COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | BOLD LITHUANIAN CITIZENS SPEAK OUT | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
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Author Archives: Defending History
Lingering Discussions of Netanyahu’s 23-26 August 2018 Visit to Lithuania
ISRAEL PAGE | ISRAEL SECTION | LOWPOINT IN ISRAEL’S PROUD DIPLOMATIC HISTORY?
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Debbie Maimon in Yated Ne’eman on the “Pandora’s Box” Opened; Efraim Zuroff’s Critique of Netanyahu’s Acquiescence to Lithuanian State Holocaust PR Games
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DH’s Israel Page
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Ben Cohen’s Coverage in Algemeiner.com Cites Three Defending History Suggestions for the “Lithuanian-Israeli Moral Agenda”
(1) Call for letters of apology for three Israeli citizens defamed for posterity by Vilnius prosecutors: Yitzhak Arad (b. 1926) and Rachel Margolis (1921–2015) and Joseph Melamed (1924–2017). All three fought with the Jewish partisans against the Nazis. Two of the three were decorated heroes of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.
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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Debbie Maimon, Israel + Lithuania, Israel policy on Eastern Europe, Israel policy on Holocaust, Joseph Melamed, Netanyahu + Lithuania, Netanyahu in Vilnius, Rachel Margolis, Yitzhak Arad
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The Midnight Plane to Czernowitz: The 2018 International Yiddish Conference
OPINION | YIDDISH AFFAIRS | UKRAINE
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by Saul Chapnick
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from today’s TIMES OF ISRAEL
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Have you ever missed an anniversary, a birthday, or event and regretted it for years, or even a lifetime? I have. It was missing out in attending the 1908 International Conference on Yiddish Language that took place exactly 110 years ago this year at Czernowitz, a city that served as the regional capital of the Hapsburgs (modern day Chernivtsi, Ukraine).
You may ask even how was it distinctly possible that a man my age could have been around 110 years ago. For the past nearly thirty years, I have immersed myself in learning about Jewish life and infrastructure in prewar Europe, plus seeing what the role of Yiddish was, if at all, in that culture. For most Jews of this age, modern history began with the Holocaust and the creation of the third commonwealth, the modern-day State of Israel. Events like the Czernowitz Conference, or the Kishinev Pogroms, World War I or the Leo Frank affair are just not in our lexicon, even though they all occurred in the twentieth century, thus making them modern, not ancient, history.
As Jews, it is incumbent upon us to fulfill the obligation of “Zakhor,” “To Remember.” We are to look back at our history and internalize it in such a way to feel just like we were there, and feel what our brethren felt. This is just not reflected in our reading of the Passover Haggadah, but everything we do and say in life. To do “Zakhor” means we have a fuller understanding of ourselves in order to be able to navigate the future. Zakhor enables us to be more comfortable with self. That is why I went on a personal quest over the last 25 plus years to visit libraries, read books, make visits to Poland and Ukraine to meet with political leaders, rabbis, community leaders, and lay people so that I can learn and experience.
Czernowitz 1908 symbolized to me that turning point in Jewish history. A part of me felt that I did spiritually attend that conference, but realistically, I knew that it was a physical impossibility. Then, in July, Dovid Katz, a leading Yiddish scholar, posted in Facebook that he was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 2018 International Commemorative Conference of Yiddish Culture and Language at Czernowitz to mark the 110th anniversary of the very first conference.
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Posted in News & Views, Saul Chapnick, Ukraine, Yiddish Affairs
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Vilnius Jewish Community Calls on Lithuanian Gov. to Preserve Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery & Other Heritage Sites
LITHUANIAN JEWISH LIFE | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | CEMETERIES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ISSUES
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VILNIUS—The 21 person democratically elected board of the Vilnius Jewish Community, representing the approximately 2,200 Jews resident in the Lithuanian capital, today released an approved English translation of its 29 August 2018 statement on Jewish heritage in partnership with a number of smaller regional Jewish communities throughout the country. The original Lithuanian text is available here, and appears at the end of this report below.
Those following the saga of attempts to humiliate the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery by situating a national convention center in its heart, will be encouraged by the explicit language concerning the project contained in the statement:
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, EU, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community, Old Vilnius Jewish cemetery, Piramont, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish Cmmunity
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WJC Tweet Causes Pain to Holocaust Survivors and Their Families
OPINION | DOUBLE GENOCIDE
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VILNIUS—The central office of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) today tweeted uncritical support for “Black Ribbon Day” failing to note that the August 23rd remembrance day sponsored by ultranationalist elements in Eastern Europe, has been one of the most cunning tools for writing the Holocaust out of history via the “Double Genocide” movement that seeks to “equalize” Nazi and Soviet crimes as per the Prague Declaration of 2008 (which indeed has the day among its “requirements”). Defending History is proud to have been part of the team that produced the Europarliamentary rejoinder, the 2012 Seventy Years Declaration (SYD), which was signed by 71 European Union parliamentarians, including eight enormously courageous Lithuanian MPs and MEPs. SYD calls for “distinct days and distinct programs to remember the Holocaust and other victims of other twentieth century totalitarian regimes”.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, World Jewish Congress (WJC) and ORT
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Grant Gochin Exposes Noreika’s Criminal Gang
OPINION | HISTORY | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
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by Andrius Kulikauskas
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Lithuanian citizen Grant Gochin, a Litvak born in South Africa and living in California, has relentlessly challenged Lithuania’s Genocide Center to tell the truth about Jonas Noreika, whom the Center maintains can be considered an anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi hero despite his role as a Holocaust perpetrator. Gochin’s 40 page Query Regarding Jonas Noreika’s criminal gang, submitted on June 15, 2018, is available in a PDF file which includes the Lithuanian original (pages 49-89), the English translation (pages 1-45), and an extensive list of source materials (pages 90-100). Jonas Noreika’s granddaughter Silvia Foti also contributed a letter in support of Grant’s query (pages 47-48). The Genocide Center has posted its 18 page response in Lithuanian. On its website it warns that “G.A.G Gochin’s ‘investigation’ of J. Noreika, without providing substantial proof, possibly violating the Republic of Lithuania’s Constitution and the Republic of Lithuania’s Criminal Code, accuses many individuals […]”.
Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Andrius Kulikauskas, Evaldas Balciunas, Genocide Center Vilnius, glorification of Holocaust collaborators, Jonas Noreika
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Program of August 2018 Chernowitz (Cernivtsi) Yiddish Conference
YIDDISH AFFAIRS
VILNIUS—The organizers of the international conference in Yiddish studies to mark the 110th anniversary of the fabled Chernowitz Language Conference of 1908 have today released the final program for the conference. It is available as PDF and follows below (use arrows at upper left to turn pages). It will be held in the same building where the 1908 conference took place in today’s Cernivtsi, Ukraine from 6 to 10 August 2018.
Posted in Dovid Katz, Yiddish Affairs
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Mound of Gravel Appears at the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt
CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | HUMAN RIGHTS | LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
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Photo: Julius Norwilla / Defending History
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Herbert Block, Julius Norvila, Julius Norwilla, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, Paul Packer, Piramont Jewish cemetery, Snipiskes --- zydu kapines, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery
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Turto Bankas Discusses the Terms for Desecrating Vilnius
OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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by Andrius Kulikauskas
On July 2, 2018, at 11 AM, Lithuania’s state property bank, Turto Bankas, led an open meeting to discuss the rental terms for the operator of the Vilnius Concert and Sports House, previously known as the Soviet Sports Palace (Sporto rūmai), which the Soviets built on Vilnius’s oldest Jewish cemetery. The search for an operator is part of a plan by the Lithuanian government to remake the decrepit building as a modern convention center and a symbol of Vilnius. According to critics, the plan is senseless and the symbol shameful.
Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion
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Prime Minister’s Office Gloats Over “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery” Project in Reply to Plea from Vilnius Native Ruta Bloshtein
HUMAN RIGHTS | LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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VILNIUS—In March of 2017, Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, author of the international petition on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that has achieved 44,000 signatures to date, presented a copy of the petition with a full list of signatures to the office of the prime minister. In June of 2017, she received a reply from the government restating the supposed justification for desecrating the five hundred year old Jewish cemetery on the basis of “permissions” obtained from the (allegedly corrupt) “grave-trading CPJCE rabbis” of London, who are currently under investigation in London.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein
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Ką daryti su senosiomis Vilniaus žydų kapinėmis?
VILNIAUS SENOSIOS ŽYDŲ (PIRAMONTO) KAPINĖS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES
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prof. Šnajeris Leimanas
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Ką daryti su senosiomis Vilniaus žydų (Piramonto, dabartiniame Šnipiškių rajone) kapinėmis? Atkurti jas. Kad tai įvyktų, sovietiniai griuvėsiai jų viduryje turėtų būti sulyginti su žeme, o žemė kapinėse nekasinėjama – niekada daugiau. Lai šios kapinės amžiams lieka Vilniaus žydų gyvybingumo liudininkėmis.
Posted in Vilniaus senosios žydų (Piramonto) kapinės Šnipiškėse
Tagged Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Snipiskes --- zydu kapines
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Herbert Block Issues Public Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | USCPAHA | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES
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by Herbert Block
I have been involved in Jewish community, heritage and Holocaust-restitution issues in Lithuania for almost two decades, through various professional and personal capacities. While I have worked on these matters in other European countries, I have a special interest in and bond with these subjects as almost all my family came to America from Litvak areas. In the past few years I have spent a lot of time on the issue of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery in Šnipiškės (Piramónt) and the future plans for the Sports Palace building which has been on that site for decades. I met with many rabbis and community leaders with vastly different views and no meeting or photo should be interpreted as an endorsement of any position.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Herbert Block, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
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Three U.S. Senators Appeal to Pres. Grybauskaitė to Spare Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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WASHINGTON DC—Three United States senators, Benjamin L. Cardin (Maryland, D.), Pat Roberts (Kansas, R.), and James E. Risch (Idaho, R.) today wrote to Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaitė, appealing to her to move the planned national convention center away from the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to another venue. It follows a similar appeal by twelve members of the American Congress last summer, a wide range of religious, community and religious figures and institutions internationally, and a recent statement to The New York Times by the elected head of the Vilnius Jewish Community, representing the vast majority of Lithuania’s surviving Jewish citizens. Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, a prominent figure in Lithuania’s small Orthodox Jewish community, initiated a petition signed by close to 44,000 people internationally.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, United States
Tagged Piramont, rights of minority cemeteries, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery
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Environment as Spiritual Capital: Restoring Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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by Andrius Kulikauskas
Text of the abstract for a paper for the First Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS), Oct 8-9, 2018, Riga, Latvia.
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We develop a concept of “spiritual capital” which has suggested itself in the public debate regarding the future of the Vilnius Sports Palace, a large forum which the Soviets built in the 1960s on a Jewish cemetery which is the oldest in Vilnius and perhaps all of the Baltic states. This concept of spiritual capital is relevant for analyzing cultural surroundings but could also perhaps ground a healthy human relationship with natural surroundings.
Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Landsbergis and Pavilionis Address June 23rd Rally in Central Vilnius
JUNE 23rd MEMORIALS | EVENTS | OPINION | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | ANTISEMITISM
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by Julius Norwilla
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Today’s central Vilnius event celebrated the 77th anniversary of the 23 June 1941 “uprising.” Between fifty and sixty people took part. Half of them are members of the motorbike club. The event was organized by the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament). The Seimas was represented by three MPs – Žygimantas Pavilionis, former ambassador to USA; Audronius Ažubalis, former foreign minister; and Laurynas Kasčiūnas. One of the speakers was the Roman Catholic priest and motorbiker Egidijus Kazlauskas who spoke about the suffering and the perseverance of Lithuanians when persecuted by deportations to the eastern Soviet Union. Vilnius city Mayor Remigijus Šimašius was not present, but he has sent his greetings via advisor Mindaugas Kubilius.
A guest of honor was Vytautas Landsbergis, the elder statesman who was modern democratic Lithuania’s founding head of state. In the new century he became a European parliamentarian dedicated to revision of World War II history, most famously via the Prague Declaration which he signed. The event was co-organized by the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Union (Lietuvos laisvės kovotojų sąjunga).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, History, Julius Norwilla, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, June 23rd start of Lithuanian Holocaust
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Meeting with Vilnius City Officials on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES
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by Julius Norwilla
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Earlier today, I had the honor to be one of three individuals from very different backgrounds who partnered to visit with the highest city authorities we could reach to plead for the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. In the current situation, that means, pleading with authorities to move the national convention center projects away from the thousands of Jewish graves going back to the fifteenth century, so as to enable this amazing site in modern Vilnius to be restored to the city’s great benefit and reputation.
The meeting was initiated by Ruta Bloshtein, author of the international petition asking the Lithuanian government to move the convention center project (it has achieved around 44,000 signatures to date). The third participant was Rabbi Samuel Jacob Feffer, a major scholar of the Gaon of Vilna, who has been based in Vilnius for over a quarter of a century. He is co-editor of dozens of books of the works of the Gaon of Vilna.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory
Tagged Darius Daunoras, Julius Norvila, Julius Norwilla, Paulius Jonys, Povilas Poderskis, Rabbi S. J. Feffer (Vilnius), Ruta Bloshtein, Vincas Brezgys
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Vilnius Municipality Endorses Old Town Motorcycle Gala to Celebrate June 23rd
JUNE 23rd MEMORIALS | EVENTS | OPINION | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | ANTISEMITISM
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With “extraordinary insensitivity” Vilnius Municipality again endorses Old Town motorcycle gala to celebrate June 23rd, day the Lithuanian Holocaust broke out (initiated by the LAF “heroes” being celebrated)
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Sources in London: Legal Action in Preparation Regarding CPJCE’s Betrayal of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
UK | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CPJCE
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LONDON—Reliable sources in London reported this morning that solicitors are being instructed by a group of international clients whose ancestors lie buried in the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, in today’s Snipiskes district of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. For years, the Lithuanian government’s justification for planning to situate in the cemetery its new national convention project, confirmed on numerous occasions in writing, is the “permission of the CPJCE in London,” a group of renegade rabbis who have ignored the pleas of all other rabbinical groups, and all major Litvak (Lithuanian origin) rabbis internationally, to give “permission” for the convention center in the heart of the cemetery. When Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, the then chief rabbi of Lithuania dared speak up in opposition, in 2015, he was rapidly dismissed. In late 2016, Rabbis Kalev Krelin and Sholom-Ber Krinsky were among the first to sign the international petition (see also Rabbi Krinsky’s blog and DH section). Rabbi S. J. Feffer, author of dozens of learned books on the Gaon of Vilna, based in the city for a quarter century and head of its Litvak rabbinic authority, published a powerful ruling in 2017.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), United Kingdom
Tagged CPJCE, CPJCE (Committee for Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe), Jewish cemetery in Snipiskes, Piramont Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, Rabbi Kalev Krelin, Rabbi S. J. Feffer, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky
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100 Jews from Across Lithuania Peacefully Protest Undemocratic Hijack of Official Jewish Community
VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION
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VILNIUS—As covered sequentially by DH over the past year, the official “Lithuanian Jewish Community” (LJC) saw its democracy abruptly dismantled in the spring of 2017 with the mid-campaign rule-change whereby the three thousand or so surviving Jews of Lithuania were disenfranchised and their voting rights replaced by a roomful of “Jewish oligarchs,” most of whom are beneficiaries of funds allocated by the government’s Good Will Foundation. Some have two or three votes, some represent defunct organizations, and one, who has two votes actually lives in Brussels. Western observers have compared it with some irony to the original Zero Mostel version of the Hollywood film The Producers. In any case, the “election” was ruled illegal by the Lithuanian courts in a case that brought their judicial independence to the fore, to the nation’s great credit.
UPDATES: JTA REPORT
Observers have pointed to the dangers of restitution settlements with East European governments that end up destroying communities’ democracy and independence in the direction of becoming “Jewish PR” units for the state with massive glories falling upon one or a handful of “court Jews” who serve to showcase state policies to the outside world.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like?
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Professor Pinchos Fridberg Turns 80 in Vilnius
Happy 80th Birthday to Professor Pinchos Fridberg
Vilna-born Holocaust survivor, prominent physicist, author, Yiddish literature scholar, satirist, longtime director of a foundation for helping the Christian Righteous of Lithuania, Jewish community icon, and
Defender of History: DH’s 2014 Person of the Year
Posted in Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Pinchos Fridberg
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