We wish Gercas Žakas a very happy birthday. He serves as the chairman of the Kaunas Jewish Community and on the executive board of the Goodwill Foundation. Happy birthday wishes from Faina Kukliansky and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community. May your energy, work and enthusiasm continue for many years to come. Be in good health. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Educational high-fidelity LP record, originally pressed before the Holocaust, inviting learners to travel to… Yiddishland:
According to a poll by Lithuanian state radio and television on their website, two Jewish books were picked by visitors as the best Lithuanian translations of the year: Israel Cohen’s “Vilna” written in English and Lea Goldberg’s poem “Room for Rent” written in Hebrew.
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club invites athletes and the athletically-inclined at any and all levels of proficiency to a three-day sporting festival at the Pailgo perlas recreational area on a scenic lake 30 kilometers outside Vilnius. The celebration will include more than just sports in a beautiful natural setting, with a Sabbath celebration, singing, dancing, concerts, bonfire parties, fishing and swimming, among other activities. Sports include badminton, kayaking, ping-pong, volleyball, soccer and perhaps others, depending on the weather. The camp will run from April 19 to 21, but attendees aren’t required to spend all three days there. For more information and to register, send an email to info.maccabilt@gmail.com.
The Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble will perform a concert called Promised Land to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel at 4:00 P.M. on May 14 at the House of Polish Culture in Vilnius. Tickets cost 10 euros. For tickets or more information, call +370 687 79 309 or +370 5 261 30 03.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad chairwoman Star Jones have signed an agreement for the restoration of the women’s gallery at the recently restored Žiežmariai wooden synagogue. The Commission pledged $75,000 for carrying out the restoration, with the LJC responsible for implementing the project.
“This is an extraordinarily important project for the preservation of Litvak culture. The Žiežmariai synagogue is a unique example of wooden architecture. There are only a handful of wooden synagogues still standing in Europe as a whole. I am so happy Ms. Star Jones, representing an influential US organization, appreciates the importance of Litvak culture and has decided to contribute to its preservation. The solution of cultural heritage problems and the preservation of historical memory, after all, are the best avenue for separate peoples to engage in dialogue,” chairwoman Kukliansky said following the signing of the agreement.
Star Jones was recently appointed by the executive branch and is making her first tour of Lithuania and has visited a number of sites, including the Ponar Memorial Complex outside Vilnius. The agreement for restoring the women’s gallery is her first international agreement in her post as director of the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. She is a professional attorney and has wide name recognition as one of the panelists on the left-wing ABC television talk show “The View.”
Tatyana Arkhipova-Efros has died at the age of 100. A long-time member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a World War II veteran, she was born in 1922. We mourn her passing and extend our deepest condolences to her family and friends.
by Ignas Staškevičius, from recordings made on June 27, 2018, and June 26, 2019, in Vilnius
Q.: Mark, let’s begin with this question: how do you understand yourself?
A.: I believe I don’t understand myself fully.
I understood myself once in 1991. When I unexpectedly found myself [in a crowd] in Kaunas, defending the last… Defending… What sort of defense was that? Across the street from the so-called last free television station on Daukanto street I unexpectedly found myself in a crowd because I wanted to replace the announcer who was proclaiming in English: “S.O.S., nations of the world save us, this is the last free station in Lithuania!” But he was whining this over the air like some sort of famished kitten, so I decided the nations of the world wouldn’t understand a word of what he was saying, and I offered to replace him. I walked eleven kilometers from my house buried in snow, it was January, buried up to the door handle. No automobiles were driving. I walked eleven kilometers to the center of Kaunas because I decided to help, and there I found thousands of people and found myself facing tanks which were snoozing on the next street over. They weren’t moving, they were idling, and the barrels were so long that my entire classroom of students could’ve sat on one barrel. So then I went to the hotel across the street, back then there were these pay telephones which cost two kopeks, I inserted them and called the editorial office, saying: “You need to replace the announcer, what is he mumbling over there? Nobody understands him at all. You need a person who speaks English normally if you want to announce to the world you are perishing.” But they had already found someone, there was this woman from California in Kaunas at the time, and I finally heard abroad American pronunciation, a broad normal southern accent which reminded me of Voice of America a little bit, and everything was fine.
The Sabbath begins at 8:15 P.M. on Friday, April 21, and concludes at 9:36 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
Several days ago the global Jewish community marked Yom haShoah, the day of remembrance of Holocaust victims and heroes. A large contingent of Litvaks from the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel travelled to Lithuania to mark this commemorative date. They commemorated Holocaust victims in Alytus and Zarasai, where most of them had family roots.
On Monday the group went to Alytus, commemorating victims at the memorial to mass murder victims in Vizgiris Forest just outside town, where Jews from Alytus and the surrounding areas were killed. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, German ambassador Matthias Sonn, Alytus mayor Nerijus Cesiulis and Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel director Arie Ben-An Grozdensky whose father’s family came from the nearby shtetl Miroslav honored the victims of the Holocaust there.
With deep sadness we report the death of Markas Zingeris at the age of 76. He had struggled with heart problems for several years. The author of numerous novels, poet, long-time director of the Vilna Gaon Museum and a life-long promoter of Litvak culture, he is survived by his brother Emanuelis Zingeris. We extend our deepest condolences to his colleagues, many friends and family.
April 18 marked the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. Polish president Andrzej Duda invited the presidents of Israel and Germany, representatives of the major global Jewish organizations and others to a commemoration of the historic act of mass resistance during WWII which was held in Warsaw. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky also received an invitation and attended.
In his speech, Duda talked about the largest act of resistance by civilians to the Nazis. They knew they were outnumbered and faced defeat, but fought anyway, he noted. President Duda mentioned Ponar outside Vilnius as one of the main mass murder sites during the Holocaust. Some foreign media noted Duda failed to talk about Nazi collaborators, others said he wasn’t able to because of Poland’s new law forbidding discussion of Polish complicity in the Holocaust.
A ceremony was held to commemorate Yom haShoah, the Israeli Holocaust day of remembrance, on Tuesday at the Ponar Memorial Complex outside Vilnius. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas and Palanga Jewish Community chairman Vilius Gutmanas were joined there by Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, US ambassador Robert Gilchrist, Japanese ambassador Tetsu Ozaki, French ambassador Alix Everard, Lithuania’s deputy minister of culture Albinas Vilčinskas and U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad chairwoman and attorney Starlet “Star” Jones Lugo. Jones spoke with students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium at the event, emphasizing the importance of remembering the victims and preserving the Litvak heritage. Jones is a panelist on the controversial all-female liberal American television talk show “The View” on the American Broadcasting Company or ABC network.
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community began celebrating Passover April 5, beginning with the seder in the evening, the first one on the evening of April 5 led by Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky’s sons. On April 6 members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community gathered at the Žemaitis restaurant for the second evening’s seder. Community chairman Naum Gleizer greeted the celebrants who were served the traditional Passover dishes. Community member Vadimas Kamrazeris provided for the Jewish music at the restaurant, which led to sing-alongs and dancing.
The Kaunas Jewish Community sent in some snapshots from Passover celebrations in Lithuania’s second city. The holiday celebration there included the traditional dishes, a concert, dance music and even a quiz for people to test their knowledge of Passover.
Passover is usually a family holiday where everyone sits down at the seder table, reads the Hagadah, samples the traditional dishes and has fun. What about those who don’t have families?
LJC programs director Žana Skudovičienė said: “Many of our Community’s elderly are alone. Their families have left and their friends are busy. We are their family, so we celebrate together.”
Professionals prepared the meals for the seniors at the seder and LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky greeted everyone with Passover.
Our younger members certainly don’t lack for attention from their families, but even so, Žana Skudovičienė organized a special seder for young people.
The Judaica Research Center at the Martynas Mažvydas Lithuanian National Library, the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum and Roma Social Center present their “mini klez-fest” which includes live music and a lecture on klezmer music.
The event will take place at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Museum at 6:00 P.M. on Sunday, April 30. The performers decided to call their hour-long concert “From Vizhnitz to Vilne: Klezmer Music from the Carpathians and Beyond.” The program is composed of songs selected by Jewish music researcher, ethnographer and artist-in-residence in the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego State University Yale Strom, recorded during ethnographic field work and which were once performed from the Carpathian Mountains to Jonava in Lithuania and locations inside Belarus. Yale Strom currently teaches music at San Diego State.
The lecture component by Strom will take part on at 6:00 P.M. on Wednesday, May 3, at the National Library in Vilnius. It is called “Relationship between Romani and Jewish Musicians before World War II: How and Why?”
The Lithuanian news website 15min.lt announced they will be showing the Holocaust documentary J’accuse with Lithuanian subtitles on April 17 and 18. The focus of the film is Grant Gochin whose entire family were murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania, and Silvia Foti who published a biography of her grandfather Jonas Noreika, debunking his lionization by post-WWII Lithuanians and revealing his deep collaboration with the Nazis in Holocaust crimes.
The film documents the personal stories of Gochin and Foti in their search for truth and justice, and how their paths came together several years ago, both now demanding accountability and truth from the Lithuanian state in addressing the genocide committed against the Jews in Lithuania during WWII.
Foti’s book is in its second edition in the United States with translations in various languages around the world. Lithuanian publishing house Kitos Knygos is publishing the Lithuanian version of the book.
In the film Gochin talks about his numerous court cases in Lithuania seeking justice for his murdered family members. He talks about the anti-Semitism inherent in the Lithuanian bureaucracy in the first decade after independence from the Soviet Union when he sought Lithuanian citizenship based on family origin, and some of the strange decisions Lithuanian courts made regarding his numerous cases against the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania to force them to tell the truth about Jonas Noreika. Foti also levels criticism against the Center for hiding the truth about genocide in Lithuania.
The film contains a wealth of photography and stories of Jewish life in Lithuania before the Holocaust. 15min.lt says it is offering its readers the rare opportunity to view the film with the original audio with Lithuanian subtitles for two days exclusively.
Full article in Lithuanian and link to the film here.
We are pleased to announce we received a number of drawings, water colors and works in other media in our Passover children’s drawing contest. A surprising number of young people in the Community responded, some sending in multiple entries. We were also pleasantly surprised by the talent demonstrated, and insights into the inner life of our children. Some of the entries reminded us of the work of Marc Chagall and Samuel Bak. It was simply too difficult to decide on any one winner, but all contestants will receive a package of chocolate-coated matzo. A big thank-you to all the parents who helped as well.
An excerpt from the great Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever’s memoir of the Vilna Ghetto
“Malines were built everywhere: underneath ruined buildings, in cellars, underneath garbage dumps, in caves, and everywhere else imaginable.”
The poet Abraham Sutzkever (1913-2010) moved into the Vilna Ghetto not long after the Nazis created it in September of 1941 and with his wife Freydke escaped to the forest in September, 1943. During his two years in the ghetto he worked with the theater and youth groups and was part of the legendary Paper Brigade, a group of ghetto inmates and their allies who rescued priceless Jewish books and manuscripts from Nazi destruction.
Full article and translation here.
