Writer and thinker Arkadijus Vinokuras celebrated a birthday last week and the entire Community wishes him all the best. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
A very happy milestone birthday to Kaunas Jewish Community member Roza Tulchina! Community members and chairman Gercas Žakas celebrated her birthday with flowers, gifts and well-wishes including greetings from Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Šiauliai city and district police arrested a city resident November 6 alleged to have taken the remains of an Israeli flag from the Šiauliai Jewish Community building after removing and destroying it, Šiauliai district police reported.
Security cameras captured the vandal removing the flag from its mount outside the Jewish community building, casting it aside and then leaving. Later the same figure appeared to return, destroy the flag and carry off the remains. Desecration of flags of other nations, the EU and certain international organizations is a crime under article 128 of the Lithuanian criminal code.
Officers from the city and district police forces were patrolling the city and observed the suspect from the video camera around noon that day. They arrested him. The 52-year-old man had a criminal record including theft, robbery and counterfeiting of official documents. The charge could carry a maximum two-year prison sentence.
by Geoff Vasil
Last Thursday night into Friday morning gangs of Hamas supporters hunted down and assaulted Israeli fans of the Tel Aviv Maccabi FC soccer team in Amsterdam. There were multiple people wounded, some seriously. The masked gangs waving Palestinian flags demanded statements of “Free Palestine” from two of their victims as they were being beaten, including one non-Israeli caught up in street violence.
The organized pogrom against Jews in the Dutch capital came on the eve of Kristallnacht, the Nazi SA’s nation-wide pogrom in Germany in 1938.
While the public has come to expect violence between fans of rival soccer clubs in Europe, these attacks were something else. Earlier in the evening Israeli fans had chanted anti-Arab slogans as they left the sporting venue and boarded trains for their hotels, but Israelis didn’t initiate any violence. Sources close to Israeli intelligence report taxi drivers in Amsterdam supplied information to the organized violent gangs on where Israeli fans had travelled and the locations where they were staying.
Israel sent several airplanes to rescue Israeli citizens from the violence in Amsterdam. El Al reported they evacuated 2,000 Israeli citizens. Dutch King Willem-Alexander said “our history has taught us how intimidation goes from bad to worse,” adding that the country could not ignore “anti-Semitic behavior,” the BBC reported. Amsterdam police didn’t intervene to stop the hunting down of Jews and brutal assaults by knife-wielding Hamas terrorists.
Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of the International Jewish Affairs Department of the AJC and representative of the OSCE for fighting anti-Semitism, has sent a letter to Lithuanian Social Democrat MP Gintautas Paluckas, favored to serve as Lithuania’s next prime minster, warning of irreparable harm which would ensue from forming a governing coalition with Remigius Žemaitaitis and his party Nemuno Aušta. The letter was also sent to Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda.
Letter:
Dear Mr. Gintautas Paluckas,
The American Jewish Committee and I personally have been strong supporters of a democratic and independent Lithuania since the formation of the Sajudas independence party and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We were among the first and strongest advocates in Washington for a NATO enlargement that would welcome Lithuania into the defense alliance at the very time when many others cautioned against crossing Russia’s “red lines.” For all these years since we have been stalwart promoters of a strong and close bilateral relationship between the United States and Lithuania.
The Sabbath begins at 4:10 P.M. on Friday, November 8 and concludes at 5:24 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Šiauliai Jewish Community headquarters has been vandalized for the third time recently on November 6. This time an unknown subject removed an Israeli flag from its holder outside the building and desecrated the flag. Last week a vandal also attacked the Israeli flag there. Police arrested and fined a man in a recent similar incident before that.
Security cameras captured the crimes on October 30 and November 6, respectively:
Ilya Skulovich from Ignalina passed away November 4. He was born in 1937 and was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. We send our deepest condolences to his children and loved ones.
Anna Yakoleva passed away November 4. She was born in 1936 and was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. We extend our deepest condolences to her son Andrejus and her friends and family.
The Sabbath begins at 4:24 on Friday, November 1, and concludes at 5:39 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.
The Israeli parliament the Knesset voted Monday to ban all activities by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency largely responsible for delivering food and medicine in Gaza. Israeli lawmakers made the move following the presentation of evidence UNRWA staff were among the Hamas terrorists who raped, burned and killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, and took another 250 hostage. Israel had shown videos the terrorists made of themselves during that massacre and invasion show UNRWA staff driving motorcycles and holding guns and hand grenades.
The United Nations initially denied the accusations, then performed an investigation of itself, which basically concluded some UNRWA staff “might have been involved.” Later the UN argued UNRWA staff including Hamas terrorists are basically international diplomats and therefore enjoy diplomatic immunity from prosecution.
The Knesset passed two laws dealing with UNRWA. The first bans all activities on Israeli soil, presumably meaning inside Israel including the Golan Heights but not the West Bank or Gaza. The second law specifically states UNRWA staff are not immune from prosecution for their crimes, as well as banning official contact between Israeli agencies and public servants with UNRWA.
by Daiva Gabrilavičiūtė, LRT.lt, October 26, 2024
“The Yiddish language has become a symbol of Jewish cultural resistance and survival. In spite of waves of historical oppression, the Holocaust and assimilation, Yiddish reflects the resolution, resilience and continuity of the Jewish people,” Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium principal Ruth Reches told Lithuanian state radio and teleivision.
Yiddish appeared about a millennium ago in what is now Germany. Large Jewish communities settled in Eastern Europe. Over time Yiddish became more than the everyday language of communication and was used in Jewish intellectual and cultural life. Books and newspapers were published, songs were written and plays performed in Yiddish.
Before World War II more than 10 million people spoke Yiddish. Most were murdered during the Holocaust. The handful who survived faced Soviet oppression. Others found safe haven on the other side of the Atlantic.
Full article in Lithuanian here.
by Alex Winston, Jpost, October 25, 2024
Veteran Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff talks about his long career and new ongoing battle: fighting Holocaust distortion.
In early September an innocuous facebook message was posted, stating: “After 38 years as director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and 13 years during which I was responsible for Eastern European Affairs as well, I will be leaving the center at the end of this month (September 2024). Looking for new opportunities to continue to combat Holocaust distortion, and antisemitism.”
If the post was intended to serve as a chance to alert potential employers to new employment opportunities, Efraim Zuroff may have been underselling himself slightly.
Zuroff, often referred to as “the last Nazi hunter,” has spent over four decades tracking down war criminals and holding them accountable for their roles in the Holocaust. But as Zuroff reaches the twilight of his career, his focus has shifted toward a more insidious problem–Holocaust distortion.
In his own words, “Holocaust distortion is a new form of antisemitism.” Zuroff’s mission to expose this growing issue, particularly in Eastern Europe, reflects the larger fight against historical manipulation and the dangers it poses for future generations.
Full article here.
by Geoff Vasil
Following the ballot Sunday in the second round of voting for the Lithuanian parliament and thus a new Government it now looks almost certain former social democrat labor minister Vilija Blinkevičiūtė will replace conservative PM Ingrida Šimonytė. The pro-gay Freedom Party failed to win a single seat, the marginal and somewhat extremist National Unification party is also unrepresented and the current ruling coalition with the Conservative Party as the prime mover will now give way to a parliamentary coalition of the Social Democratic Party, the Union of Peasants and Greens and the party which splintered off from the latter, the Democratic Union “For Lithuania” under former PM Saulius Skvernelis.
The Conservative Party took second place in terms of number of seats but was in a tight race with the Nemuno Aušra party MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis formed in response to being castigated for numerous anti-Semitic and anti-Israel posts and statements he made over a year ago. The Conservative Party will like now form the official opposition with party leader Gabrielius Landsbergis stepping down from the party and resigning his seat in parliament the same day. The Liberal Union currently in coalition government is not announcing whether they seek to join the social Democrats in a new coalition but the sounds coming from liberal speaker of parliament Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen indicate they will not join such a coalition.
Blinkevičiūtė, Skvernelis and Peasants/Greens leader Ramūnas Karbiauskis received an audience at the President’s Office Monday. As the head of state the president must approve any new ruling coalition and new cabinet of ministers.
Political commentators and members of the main winning parties in this election have said Remigijus Žemaitaitis and his Nemuno Aušra party will likely be a thorn in the side of parliament, a source of endless scandal, that it’s unlikely to consolidate into a serious political force and that they would be an unreliable partner for coalition, never mind the openly anti-Semitic and xenophobic statements emanating from Žemaitaitis. That party also has a problem with candidates and now MPs who have lied about their criminal records on election forms. Žemaitaitis said he would not join the Conservatives in official parliamentary opposition and would likely support the Social Democratic Party on a vote-by-vote basis in the legislature.
The information presented here does not reflect any position but that of the author and all mistakes are his.
Update: Vilija Blinkevičiūtė declined the post of prime minister citing age. Social democrat Gintautas Paluckas is now favored to become the next PM.
by Gercas Žakas, chairman, Kaunas Jewish Community, writing in the newspaper Kauno diena
After Remigijus Žemaitaitis’s party Nemuno aušra [Dawn of the Nieman River] received significant support from voters at the polls in the first round of voting, the Kaunas Jewish Community has been watching to see what the final outcome of elections to parliament will be. We have observed even before the second round of voting how the rhetoric of the political parties has changed regarding Žemaitaitis.
It would be hard to find a more cynical character. A demagogue and a liar. Divisive and slinging mud. His speeches contain many lies and accusations against his opponents and ethnic minorities of imaginary crimes. Now he’s trying to squirm out of the situation, again lyving that he hasn’t said anything bad about Lithuanian Jews. If some party nonetheless does enter into a coalition government with him, it would demonstrate that there are no principles nor values when it comes to the struggle for power. That nothing is sacred.
Read Žemaitaitis’s social media posts. In May of last year he posted on facebook: “For how much longer will our politicians go down on bended knee to the Jews who murdered our people, contributed to the hunting down and torture of Lithuanians and the extermination of our country;” “There was a Jewish Holocaust, but there was a bigger Holocaust of Lithuanians in Lithuania. The murder and torture of Lithuanians, the rape of women and the separation of children from their parents was a pleasant attraction and a joyous moment” and “The Lithuanian nation must never forget the Jews and Russians who contributed so greatly to the destruction of our people.”
The Sabbath begins at 5:39 P.M. on Friday, October 25, and concludes at 6:49 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Friday is also Simchat Torah.
by Geoff Vasil
The Kamala Harris campaign in the US presidential election has shifted strategy to attacking her opponent as a fascist, Nazi, Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin all rolled into one. At a campaign rally Monday Kamala called Trump a would-be dictator and with raised fist chanted “Never again!” On Tuesday she spoke from a podium outside the White House and quoted unnamed sources in an Atlantic magazine article who claimed Trump had once expressed admiration for the loyalty of Hitler’s generals. Trump’s former White House chief-of-staff John Kelly told the New York Times Trump had expressed “envy” for Hitler’s generals and that the Atlantic magazine’s report was true. Whether true or fabricated, someone forgot to consider military chief-of-staff Claus von Stauffenberg and his “generals’ plot,” meaning their attempted assassination of Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair, or maybe that is the subtext of the alleged quote. There have been two assassination attempts against Trump so far and the FBI, supposedly in charge of all domestic counter-intelligence in the US, claimed Iran has sought to hire contract-killers to shoot him as well.
Republicans are saying the Harris camp has gone into desperation mode with less than two weeks to go till November 5, the nominal day of elections. Most polls show Trump creeping up into a lead in the seven swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Pollsters and political watchers have been calling Pennsylvania the key state for victory, but Trump has concentrated on North Carolina and serving president Joe Biden and former candidate Bernie Sanders have been campaigning for Harris in New Hampshire, which was thought to be solidly in the Democrat camp already.
Some observers have pointed out Harris only has one path to victory at this point, victory meaning 270 or more electoral college votes. She would have to win all three Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania plus one vote from Nebraska which is one of only two states–the other is Maine–to apportion electoral college votes. All other states are winner-take-all. Trump, on the other hand, has multiple paths to the magic number 270 and while the three aforementioned states had been called the Democratic Party’s fortress or “blue wall,” pollsters now think Trump will win in Pennsylvania and could also take Wisconsin. While most pundits claim the race is too tight to call, other pollsters who have been correct in the past say Trump might win “easily,” meaning by a significant majority of electoral college votes, but probably will not win by a “landslide” as Ronald Reagan did in 1980. Optimists in the Trump campaign say they could win former Democrat stronghold states such as New Jersey and maybe even New York, and newly-minted Democrat majority states such as Virginia, although external polling data don’t seem to support that optimism.
by Virgis Valentinavičius, LRT.lt
President Gitanas Nausėda has spent a year and a half ignoring the fact anti-Semitism is recognized at the parliamentary level in Lithuania, and as elections were approaching he rejected proposals to create a cordon sanitaire [buffer zone] against radicals, but he finally saw the light. Just a few months before elections the president reluctantly admitted there is no place in government for anti-Semites, but from that time as well he berated proponents of this cordon sanitaire idea because, supposedly, they were motivated by immoral electoral interests.
The official called the head of state in the constitution had a partial epiphany of the threat posed by anti-Semitism, but there it ended. The story began in May and June of 2023 when Remigijus Žemaitaitis began tossing around anti-Semitic statements in public. The prosecutor found Žemaitaitis had posted anti-Semitic texts on facebook on May 8 and June 13, 14 and 15, 2023. Žemaitaitis posted anti-Semitic texts on facebook, such as: “Besides Putin another group of beasts has appeared in the world: Israel;” Lithuanian Jews together with Russians exterminated the village and population of Pirčiupiai on June 3, 1944″ and “our government representatives don’t care at all about the murder of our Lithuanians by the Jews who lived in Lithuania from 1941 to 1944.”
The Vilnius Jerusalem of Lithuania Jewish Community posting on https://www.vilniauszydai.lt has taken strong exception to an Al Jazeera television report on a pro-Hamas protest held in Vilnius presumably months ago which included editorial content linking the Palestinian cause to the Lithuanian struggle for independence from the Soviet Union. The Community said it was disgusting and shameful to hold street marches in support of terrorism.
The pro-Hamas website palestina.lt for some reason provided a translation from Arabic (Al Jazeera mainly broadcasts in English) of the report and editorial (translated back into English here):
“There are demonstrations taking place in Lithuania to express solidarity with Palestine. From the beginning of the war in Gaza activists have held many events in public spaces in the capital Vilnius [sic, two at most]. Participants demand an end to the genocide of Palestinians. The demonstrations are being organized by palestina.lt to bring public attention to events in Palestine, to counter the pro-Israeli narrative dominant in the country’s media, to condemn the close relationship Lithuanian politicians have with Tel Aviv and to emphasize there was also oppression, deportations and colonization in the history of Lithuania dating from the Russian Empire’s period of rule (1795) through the Nazi occupation right up until the restoration of independence.”
The Jerusalem of Lithuania Jewish Community countered:
