Monthly Archives: August 2017
Vilnius Celebrating Milan Chersonski’s 80th Birthday on September 2nd 2017
Posted in Events, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views
Comments Off on Vilnius Celebrating Milan Chersonski’s 80th Birthday on September 2nd 2017
Historic Conference on Future of Vilna Great Synagogue Site is Open to All
EVENTS | VILNIUS GREAT SYNAGOGUE | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK TIMES
◊
VILNIUS—Excitement in Jewish-interest circles in Lithuania and its region is building in anticipation of next week’s open international conference on the future of the site of the historic Great Vilna Synagogue. Destroyed during and after the war, an unsightly Soviet era school was then plonked on top (somewhat analogously, morally and aesthetically, to the unsightly old Soviet “sports palace” atop the city’s old Jewish cemetery at Piramónt).
The conference, to be held in Vilnius next Monday and Tuesday, 4 and 5 September 2017, is free and open to the public. Everybody is welcome. But pre-registration is required at the website of the organizing NGO, Litvak World.
Posted in Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf)
Comments Off on Historic Conference on Future of Vilna Great Synagogue Site is Open to All
Honest Error at German Embassy in Vilnius?
OPINION | USE AND ABUSE OF PONÁR | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS
◊
VILNIUS—“There is nothing new under the sun,” as the Good Book says (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Sure, on occasion, Irish communities will feud in Boston, Italians in New York, Chinese in LA and Lithuanians in Chicago. It is part of the professional training, posture, and policy of diplomats to negotiate such inevitabilities by way of common sense, wisdom, and fairness. For years now, the widely admired German ambassador to Lithuania, HE Jutta Schmitz has kept her embassy’s diplomatic table open to people and organizations, governmental and non-governmental, from across the colorfully diverse spectrum of opinion in Lithuania. It is not known whether the recent completion of her Vilnius ambassadorship and departure from Lithuania, and the temporary vacancy, had anything to do with the embassy’s recent, and quite innocent, faux-pas.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius)
Tagged Ambassador Jutta Schmitz (Vilnius), Faina Kukliansky, German Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC), Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevicius), Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC)
Comments Off on Honest Error at German Embassy in Vilnius?
Brand New Yiddish Signs Come to Malát (Molėtai), Town in Northeast Lithuania
MALÁT | SHTETL COMMEMORATIONS | YIDDISH AFFAIRS
◊
MALÁT (MOLĖTAI)—At the initiative of Viktorija Kazlienė, founder and director of the Museum of the Molėtai Region (Molėtų krašto muziejus) in northeastern Lithuania, a series of Jewish historical signs were unveiled this week. The project came to fruition thanks to the material support of the Department of Cultural Heritage, that is under the aegis of Lithuania’s Ministry of Culture.
In the event, these signs mark the one-year anniversary of the internationally acclaimed march of memory held in August 2016 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the massacre of the town’s Jews in 1941 by local collaborators, under the aegis of the Nazis, and during the period of rapid annihilation of Lithuania’s provincial Jewry. In addition to playing a pivotal role in enabling the 2016 march and commemorative events, Ms. Kazlienė organized an extensive exhibition on the centuries-old Jewish life in the erstwhile shtetl, known in Yiddish as Malát. With Leonas Kaplanas, she coauthored a book based on the exhibition. It was featured in this year’s Vilnius Book Fair.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Malát (Molėtai), News & Views, Politics of Memory, Symbology
Tagged Lithuanian shtetl, Malat (Moletai), Viktorija Kazlienė
Comments Off on Brand New Yiddish Signs Come to Malát (Molėtai), Town in Northeast Lithuania
Neo-Nazis in Lithuania Again Get “Material” from “Official” Jewish Community’s Leadership
VILNIUS—In a kind of topsy-turvy-world follow-up to last June’s neo-Nazi pick-up of an abusive article on the website of the official state-sponsored Jewish Community of Lithuania, the nation’s chief neo-Nazi blogger, “Zeppelinus,” infamous for his racist, misogynistic, homophobic and antisemitic invective and graphics (samples here and here), has again jumped on the recent attempts of the current leadership of the state-sponsored official “Jewish Community of Lithuania” to use the historic term “Litvak” (‘Jew of Lithuanian heritage’) to divide the Jewish community racially and ethnically between alleged “pure-blooded Lithuanian Jews identifiable today by their Lithuanian language” and “Russian-speakers.” On at least one occasion, an international scandal resulted in a half-mouthed apology following the most offensive official posting and a hapless attempted “edit” that followed on. Vilna-born Holocaust survivor Prof. Pinchos Fridberg has commented on the affair.
Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Antisemitism & Bias, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views
Comments Off on Neo-Nazis in Lithuania Again Get “Material” from “Official” Jewish Community’s Leadership
New Hotel on Top of Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław? A Challenge for Poland’s Jewish-Interest Activists and London’s CPJCE
CEMETERIES | HUMAN RIGHTS | POLAND | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CPJCE | OPPOSITION TO VILNIUS CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | VILNIUS PETITION
◊
Logo for the new Hotel Wrocław?
◊
WROCŁAW—It would be hard to find a better illustration of what is at stake in the current conflict over the fate of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, Lithuania, than the partly analogous scenario playing out here in this western Polish city that was once the German Breslau (Yiddish Brésle), home to a major European Jewish community. The Gwarna Street Cemetery, just opposite the main railway station, was this city’s first Jewish cemetery, in active use from 1760 until 1856. Although closed for new burials in 1856, it was lovingly maintained, and remained open for visitors until World War II. Several thousand people were buried here.
Posted in Agnieszka Jablonska, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, CPJCE (London), Human Rights, News & Views, Poland, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged Agnieszka Jablonska, Benzion Shalom Eliezer Freshwater, CPJCE, Hotel Wrocław, Jewish cemeteries in Poland, Jewish heritage in Poland, USCPAHA, Wroclaw, Wroclaw Jewish cemetery
Comments Off on New Hotel on Top of Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław? A Challenge for Poland’s Jewish-Interest Activists and London’s CPJCE
New NATO Film Unwittingly Glorifies Holocaust Collaborators
OPINION
◊
by Dovid Katz
◊
Our take? NATO needs to stand for Western values. Putin’s shameful “Zapad 17” military exercise demo, in regions bordering the eastern democratic lands of NATO and the EU — including the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — is intended to intimidate their peaceful populations and to provoke regional unease. Not to mention the very real danger that various of the troops will find one way or another “to stay in the region after the exercises are over” in a very tired old Soviet spirit of things. These military exercises need to be exposed for what they are, and countered with stalwart determination. NATO’s commitment to its members must remain sacrosanct and permanent, while remaining true to the ideals for which, ultimately, it exists.
That makes it all the more critical for the North Atlantic alliance (and the EU) not to succumb to regional far-right, ultranationalist, chauvinist, Holocaust-revisionist, and antisemitic forces in the course of the proceedings.
Posted in Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Dovid Katz, Estonia, Film, Jonas Žemaitis, Latvia, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Darius Udrys, Double Genocide, Evaldas Balciunas, Forest Brothers (Baltic), Forest Brothers Fight for the Baltics, glorification of Holocaust collaborators, NATO, NATO + Estonia, NATO + Latvia, NATO + Lithuania, Vladimir Putin, Zapad 17
Comments Off on New NATO Film Unwittingly Glorifies Holocaust Collaborators
Dar kartą dėl istorinių Vilniaus žydų Piramonto kapinių Šnipiškėse
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES
◊
Julius Norvila (Bernardinai.lt)
◊
◊
Kaip darytume, išvydę paauglius, žaidžiančius krepšinį ant kapų? Daug negalvodami iškviestume policiją. Kodėl? Mirusieji jau nebegali apsiginti patys. Bendražmogiška moralė reikalauja gerbti kapines ir atlikti mirusiesiems patarnavimus. Įsirengti žaidimo aikštelę kapinėse griežtai draudžia kaip religinės tradicijos, taip ir valstybės įstatymai.
Posted in Julius Norwilla, Vilniaus senosios žydų (Piramonto) kapinės Šnipiškėse
Comments Off on Dar kartą dėl istorinių Vilniaus žydų Piramonto kapinių Šnipiškėse
Vilnius TV & Radio Debates on Future of Piramónt — the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
DOCUMENTS | THE OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | HUMAN RIGHTS
◊
VILNIUS—Following Defending History’s publication last weekend of the 28 July 2017 letter to the president of Lithuania signed by twelve United States congressmen, pleading for the new national convention center project to be moved away from the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery (Piramónt, in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius), the news was reported by The Weekly of Vilnius, an elite diplomatic publication on Lithuanian affairs, and then by BNS (Baltic News Service, and in English via the Lithuania Tribune), which put it into the wider Baltic domain. Last Monday, 14 August, there were at least four panel discussions broadcast on Lithuanian TV and radio. The following are full English translations of each of these broadcasts, provided by DefendingHistory.com.
◊
(1) LNK TV: News. With Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), Faina Kukliansky, Rūta Leitanaitė, Daniel Lupschitz (Danielius Lupšicas), Deividas Matulionis, Romas Pakalnis, Donatas Stundis
(2) LRT TV: Panorama. With Simon Gurevich, Skirmantas Malinauskas, Valdonė Rundenkienė
(3) LRT Radio: Lithuanian Day. With Simon Gurevich, Agnė Kairiūnaitė, Deividas Matulionis
(4) LRT Radio: 60 Minutes. With Simon Gurevich, Agnė Kairiūnaitė, Faina Kukliansky, Deividas Matulionis, passers-by and a taxi driver
Vulovak for DefendingHistory.com
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, CPJCE (London), Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius)
Tagged Agnė Kairiūnaitė, Daniel Lupshitz, Deividas Matulionis, Donatas Stundis, Faina Kukliansky, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, Romas Pakalnis, Rūta Leitanaitė, Simon Gurevich, Simonas Gurevicius, Skirmantas Malinauskas, Valdonė Rundenkienė, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
Comments Off on Vilnius TV & Radio Debates on Future of Piramónt — the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Professor Leiman Responds to Lithuanian President on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE
◊
VILNIUS—The following statement by Professor Shnayer (Sid) Leiman, appeared today in the respected American weekly Five Towns Jewish Times. It is a reaction to the comments by Lithuania’s top leaders, made after receiving a letter of protest from twelve United States congressmen concerning plans to site a projected new national convention center in the heart of the territory of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius). International opposition to “the convention center in the old Jewish cemetery” continues to mount.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Sid (Shnayer) Leiman
Tagged Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Piramont (Snipiskes), Sid (Shnayer) Leiman
Comments Off on Professor Leiman Responds to Lithuanian President on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Why the Dead Jews of Vilna Cannot Rest in Peace
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE
◊
The following article which covers the recent meetings between the mayor of Vilnius and Jewish leaders in New York City, appeared today in Five Towns Jewish Times (as PDF).
◊
by Rabbi Zev Friedman
◊
The dispute over Vilna’s oldest synagogue has been brewing for more than a decade. Recently, as a result of the involvement and protestations of a coalition of rabbinic leaders and activists, the fight has intensified.
The Jewish community in Lithuania is hundreds of years old. The Vilna Gaon, who lived in the 18th century, and other great Torah luminaries helped Vilna earn its reputation as the Jerusalem of Eastern Europe.
The Shoah. Lithuania has rightfully earned one of the most sordid reputations of anti-Semitism based upon its participation in the Holocaust. While almost everyone heard of Babi Yar, where 33,000 men, women, and children were murdered, many have not heard about Ponary (Ponár), the forest outside of Vilna where double that amount — approximately 70,000 Jews — were rounded up and massacred by Lithuanian Nazi collaborators.
READ MORE
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged Mayor Simasius
Comments Off on Why the Dead Jews of Vilna Cannot Rest in Peace
Ruta Bloshtein Responds to Lithuania’s Top Politicians on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE
◊
VILNIUS—The following statement by Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, an active member of the city’s religious Jewish community, appeared today as an update to her international petition, which has just approached the 40,000 signature mark. Her update was issued as a reaction to the comments by Lithuania’s top leaders, made after receiving a letter of protest from twelve United States congressmen concerning plans to site a projected new national convention center in the heart of the territory of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius). International opposition to “the convention center in the old Jewish cemetery” continues to mount.
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Human Rights, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein
Tagged Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Piramont Snipiskes cemetery, Ruta Bloshtein
Comments Off on Ruta Bloshtein Responds to Lithuania’s Top Politicians on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
“Weekly of Vilnius” is First Lithuanian Publication to Cover US Congress Letter on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
DOCUMENTS | THE OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | HUMAN RIGHTS
◊
VILNIUS—The Weekly of Vilnius, widely considered to be this city’s most prestigious English-language news publication, was today the first in the Lithuanian capital to cover news of the letter from twelve United States congressmen to the president of Lithuania concerning current plans to situate a projected new national convention center in the heart of the city’s historic old Jewish cemetery, at Piramónt, in the Šnipiškės section of modern Vilnius. With the permission of the publishers, we are reproducing the title page of today’s edition and the entire article concerning the cemetery. In the spirit of classic journalism, The Weekly of Vilnius has no online edition (only an online description page) and is available weekly by emailed PDF or hard copy to its elite group of subscribers, known to include embassies, government agencies, captains of industry, politicians, academics and relevant institutions, libraries, and think tanks around the world. It is edited by the distinguished economist and journalist Mr. Nehro Khalil. A PDF facsimile of today’s report follows. Please use the arrows in the upper left hand corner to turn pages in either direction.
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Comments Off on “Weekly of Vilnius” is First Lithuanian Publication to Cover US Congress Letter on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
12 US Congressmen Call on Lithuania’s President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE
◊
WASHINGTON—A resolute letter (facsimile below; as PDF) signed by twelve United States congressmen to the president of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė, was released here today. Dated 28 July 2017, the letter expresses American “opposition to the conversion of the old Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports into a convention center on the site of the old Jewish cemetery.” It asserts that “the very presence of the existing structure in the middle of the old Jewish cemetery desecrates it and conflicts with the respect for human dignity that forms the basis of Western Civilization. By contrast, moving the convention center project to another site, and permitting the dismantling of the abandoned Sports Palace it was to replace, would affirm the Lithuanian government’s commitment to basic human rights.”
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), United States, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged American-Lithuanian relations, Jewish cemetery preservation, Litvak issues, Piramont Snipiskes cemetery, Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, Rep. Alice Constandina "Dina" Titus, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Rep. Eliot L. Engel, Rep. James P. McGovern, Rep. Janice Danoff Schakowsky, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. John Garamendi, Rep. Joshua Gottheimer, Rep. Randall Keith Weber, Rep. Steve Cohen, Rep. Ted Deutsch, United States Commission for the Preservation, USCPAHA, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
Comments Off on 12 US Congressmen Call on Lithuania’s President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Vilnius Jewish Community Releases Letter Signed by 20 Elected Board Members Addressed to “Good Will Foundation”
DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS
◊
VILNIUS—One month ago, on 7 July 2017, twenty of the twenty-one elected board members of the Vilnius Jewish Community (the 21st was abroad) signed a full-hearted letter addressed to the Good Will Foundation, the Lithuanian government restitution fund for Jewish community survival deriving from part of the value of the communal properties owned by the annihilated religious Jewish communities of prewar Lithuania. To this date, there has been no reply from the Good Will Foundation, nor any statement from its esteemed foreign board members who represent the World Jewish Restitution Organization. The board’s co-chair is Andrew Baker of the American Jewish Committee, who is a recipient of a number of Lithuanian government medals over the years.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Free Speech & Democracy, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius)
Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Geros valios fondas, Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), Josif Parasonis, Leonas Kaplanas, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pinchos Fridberg, Vilnius Jewish community
Comments Off on Vilnius Jewish Community Releases Letter Signed by 20 Elected Board Members Addressed to “Good Will Foundation”
Kerler’s 9 August Lecture on “Yiddish: A Language in Contact Within and Without” Open to Public
VILNIUS—Professor Dov-Ber Kerler, deeply involved in the 2010 purge of Vilnius Yiddish Institute staff (including his own former doctoral supervisor at Oxford) for having disagreed with some Lithuanian government policies on the Holocaust, and in an alleged ongoing effort to obfuscate the history of Yiddish studies at Oxford and Vilnius, will be lecturing this Wednesday, 9 August 2017, at the new Judaica Research Center at Lithuania’s National Library in Vilnius. He is the head of the leading American Yiddish graduate studies program, that currently produces more Yiddish Studies doctorates than any other, at the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University at Bloomington. The topic of the lecture is “Yiddish: A Language in Contact Within and Without” on which Prof. Kerler has carried out pioneering research for decades. The event is open to the public free of charge. The lecture is underwritten by the government’s Ministry of Culture. More details are available on the Center’s Facebook page. Professor Kerler is also a specialist on Ethics in Yiddish Studies. He was honored for his efforts by a popular t-shirt in Lithuania.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Boris Karloff, Borns Jewish Studies Program, Dov-Ber Kerler, Dr. Alice Field Cohn Chair in Yiddish Studies, Jewish Studies Indiana University Bloomington, Yiddish at Bloomington
Comments Off on Kerler’s 9 August Lecture on “Yiddish: A Language in Contact Within and Without” Open to Public