OPINION | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | LITVAK AFFAIRS | TEXTBOOK CASE OF FAILURE OF RESTITUTION FOR PLUNDERED PREWAR JEWISH ASSETS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA | CHABAD IN LITHUANIA

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VILNIUS—Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Chabad’s rabbi in Lithuania, who for thirty-two years has been the city’s only resident rabbi, today issued the following statement addressed to the president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO):

It is deeply painful that the restitution process in Lithuania has been flawed from the start.

The local Lithuanian co-chair, Ms. Faina Kukliansky, has maintained control of the Lithuania Jewish Community of Lithuania (LJC), and thereby continued to secure her role as co-chair of the Good Will Foundation (GWF), through procedural maneuvers rather than by broad popular support.

Historically, LJC community leadership was determined by a popular vote of individual members. When the direction of her restitution-related plans alarmed a large segment of the community, the LJC bylaws were changed (in the middle of the 2017 elections), so that the head of the Lithuanian Jewish Community would be chosen by member organizations (“associations”), rather than by individual members. This shift effectively altered the leadership decision-making process permanently in her favor.

She then facilitated the registration of new organizations and communities that supported her, increasing the number of organizations that could be counted to secure her position. As a result, some longstanding original communities that rejected these tactics were sidelined.

To cite just one example: the original community in Šiauliai (Shavl in Yiddish) did not support her continued leadership, so a newly formed community — aligned with her — was recognized and received GWF funding instead of the decades‑old community.

These newly created entities often lack any genuine Jewish constituencies. They exist primarily as “registered communities” that back her absolute authority and thereby help preserve her sole control over restitution funds. Each of these shell communities receives annual GWF support, while the largest community in Lithuania, the Vilnius (Vilna) Jewish Community has not received any GWF funding, a direct result of their supporting a fair, democratic vote for the leadership of the LJC.

So in this way we are not unique. GWF funds allocations have been very consistent for those who are loyal to assuring the local GWF co-chair’s LJC leadership, etc, and GWF allocations have been non-existent to those who don’t.

A simple, consistent  and unethical scheme.

Of course, our work was by far the biggest “threat” to total GWF funds control. For we did not begin doing programming only when the GWF was created, as others did.

Indeed, our long‑standing, country‑wide work has been built over decades since we came to settle in Lithuania in 1994. It has not only been denied any GWF funding, but GWF resources have been used in ways that harass, undermine, or attempt to close the institutions we have established for young and old alike throughout Lithuania.

To summarize: GWF funding has been used across the board to reward politically and personally supportive individuals and organizations, while those who are not “loyal” are attacked and denied funding.

The same pattern applies to the Vilna Synagogue.

Legally, the synagogue is a separate entity from the LJC, and therefore should be free from the LJC’s unilateral control. Nevertheless, control has been consolidated in practice. Security personnel at the synagogue, once paid directly from GWF allocations received by the Synagogue, were moved to the payroll of the Jewish Community of Lithuania.

This change by default placed day‑to‑day control of the synagogue in the hands of those who manage the LJC, making the synagogue’s functioning vulnerable to the whims of a single individual and open to abuse, of which you are already aware.

GWF monies were squandered in a few attempts to import from abroad rabbis into the Synagogue with the singular goal of duplicating what we have been doing long before restitution funds became available, to try to force us out of the Synagogue and close down our institutions and work.

I hope this clarifies the situation regarding restitution funds and the damage their misallocation has caused: persistent division, needless conflict,  harm to the Jews of Lithuania today, and a disgrace to the memory of Lithuania’s Holocaust martyrs.

However, responsibility extends beyond one person.

The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), holding 50% of the GWF board seats, shares responsibility for approving funding to these fabricated communities that entrench a single individual’s control, and for the lack of transparency and fairness of GWF allocations to date.

The WJRO must explain why our extensive operations — approximately one million euros per year — received no GWF support, while funds were instead used to harass and undermine our work.

The WJRO should provide a full, detailed accounting of every GWF allocation (not just the “summaries” provided online), rather than continuing to ignore requests for this information for more than a decade.

Given this record, the WJRO ought to reconsider its role in the GWF and whether it serves the interests of Lithuania’s Jewish life today. Those who have labored for decades to revive Jewish religious life here do not require WJRO patronage to honor the memory of Lithuania’s Holocaust martyrs.

It is time to restore transparency, realign leadership and allocations with the GWF’s founding intent (restitution for prewar Jewish religious communal property), and empower those who have genuinely worked to rebuild Jewish life, work that, based on past unfortunate experience, may be better advanced without WJRO involvement.

To finish by quoting the Prophet Zechariah: Love truth and peace,

Rabbi Sholom Krinsky