to the streets in Israel Tuesday for what they call a day of disruption and resistance against the Government’s moves to overhaul the country’s judicial system.
Photos and videos released by protest organizers and Israel Police showed demonstrators on the streets in Tel Aviv, Petach Tikva and Bersheeba among other cities, and CNN saw protesters at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. At least 42 people had been arrested as of 11 a.m. local time (4:00 A.M. ET), Israel Police announced.
Lawmakers voted Monday to strip the Supreme Court of the power to declare Government actions “unreasonable” in the first of three votes required for the controversial bill to become law.
Congratulations to Lara Lempertienė
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda presented the Lithuanian medal “For Merit” to Lara Lempertienė, director of the Judaica Research Center of the Lithuanian National Library, on July 6, Lithuania’s State Day, Coronation of Mindaugas Day. She received the award in recognition of her work at the Center going beyond textual research and including exhibits, publications, presentations at international conferences and presenting the Litvak cultural legacy in Lithuania and abroad. The Lithuanian Jewish Community congratulates Lara on yet another Lithuanian state award and wish her continued success.
Discussion Club and Dance Lesson
The #ŽydiškiPašnekesiai Jewish discussion club invites you to an unusual meeting this Friday on the tpoic of Jewish dance, outside, with a dance lesson.
Participants are to include Fayerlakh director and dancer Larisa Vyšniauskienė, Ladino dance expert and actress Lina Žemaitytė and others, moderated by Arkadijus Vinokuras. The discussion and dancing happens at 6:00 P.M. on Friday, July 14, at Cvirka Park across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.
Happy Birthday
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and chairwoman Faina Kukliansky wish a very happy birthday to Algirdas Malcas, chairman of the Vilnius Jerusalem of Lithuania Jewish Community. May you always remain so energetic and full of ideas for fostering and commemorating our rich Jewish cultural legacy. May you remain in good health and be filled with the joy of life. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Sabbath Times
The Sabbath begins at 9:37 P.M. on Friday, July 7, and concludes at 11:21 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Honored Guests Visit Panevėžys Jewish Community
Williams Tcath, the president of the Gendel/Hendel family association, and a group of fellow travellers visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community this June. His grandfather Salomon Hendel was a merchant of pre-made clothing and died in 1916. His descendants have banded together to form an association of families who left Panevėžys after 1919 with 416 members.
Mr. Tcath looked through the archives and photo albums of the Panevėžys Jewish Community, and left an inscription in the guest book.
The point of their trip to Panevėžys was to collect information and photographs concerning the families belonging to their association and to make known the contributions made by these families to life in Panevėžys at that time. Members of the delegation had numerous documents which they gave to the Panevėžys Jewish Community. They only had one day in Panevėžys and then travelled on to Vilnius.
Israeli Ambassador to Lithuania Commemorates Holocaust Victims in Jurbarkas
Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg-Silverstein visited the western Lithuanian town of Jurbarkas, or Yurburg in Yiddish, on July 3, according to the Jurbarkas Regional Administration webpage jurbarkas.lt.
The ambassador began her visit at the V. Grybas Museum where Jurbarkas regional mayor Skirmantas Mockevičius and museum director Rasa Grybaitė received her.
At the Jurbarkas Regional Library the ambassador met with regional administration director Rūta Vančienė, culture and sports department director Aušra Baliukynaitė, senior department specialist Akvilė Sadauskienė and library director Rasida Kalinauskienė. They discussed opportunities for cooperative work.
Greetings on Coronation of Mindaugas Day
Greetings on Lithuania’s Coronation of Mindaugas Day, or State Day, July 6.
For centuries Jews and Lithuanians with others have created and built Lithuania, and have worked hard for the country’s welfare and success.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and chairwoman Faina Kukliansky send our greetings to everyone on this holiday and wish you peace, happiness and concord.
Lithuanian MP Scoffs at Ultimatum: Apologize or Face Impeachment
Parliamentary whips of the parties in the ruling coalition issued an ultimatum Tuesday to MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis to either apologize for anti-Semitic statements he made on facebook before the NATO summit meeting in Vilnius on July 11 or face impeachment and removal from parliament.
Opposition parties refused to sign on to the statement.
Žemaitaitis said in response: “I don’t see why I should apologize.”
“They can go bravely forward and initiate my impeachment, but let’s wait and see what the European Court of Human Rights and the people have to say about that,” he added.
Classical Music Concert
Photo: Violinist Atis Bankas and pianist Victoria Korchinskaya-Kogan.
The Vilnius Jerusalem of the North Jewish Community and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to a free concert of classical music performed by violinist Atis Bankas and pianist Victoria Korchinskaya-Kogan.
Born in Kaunas, Atis Bankas moved to Canada in 1981 and joined the national symphony orchestra in Toronto. Korchinskaya-Kogan is the heiress of a family of famous violinists and began playing piano at the age of 5, performing a public concert at the age of 6 in Moscow.
Time: 6:30 P.M., Tuesday, July 18
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius
Young Adventurers Club Day Camp
The Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite children aged 6 to 15 to an unusual summer day camp involving travelling and hiking from 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. on August 14 to 16. Participants will meet at the Sholem Aleichem school in Vilnius. For more information, call Vilma at (+370) 659 41244. Registration here.
Nazi Hunter’s Long Search for Hidden War Criminals
Photo: Efraim Zuroff and Simon Wiesenthal at the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy the Simon Wiesenthal Center
Efraim Zuroff, an American Israeli historian and Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), has been tracking down thousands of Nazi war criminals hiding out in all corners of the world since 1978. In a phone call from Jerusalem where he currently resides he told the Jewish Press: “I’m the only Jew in the world who prays for the good health of the Nazis. Of course, only the ones who can be brought to justice.”
Zuroff was instrumental in getting laws passed in Canada, Australia and Great Britain which enabled prosecution of Nazi war criminals who came to those countries under false pretenses. He’s been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in Serbia and granted honorary citizenship of the Serbian city of Novi Sad [bombed by NATO in 1999 in contradiction to the vote in the UN Security Council] for exposing a Hungarian police officer who rounded up thousands of Serbian civilians and was accused of taking part in executing them. He has also been honored with the Order of Duke Trpimir for his work combating Holocaust revisionism in Croatia, and received the Gold Medal for Merit in Serbia for exposing the truth about the suffering of World War II victims.
Born in 1948 in Brooklyn to an Orthodox family, Zuroff’s yeshiva upbringing was extremely important to him. He explained: “I’m from a family of people who devoted their lives to Yeshiva University.” Zuroff received his PhD in Holocaust history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem after graduating from YU with honors in history. The focus of his dissertation was the Vaad Ha-Hatzalah committee who rescued Orthodox rabbis and yeshiva students from the Holocaust, about which he later wrote a book titled “Response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States: The Activities of the Vaad Ha-Hatzalah Rescue Committee, 1939-1945.”
Russia Declares Former Chief Rabbi of Moscow Foreign Agent
Photo: Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt (photo credit: Eli Itkin/CER)
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt left Russia at the beginning of the Ukraine war and called for Jews to leave Russia.
Former chief rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt is a “foreign agent,” Russia’s Justice Ministry said, according to a report Friday from Interfax.
“Goldschmidt disseminated false information about the decisions made by public authorities of the Russian Federation and their policies,” the report from the official Russian news outlet said, quoting the Justice Ministry. “He opposed the special military operation in the Ukraine.”
Garage Victims Remembered
The annual commemoration of the Jewish victims tortured and murdered at the Lietūkis garage in Kaunas took place last week at the site on Miško street with kaddish performed for the dead as well at the Jewish cemeteries in the Slobodka and Žaliakalnis neighborhoods.
The Lietūkis garage massacre became one of the most notorious episodes in the Holocaust in Lithuania. Jewish men were rounded up at random and brought to the automobile service station were they were attacked with picks, crowbars and shovels, and water houses were stuffed down their throats and turned on till their stomachs burst. Around 68 Jews were killed there after enduring hours of torture.
According to German statistics from 3,500 to 4,000 Jews were murdered in Kaunas between June 24 and June 30, 1941, but the peculiarity of the Lietūkis garage atrocities was that they were committed by local Lithuanians rather than Nazis. German soldiers appeared only as spectators and didn’t intervene. The names of most victims and perpetrators remain unknown. The German Wehrmacht photographer who was there recalled:
Holocaust Victims Commemorated in Palanga
A ceremony to commemorate the Jews murdered in the Holocaust was held in Palanga on June 27 at the monument in Birutė Park. Jews settled in Palanga in the latter half of the 15th century. A Hebra Kadish or Jewish funeral society was established there in 1487. In the 17th century Jews comprised a significant section of society there and contributed heavily to the development of the city. In 1540 King Sigismund I the Elder granted a charter to the Jews to build the first synagogue and other religious structures there. The Jewish cemetery appeared that same year. In 1662 around 40 Jews called Palanga home. In 1693 Palanga’s Jews received the right to purchase and own land, build houses and engage in trade. Jews pioneered the tourist industry there with property and room rentals, hospitals and boarding houses. These economic activities led to the city becoming a summer resort destination. Palanga had a Jewish Bank, Hebrew language schools or heder and the synagogue. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Jews were rounded up and killed en masse in Palanga. Hundreds were murdered with more than 300 individuals murdered on June 27 and around that number again on October 12.
World Premiere at Vilna Ghetto Judenrat to Celebrate Vilnius’s 700th Birthday
Contemporary composer Michael Gordon will present the premiere of his work Resonance in the courtyard of the Youth and Lėlė Theaters accessible at Arklių street no. 5 at 9:00 P.M. on July 5. The courtyard was the home of the Judenrat in the Vilnius ghetto, the Jewish council set up by the Germans. The composer’s family came from Vilnius. The composer will give a talk the next day at Rūdininkai square across Rūdininkų street from the Judenrat at 2:00 P.M. on Thursday, July 6.
Tickets for the concert may be purchased here: https://shorturl.at/gE178
Sabbath Times
The Sabbath begins at 9:41 P.M. on Friday, June 30, and concludes at 11:29 P.M. on Saturday, July 1, in the Vilnius region.
Lithuanian Jewish Community to Attend Vilnius Birthday Procession
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites everyone to take part in a special procession to mark Vilnius’s nominal 700th birthday on Coronation of King Mindaugas Day, July 6, and to represent the Jewish community during the city’s celebrations.
The procession will start from the Gates of Dawn and move to Cathedral Square, to the recreated Royal Palace next to the Archcathedral. This is the same path trodden by the leaders and military commanders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania over history. This time the procession will include NATO as well as Lithuanian soldiers and the theme appears to include a strong martial component with a miniature Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile set up at Cathedral Square, presumably to invoke a NATO victory over Russia in their conflict in the Ukraine.
It is scheduled to take place from 7:30 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. on Thursday, July 6. To be part of the Jewish delegation, contact Neringa at office@lzb.lt.
Prosecutor Seeks Expert Opinion on MP’s Anti-Semitic Statements
by Milena Andrukaitytė, BNS, June 28, 2023
Lithuanian prosecutor general Nida Grunskienė says the decision on whether controversial statements by Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis might have sown discord can only be made after receiving conclusions from experts.
“There are two pre-trial investigations launched. They haven’t been combined at this time, tasks have been assigned to experts and in one case expertise has been requested from the Court’s Expertise Center in order to determine if the statements by the member of parliament is incitement to hatred of a certain group of people. Only after receiving the finding, the expertise protocol, can the prosecutor make a decision,” Grunskienė told reporters at the Lithuanian parliament Wednesday.