VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | HUMAN RIGHTS | OPINION
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by Leon Kaplan
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The following two comments appeared in Facebook on 1 November 2016 and on 3 November 2016, following publication of Dovid Katz’s 1 November article in Defending History. They have been slightly condensed and copy-edited here.
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1 November 2016:
It is time to stand up to this behavior. Does Madam Kukliansky think that in Ponar and the other 250 places of murder that Jews, our brothers and sisters, our children (kinderlakh) had been separated at the time of murder and thrown into a Chabad ditch and into a Misnagdim ditch? If this is a decision by Madam Kukliansky, to call the police or to lock out Krinsky from the building of the Jewish Community, then it is simply disgusting.
She should be reminded that this is not her private residence and not her private law office… It is a place for all Jews! I would suggest to Madam Kukliansky to start actively working on removing street names honoring murderers, making sure that vandalism of Jewish cemeteries is repaired by authorities, fighting for reparations or returning private property etc.
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3 November 2016:
In my opinion the position of a chairwoman of the Jewish Community is to unite and not to destroy… I am very surprised, our chairwoman is a lawyer and she as a legal professional should know how to look for a compromise. If for any reason Rabbi Krinsky was trying to create an artificial crisis, then our “smart lawyer” fell for it, right into the trap. Does our small community which knows so much pain deserves such behavior and such leadership? I hope our chairwoman will explain the reasons for calling the police, for washing the dirty laundry in public using the Lithuanian Jewish Community webpage. Also I hope that our Chairwoman will stop creating theories of sabotage using the webpage of the Community. I am surprised that a chairwoman of the community who is by training a lawyer and a prosecutor in the past has allowed the situation to explode and to give food to the antisemites around us.