OPINION | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | LITVAK AFFAIRS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA

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OPINION

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VILNIUS—The following is an edited and updated version of Dovid Katz’s post on Facebook today in reaction to the  statement posted today by the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) on its website and on Facebook.

[Updates: See also the media report in Alfa.lt; the statement posted by Jewish Heritage Lita (JHL) on its website; Defending History’s newly compiled section, Lithuania: a Textbook Case of East European Restitution for Lost Jewish Assets Abused to Dismantle and Diminish a Vibrant Jewish Community, which includes contributions over the years by Ruta Bloshtein, Alexander Chernov, Pinchos Fridberg, Simon Gurevich, Leon Kaplan, Arkady Kurliandchik, Zecharya Olickij, Josif Parasonis, the late Jacob Pilansky, among others.]

BRAVO to our democratic Vilnius Jewish Community (which represents over 1,600 Jewish people in Vilnius, constituting the majority of today’s small Jewish community in Lithuania) for proudly standing up and speaking out on this week’s monkey elections at the corrupt “Lithuanian Jewish Community” (which is state-sponsored, via “restitution” no less, deriving from the property values of the annihilated prewar religious institutions). Their statement is on Facebook and their website.

In the middle of the 2017 election campaign, when a certain conflict-of-interest passport lawyer saw that her opponent was winning, the rules were changed mid-campaign to disenfranchise the living Jewish people of Lithuania and replace them with kangaroo “associations” comprising entities themselves receiving monies and/or other benefits from the same restitution.

Not to mention that the official head of the LJC is also non-rotating, permanent co-chair of the misnamed Good Will Foundation (along with unethical legitimization by the American Jewish Committee) which disburses much of the tens of millions of restitution to cronies, relatives and sycophants. As if that were not enough conflict of interest for one day, the usurper of the chairpersonship of the official state-sponsored community is also one of Lithuania’s top “passport lawyers” offering first-class, brilliant services to rich clients from South Africa etc who urgently need a European Union passport (thanks to high connections, well-connected lawyers provide services with extra vitamins).

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On top of everything else, the Bad Will Foundation’s resources have allegedly been used over the years for vicious campaigns of personal venom against people who have given decades of their lives for Jewish causes here, including Ruta Bloshtein, Simonas Gurevicius, Misha Jakobas, and Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, among others.

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What a calamitous, shameful end this would be to 700 years of inspirational Jewish life and creativity here in Vilnius (Vilna, Yiddish Vílne). But thanks to the Vilnius Jewish Community, there is still a small glimmer of hope for survival of a future community that is honest and representative and not a corrupt quango.

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For background please see:

Arkady Kurliandchik’s published work over recent years:
https://defendinghistory.com/category/kurliandchik-arkady?order=asc

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Defending History’s section on The Stolen Election:
https://defendinghistory.com/category/a-stolen-election-and-a-small-jewish-communitys-protest?order=asc

“Lithuania provides the prime example of post-Soviet East European state restitution gone tragically wrong: used for dismantling the actual remnant Jewish community instead of enabling its continuity.”

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Defending History’s section on the Good Will Foundation:
https://defendinghistory.com/category/good-will-foundation-jewish-restitution-in-lithuania?order=desc

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Leon Kaplan’s published articles: https://defendinghistory.com/category/kaplan-leon.

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Ruta Bloshtein’s take: https://defendinghistory.com/divide-and-conquer/84732

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Rabbis’ takes:

Rabbi Elchonon Baron: https://defendinghistory.com/116449-2/116449

Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky: https://defendinghistory.com/rabbi-sholom-ber-krinsky-not-afraid-to-blog-about-community-leaderships-injustice/94924. On the Passover 2025 closure of Vilnius’s one functioning synagogue see DH’s report at: https://defendinghistory.com/vilniuss-rabbi-of-30-years-standing-is-called-mr-sholom-ber-krinsky-in-latest-hate-piece-on-official-website-of-restitution-fueled-jewish-community/120748

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Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports:
https://www.jta.org/?search-type=global&s=Lithuanian+Jewish+Community+elections&from_date=&to_date=&sort_by=relevance
Specific reference to disenfranchisement of Lithuanian Jewry:
https://www.jta.org/2017/12/28/global/lithuanian-court-nullifies-jewish-community-elections

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The shameful state of affairs is enabled by legitimization offered by some of the world’s most powerful, largest Jewish organizations whose representatives sure have a good time with the wining and dining, banquets, photo-ops and junkets to delightful Vilnius to rubber stamp the most obvious corruption and then say “It’s nothing to do with me”. The names of the organizations and their reps are public information:
https://gvf.lt/en/board/

People who actually come to this page are quite often shocked to find there such names as: American Jewish Committee (AJC); American Zionist Movement (AZM);  B’nai B’rith International;  Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany; National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry; World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO); World ORT. Colleagues in America and Israel particularly are urged to contact these organizations and their major donors to explain what is being done with their money and in their name…. On the particularly unethical and self-serving meddling by AJC please see our section:
https://defendinghistory.com/category/american-jewish-committee-ajc-in-lithuania?order=desc

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Prime example of abuse of restitution, by a state apparatus interesting in  subsuming Jewish matters with full control over expression “creating” and enabling a pliant, state-created  “Jewish community” via supposed kosherization by an American Jewish Committee (AJC) macher, running a “good will foundation” that  disburses huge funds at will not only to benefit cronies, relatives and obedient parties, but also to work against  the interests of the tiny minority they are supposed to be supporting, as in  the sad saga of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. After years of collusion with the London based “grave trading” CPJCE, the AJC macher (earning himself yet another silver cross from the government) was able to ensnare the Conference of European Rabbis (CRE) to send “pliant” “Orthodox members” of yet another “commission” to gave the green light to a vast convention center in the middle of the old cemetery (this time “fixed” via proposed museum-type exhibits honoring Jewish and Lithuanian history). This would never happen to a five hundred year old cemetery where thousands of people from the ethno-religious majority lie buried. See:
2023-2024 “Prime Minister’s Working Group”.
International opposition.
Background from 2015 onward. AJC’s collusion.

Today’s report in Alfa.lt:
https://www.alfa.lt/aktualijos/lietuva/vilniaus-zydu-bendruomene-nedalyvaus-lietuvos-zydu-bendruomenes-pirmininko-rinkimuose/356190/k/0/

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Today’s Vilnius Jewish Community statement on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/vilniauszydubendruomene/posts/pfbid02qGdQA2yQ5S9XbRfZdo11xuASQsRrNKPKHkWU2Zaj5QMYHdWhwzX3yYFTHZf79RjZl

and on the VJC website: https://www.vilner.lt/vilniaus-zydu-bendruomenes-pranesimas/.