OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGE OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | USCPAHA (UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD) | THE CPJCE (COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN EUROPE) | THE AJC (AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE) | THE CER (CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS) | THE GWF (GOOD WILL FOUNDATION) | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS
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The following statement was circulated to Defending History readers today in response to the statement from the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Shnípishok, in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius):
The new statement from the Seimas:
Please note that the group behind this statement (the “Museum crowd” sensitive to Western comment vs. the ultranationalist “Convention Center” crowd) is ignoring that the “Museum” option per se includes seating space potentially for thousands at events of various kinds (and the assurance about “appropriateness” of events are quite meaningless, as it would become the city’s main new conference venue — albeit with Jewish and other “toys on the walls” — open for rent for many thousands of euros in profits every single day). There would be thousands clapping, drinking at bars, flushing lavatories, with sewage and all sorts of other utilities flowing over the thousands of extant graves on all sides.
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Behind the scenes there is now more and more talk of the “compromise” that would allow the dishonest CPJCE and others to continue to cash in on secret payments for “monitoring” and “permissions” in return for ersatz “Jewish consent” spearheaded by the state restitution fueled fake-election official “Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania”. . . The question now is whether the AJC (American Jewish Committee), CER (Conference of European Rabbis) in Europe, the USCPAHA (US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad) in the US, Asra Kadisha in Israel, and other other groups internationally will this one last time have the simple courage and integrity to say:
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A CEMETERY IS A CEMETERY IS A CEMETERY
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None of this would be happening if this were the burial ground of five hundred years of citizens, scholars and leaders of the majority ethnicity and religion in the country. Where are the principles of equal rights, respect for minority cemeteries and esp. those buried people (whose plots were purchased freehold in perpetuity) have no descendants in town to stand up for their graves — thousands of which are still intact as proven by ground radar — precisely because of the worst case of genocide in human history.
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As of now, the “convention center” crowd’s rally planned for Monday evening 7 PM at the National Academy of Sciences is proceeding as planned with posters proliferating in town. Of course that “solution” was itself solemnly proclaimed back in 2019 in “partnership” with the dishonorable Jewish entities complicit in the desecration and destruction of the greatest Jewish cemetery in the historic Lithuanian lands, on the “Day of Shame” that year:
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For background, see Defending History’s coverage at:
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For bona fide Jewish views from Lithuania (not the ersatz “paid-for” community…) and beyond, please see: The democratically elected Vilnius Jewish Community’s 2024 peaceful and dignified protest:
Rabbi Sholom-Ber Krinsky’s recent historic essay:
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Rabbi Elchonon Baron’s historic one minute address to the rally in January 2026 demanding a convention center in the cemetery:
https://defendinghistory.com/
By the way: How did the audience react to Rabbi Baron’s words of January 2026 in the hallowed hall of the National Academy of Sciences?
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Rabbi S. J. Feffer’s Vilnius based writings and rabbinic decisions:
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Major voices of lifetime Lithuanian residents of diverse religious and national backgrounds who have spoken out with courage, depth, and dignity:
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Colleagues in Lithuania are invited to monitor and peacefully protest this coming Monday’s rally from 7 PM onward at the National Academy of Sciences, which should be quite ashamed of itself for giving its prestigious venue, again, for ultranationalist rants against the survival of the cemetery where the remains of some five centuries of Vilnius Jewish citizens lie buried.
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The feel of “dancing on Jewish graves” (the name of Vilnius native and resident Prof. Pinchos Fridberg’s essay of 2015) can be perceived via the video of the fevered chants on top of the extant, undisturbed Jewish graves back in 2024:
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Meir Bulka’s common-sense proposal for new ground radar to estimate the number of extant graves throughout the historic cemetery site:
https://defendinghistory.com/
The original 2008 press release summarizing that year’s ground radar:
The original 2008 press release summarizing that year’s ground radar:
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Views of Professor Sid Leiman of NY: https://defendinghistory.
Views of Professor Bernard Fryshman of NY: https://
Views of DH editor Dovid Katz in Vilnius: https://
Many other voices over the years: https://
More voices from recent years specifically on the “sanitized” option of destroying the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery via a “museum” with a macabre negotiated percentage breakdown of “Lithuanian vs. Jewish” commemoration:
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Arkady Kurliandchik’s heroic 2024 ‘one man stand’ against mass nationalist rally at the cemetery:
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People who really love modern, democratic Lithuania and care about its future are invited to speak out with rapidity and simple moral clarity. . .
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