O P I N I O N

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As Lithuania’s president Dalia Grybauskaitė arrives for her visit to Israel, we all join in wishing her entire team a terrific and productive trip. From the Litvak point of view (the real one, that is, not the “Fake Litvak Industry”), there are, as ever, some important outstanding issues that require open-hearted discussion rather than being shoved under the table (as both governments might be inclined to do, given the current geopolitical, economic and other imperatives).

In the Litvak world there are rumors that this week’s Litvak Congress in Israel is largely a closed and opaque event limited to acolytes of both governments and exclusionary as far as all the rest are concerned. However that may be, the vitally important Litvak and Jewish and human rights and truth-in-history issues that lurk need to be politely brought up, as in any mutually respectful dialogue.

See today’s page 1 of DH for some of these issues and our page on Seven Simple Solutions for a more comprehensive listing.

Looking at this frankly modest list of gestures and actions (very modest from the standpoint of the resources of an EU/NATO member democratic state), one can’t help but think that so very much good would come from them just being on the table, after all these years of vast and self-defeating misinvestment in ways and means to keep them off the agenda.