A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community’s Protest

Simóntshik Launches Campaign for Leadership of Lithuanian Jewish Community

Posted on 14 March 2017 by Defending History

VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | LITHUANIA

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Simóntshik (Shimen Gurevich) addressing a Vilnius conference

VILNIUS—Thirty-something Simonas Gurevičius (Yiddish — Shímen Gurévitsh, English — Simon Gurevich), who was from his earliest teens a Jewish camp counselor, head of the Jewish Students Union in his college years, and then, for years until spring 2015 executive director of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, this morning effectively announced his candidacy for the Community’s chairpersonship in a brief Lithuanian-language Facebook post (reproduced below). Universally known, with love and warmth, to Lithuanian Jews and to many non-Jewish friends who follow Jewish affairs as just Simóntshik, he is a native speaker of Yiddish (very rare for young people here outside the family of Chabad Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky), as well as Lithuanian and Russian, with practiced command of English and growing sophistication in Hebrew, both ancient and modern.

Is the mantle of Litvak leadership passing on to a new generation?

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Tagged "Simontshik" + Lithuanian Jewish Community, Faina Kukliansky, Lithuanian Jewish community 2017 leadership elections, Shimen Gurevich, Simonas Gurevicius | Comments Off

“List of Allocations” of the “Good Will Foundation” in Vilnius

Posted on 17 March 2017 by Defending History

GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The following “List of Project Allocations” is a screenshot taken today of the page of that name on the website of the Lithuanian government’s Good Will Foundation. It is also available in the alternative interactive Tableau format (below the screenshot).

It bears the date 1 July 2016 and includes the following introductory text: “We thank all the applicants who submitted project applications to the Good Will Foundation (Geros valios fondas). You may find a list of all projects, including the ones that received funding allocation from the Foundation. All applicants will be contacted individually and informed about the results and decisions taken.”

The decisions on these allocations are taken by the Foundation’s Board.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs | Comments Off

Defending History’s Statement on Need for Announcement of Democratic Elections for Leadership of Lithuanian Jewish Community

Posted on 19 March 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | DEMOCRACY | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS

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Can small East European Jewish communities preserve their independence in the face of powerful state (and non-state) interests? Should the granting of restitution deriving from the value of properties of annihilated Jewish communities be directed to preserving free, democratic, vibrant and diverse Jewish life into the future as opposed to the interests of certain environments of governments and other elites, and their tiny cliques of so-called “Court Jews” — an endeavor that has, at times, here in Lithuania, declined into a race to the PR status of “Ah, but I am the last real Litvak, the rest of them, I don’t know…”

Events are now coming to a head. Simon Gurevich, longtime former executive director of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, has announced his candidacy for the community’s leadership. The country’s chief rabbi, former chief rabbi, and hundreds of younger, everyday community members rapidly signaled their support on Mr. Gurevich’s Facebook page. (Older members of the community, who tend not to use the web, do not yet by and large know of the looming elections.) The incumbent, the eminent attorney Faina Kukliansky, has a significant base of support too. The stage is set for a lively and dignified contest of ideas, plans and dreams for a small but beautiful Jewish future in the country. What with a substantial diaspora of diverse kinds of Litvak identification and rediscovery of roots, the implications are to some degree international. Incidentally, both candidates are scions of centuries-old Litvak families hailing from the depths of Lithuania.

“Statistics” Posted by the “Good Will Foundation” in Vilnius

Posted on 19 March 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The following list of “Statistics: Project Funding Allocations” is a screenshot taken today of the page of that name on the website of the Lithuanian government’s Good Will Foundation (GWF). It is also available (with some browsers) in the alternative interactive Tableau format (below the screenshot).

Posted in "Admas Kodesh", "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Documents, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Tagged "American Zionist Movement" + Lithuania, Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, CPJCE (London), Geros valios fondas (Vilnius), Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), Herbert Block, Herbert Block + American Zionist Movement, Herbert Block + Good Will Foundation, Herbert Block + USCPAHA, Jewish Community of Lithuania, Piramont (Snipiskes), Ruta Bloshtein petition, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, USCPAHA, Vilnius Jewish cemetery | Comments Off

Vilnius Jewish Community Board Issues “Historic Call” for Restoration of Democracy

Posted on 23 March 2017 by Defending History

VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | DOCUMENTS

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VILNIUS—The Board of the Vilnius Jewish Community today issued a letter to the chairperson of both the Vilnius and Lithuanian Jewish communities, attorney Ms. Faina Kukliansky, calling on her to convene a meeting of the Board, as required by the Community’s bylaws. In the context of perceived silence over a number of years, the letter, signed by an overwhelming majority of members of the Board, is widely being taken as a sign of communal energy, courage and willingness to come together to act for the community’s democratic integrity, that some observers have felt has been lacking in the years since the death of the near-legendary longtime chairperson of the Jewish community, Dr. Simon Alperovich, in 2014. The facsimile follows.

Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Documents, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Comments Off

Lithuanian Jews Call for Democracy in their Community

Posted on 10 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS

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VILNIUS—The human rights of even small, weak and demographically struggling minorities to enjoy a free and open website that offers a forum to people and groups of diverse opinions is well established. It is also a test of democracy that members of such groups feel able to speak out when those rights are abrogated. Against that backdrop, it was significant today that a group of older members of Lithuania’s Jewish community (including Holocaust survivors), spoke out on the subject, around a week after a pubic appeal for website democracy by a younger generation on Facebook. The older group blogs under the name of the semi-legendary 19th century Vilna Jewish “wisecracker and whistleblower” Mótke Chabád in the Russian-language Vilnius-based publication Obzor (not to be confused with Defending History’s “own” Motke Chabad…).

“Bravo to Vilnius’s Jewish community for their pre-Passover 2017 stand for democracy, the younger generation in Facebook, the survivor generation in Obzor.”

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Free Speech & Democracy, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Comments Off

Community Democratization: Four Leadership Jobs? Four People!

Posted on 18 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | MEDIA WATCH

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VILNIUS—The disappointing failure of the official website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania to give Equal Space to each candidate, and to each campaign, in the current leadership contest is a scar in the modern community’s history that can still be repaired as the campaign turns to its final stages. Let us hope it will be, and that this minimal democratic standard will be respected by the site’s editor and by the Good Will Foundation that allocates lavish finance for the website, which was never intended to be a Soviet-style paean to a single never-to-be-questioned Leader. Perhaps the Board’s foreign members, in particular, will rise to the occasion, at long last, at next week’s scheduled meeting here in Vilnius, especially in light of the recent series of unsettling reports.

Vilnius Jews “Shocked” by Maneuver to “Rig the Community’s Elections”

Posted on 21 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Interviews by several Defending History staffers with several dozen members of Vilnius’s Jewish community over the past several days have turned up what seems to be a widespread sense of (citing terms that recurred frequently in the conversations) “disappointment” or “shock” at the “unbelievable changing of the rules of an election in the middle of the campaign.” (Such mini-surveys are not scientific, and a professional survey of today’s Jewish community on a number of issues is a critical desideratum here.)

The change seems to be in the cause of in effect disenfranchising the actual living Jews of Lithuania by suddenly decoupling the numbers of living, resident Jews from votes cast for the leadership of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, for which elections are scheduled, as of today, for May 28th (for recent developments see the DH section on Vilnius Jewish Life). A number of those interviewed mentioned the role of the “Good Will Foundation” that allocates funding for the community’s administration, including elections, from the government finance provided as restitution for prewar communal religious Jewish property. Some of its allocations have been highly controversial.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its Free-of-Jewish-Staff "Museum of the Lost Shtetl" | Tagged Democracy in Eastern Europe, Jewish community structures in Eastern Europe, Jews in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Lost Shtetl Project (Seduva), Maceva, Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund, Seduva Lost Shtetl Museum, Šeduva shtetl museum, Vilnius Jewish community | Comments Off

Lithuanian Jews Dismayed at New Attempt to Crush Democracy

Posted on 7 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Coming hard on the heels of the mid-campaign rule-change of 19 April that effectively disenfranchised over 2,000 Vilnius Jews, by “recounting” their collective vote as one vote instead of over 20 (via the long-established formula of 100 persons = one vote), the chairperson of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, eminent attorney Faina Kukliansky, on 4 May placed an announcement on the Lithuanian-language page of the official community website (followed by the Russian section), Lzb.lt, cancelling the widely announced 24 May 2017 conference of the Vilnius Jewish Community decided upon by a clear majority vote of its Council (15 of 21 active members), for which the large hall of Hotel Karolina had already been booked. This was followed on 5 May by an English language version complete with “Red-Ink Warnings from the Leader” which seems to inaccurately report that the planned 24 May conference was an “arbitrary” act of “one” Council of the Vilnius Jewish Community member, presumably referring to her opponent in the race, Simonas Gurevičius.

UPDATES TO 12 MAY 2017:

8 May 2017: Vilnius Jewish Community board member Simon Ceitlin posts a notice on his Facebook page confirming that the 24 May event at Hotel Karolina will proceed as announced.

10 May 2017: Simonas Gurevičius posts refutation of official Community website notice and confirms that the 24 May meeting, decided by all present at the most recent Vilnius Jewish Community board meeting, will proceed.

12 May 2017: Faina Kukliansky reposts announcement on community website assuring readers that the meeting will not occur.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), Lithuanian Jewish Community, Šeduva Jewish museum, Sheduva Lost Shtetl Museum, Simonas Gurevicius | Comments Off

Is “Good Will Foundation” Enabling a Mockery of Jewish Community Democracy in Lithuania?

Posted on 16 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The official trilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian) website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, generously financed from the restitution funds (deriving from prewar Jewish religious communal properties) allocated by the state-sponsored Good Will Foundation, is in the nature of things meant to represent that community. Once a community chairperson’s tenure was expired and a democratic election campaign was underway, it was widely expected that the website and its editor, Lithuanian journalist Ilona Rūkienė, would take every care to ensure evenhandedness, giving the various candidates equal space and each campaign the same respect, coverage, and democratic tools for reaching the electorate, thereby enabling voters to make an informed decision.

Has Anti-Lithuanian Political Operative Infiltrated Official Jewish Community to Sow Turmoil?

Posted on 19 May 2017 by Defending History

GEOFF VASIL: Heart, soul, brains and conscience of today’s official “Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community”?

VILNIUS—The author of a “Pravda” style invective (see below) absurdly accusing Lithuania (!) of troublemaking in the 2014 conflict in Ukraine is now a major figure in the office of the chairperson of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, eminent attorney Faina Kukliansky, leading to some security concerns about infiltration of political elements in small, vulnerable East European Jewish communities. These may include persons with no Jewish background or loyalty who are experienced “gun-for-hire journalists” who flip their convictions on a dime depending on who is paying them. The results can be tragic with astute sowing of concocted (and needless) interpersonal feuds within weak and fragile remnant Jewish communities that “have enough problems of their own” just surviving in the post-Holocaust post-Soviet environment.

SEE UPDATE

According to sources in Ms. Kukliansky’s office, the author of today’s personal attack against this journal’s editor is the same Mr. Geoff Vasil, author of the piece below, and formerly, for years, a dedicated correspondent on Holocaust obfuscation and neo-Nazi monitoring at DefendingHistory.com (where nothing remotely pro-Putin is ever considered for publication; DH’s stance on the sacrosanct NATO mission to secure Lithuania’s security in perpetuity has been made clear on multiple occasions; authors’ uncovered Putinist advocacy results in severance from Defending History).

Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Double Games, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, News & Views | Tagged Ema Jakobiene, Faina Kukliansky, Geoff Vasil (Vilnius), Gersonas Taicas, Infiltration of East European Jewish communities | Comments Off

Gurevich Explains How Kukliansky, Levin, Žakas, and Kanovich Control 40% of Votes in “Kangaroo Election”

Posted on 22 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), candidate for the leadership of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, today issued a statement on his public Facebook page inviting members of the community to participate in the electoral conference for chairperson of the Vilnius Jewish Community, to be held this Wednesday evening 24 May 2014 6 PM (18:00) at the Karolina Hotel in Vilnius. His statement, in Lithuanian, reminds readers that the recent attempts to cancel the conference (whose date was democratically voted on by a clear majority of Vilnius Jewish Community Board members) would result in the application of the “new rules” decided on in the middle of the current campaign that would effectively disenfranchise 2,200 Vilnius Jews by recounting their votes from the present 22 or so (via the longstanding formula of 100 people = one vote) to one vote, while each of the elite power brokers in the chairperson’s circle (not all of whom live in Lithuania) would in effect have the votes to decide the entire future of the Jewish community, resulting in a tragic undermining of the future of the actual living Jewish people in Lithuania. To make matters worse, various of these “machers” have two or three votes each.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Free Speech & Democracy, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its Free-of-Jewish-Staff "Museum of the Lost Shtetl", Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Gercas Žakas, Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish Community elections, Lost Shtetl Museum (Seduva, Maceva, Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund, Sergejus Kanovicius, Sergey Kanovich, Sheduva Lost Shtetl Museum, Shmuel Levin, Simonas Gurevicius (Simon Gurevich) | Comments Off

Adopting Antisemitic Trope, “Official Jewish Community Website” Blasts 300 Vilnius Jews as “Mainly Russian Speakers Calling Themselves Jews”

Posted on 24 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Over 300 members of the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC), representing all adult age groups, and constituting the numerically largest such conference this century, this evening elected a new VJC chairman at the Karolina Hotel in Vilnius. Professionally organized, members with voting rights had to present their membership cards and separate ID at conference tables organized by initial letters of surnames. The proceedings, started with a few sentences of Yiddish by Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevicius), were meticulously conducted bilingually, with all proceedings in both Lithuanian (first) and (then) Russian in an atmosphere of democratic catharsis of an East European Jewish community, many of whose members have felt sidelined by the interests of a handful of elites close to government circles in recent years. The assembly included virtually all of the known personalities of Vilnius Jewry who do not happen to have employment at Pylimo Street 4, the official community’s headquarters (but there were a few of those too, as well as some from the official synagogue minyan).

ORIGINAL POST ON WEBSITE OF STATE-SPONSORED “JEWISH COMMUNITY”

After the election of the new chairperson came elections for twenty-one members of the Vilnius Board. Also, a resolution was adopted cancelling the recent attempt to disenfranchise some two thousand Vilnius Jews by recounting their votes as a single vote (while the heads of various NGOs, including the not-yet-built Sheduva Lost Shtetl Museum, have two or more votes each).

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its Free-of-Jewish-Staff "Museum of the Lost Shtetl", Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Comments Off

S’brent, Bríderlakh, S’brent (It’s Burning, Dear Brothers, it’s Burning)

Posted on 28 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

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by Leon Kaplan

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Last night, Wednesday the 24th of May 2017, I came home from a long (three-and-a-half-hour) but wonderful gathering. It was the Vilnius Jewish Community’s conference, a democratic, well-organized and well-attended election for the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) as well as for its new board. When I got home I decided to listen to a disk of Yiddish songs by the late Nechama Lifschitz, a disk that her daughter Roza Litay gave me as a gift during a visit at her apartment in Tel Aviv. Around twelve midnight, while listening to songs of our “singing soul” I opened my Facebook page and could not believe my eyes when I saw the link to an article on the official website of the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC) that presumed to cover the evening I had myself attended. It had a big picture not of any of the personalities of the evening, but of the chairperson, Faina Kukliansky standing next to a car and making a V for Victory sign like a victorious general gleeful over the destruction of an array of enemies.

Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Leon Kaplan, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Malát (Molėtai), News & Views, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Leonas Kaplanas, Liova Kaplan, Lithuanian Jewish Community | Comments Off

Young Vilnius Jews Converge on Jewish Community Center to Protest Rigged Election

Posted on 28 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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by Defending History Staff

VILNIUS—In one of the most remarkable events in post-Soviet Jewish Lithuania, around a hundred Jewish residents of this city, most of them from younger generations, came today to the Pylimo 4 headquarters of the “official” Jewish community to monitor the quadrennial elections for chairperson of the Jewish Community of Lithuania which they believed to be rigged. First, the rules had been changed right in the middle of the campaign, on 19 April, disenfranchising the small Jewish population of Lithuania by reducing to one vote each Jewish community and abandoning the long-standing formula of 1 vote for 100 persons which gave a voice to actual Jewish people (while retaining one, two or even three votes for various oligarchs from NGOs and other organizations, associations, and entities, including a not-yet built museum in a town with no Jews). That meant that the 2,200 or so Jews of Vilnius would have one vote rather than around 22.

UPDATES OF 29 MAY:

Vilnius District Court today nullified the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s decision to eliminate proportional representation and reduce the electoral weight of Vilnius Jewry to one vote. It offered temporary relief with a right to appeal within seven days. Net moral effect of the decision is to delegitimize the “re-coronation” of the incumbent chairperson.

Also: The “Good Will Foundation” released its latest allocation figures of funds deriving from the communal religious properties of the annihilated Jewish communities. Incredibly, it contains money for the state-sponsored “Red-Brown Commission” that is dedicated to the 2008 Prague Declaration…

Second, the fifteen representatives which the newly elected Vilnius Jewish Community Board designated to attend the election conference were not admitted to the conference. Last Wednesday evening, the VJC elected Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) its chairperson. He is the challenger candidate for the national chairpersonship position.

Third, a massive multi-layered security presence (guards in the building wore at least three kinds of fancy uniforms, police and security cars graced the sidewalk outside) added both bad will and farce to a day that will invariably go down in Vilna Jewish history on a number of counts. The Vilnius Jewish Community’s report on the day’s events (in Lithuanian) is available on its Facebook page.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Chabad in Vilnius, Free Speech & Democracy, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Ilona Rukiene, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Monika Antanaityte, Pylimo 4, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevicius), Vilnius Jewish community | Comments Off

Pinchos Fridberg’s Open Letter Concerning a Website Post of the Official Lithuanian Jewish Community

Posted on 30 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The following is an English translation (by Ludmilla Makedonskaya) of Professor Pinchos Fridberg’s article in Russian that appeared in the Vilnius-based publication Obzor on 26 May 2017. Note that the original Russian version is the only authoritative text for any issues arising. Professor Fridberg is a native of Vilna, a Holocaust survivor, a retired physics professor and the author of numerous articles and studies. For translations of a selection of his work on Defending History’s issues, in English translation, see our Pinchos Fridberg section.

For more information on the issue see the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC) website report on the 24 May elections held by the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC), Defending History’s initial real-time report and rejoinder, the second version posted, the JTA report on the affair, the subsequent LJC “apology” and Leon Kaplan’s essay on these pages.

Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Free Speech & Democracy, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg | Comments Off

Dr. Jerrold A. Zoloto’s Open Letter to Ms. Kukliansky

Posted on 30 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

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by Jerrold A. Zoloto, PhD

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The following Open Letter appeared today on Dr. Zoloto’s public Facebook page and is reposted in Defending History with the author’s permission.

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We have watched in horror the events leading up to and concluding with your “election” as the leader of the Lithuanian Jewish community. Having grown up in the world’s greatest democracy, it appalls me to see how you have ruthlessly and illegally managed to maintain your power base.

I am a proud Litvak, but you would not consider me a Litvak because I do not fit your definition of a Litvak. My mother was a Litvak and my father was a Jew born in Zhitomir. I grew up with my grandmother who was born in Kaunas. My grandfather was also from Kaunas, though he had died before I was born. Yiddish and Russian were spoken in my home as I grew up. You have disenfranchised Litvaks whose native language was not Lithuanian or whose parents were not both Litvaks or who was not born and raised in Lithuania. Your rhetoric on this subject is dangerously close to that of the Nazis who tried to destroy us. Within that concept of yours, you remind me of a Kapo who will do anything to her own people to ensure her own survival.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Free Speech & Democracy, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged Elections of Lithuanian Jewish Community, Faina Kukliansky, Jerrold Zoloto, Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community, Litvak projects, LJC (Lithuania), Who is a Litvak | Comments Off

Vilnius Jewish Community Releases Letter Signed by 20 Elected Board Members Addressed to “Good Will Foundation”

Posted on 7 August 2017 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—One month ago, on 7 July 2017, twenty of the twenty-one elected board members of the Vilnius Jewish Community (the 21st was abroad) signed a full-hearted letter addressed to the Good Will Foundation, the Lithuanian government restitution fund for Jewish community survival deriving from part of the value of the communal properties owned by the annihilated religious Jewish communities of prewar Lithuania. To this date, there has been no reply from the Good Will Foundation, nor any statement from its esteemed foreign board members who represent the World Jewish Restitution Organization. The board’s co-chair is Andrew Baker of the American Jewish Committee, who is a recipient of a number of Lithuanian government medals over the years.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Free Speech & Democracy, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Geros valios fondas, Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), Josif Parasonis, Leonas Kaplanas, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pinchos Fridberg, Vilnius Jewish community | Comments Off

Neo-Nazis in Lithuania Again Get “Material” from “Official” Jewish Community’s Leadership

Posted on 26 August 2017 by Defending History

VILNIUS—In a kind of topsy-turvy-world follow-up to last June’s neo-Nazi pick-up of an abusive article on the website of the official state-sponsored Jewish Community of Lithuania, the nation’s chief neo-Nazi blogger, “Zeppelinus,” infamous for his racist, misogynistic, homophobic and antisemitic invective and graphics (samples here and here), has again jumped on the recent attempts of the current leadership of the state-sponsored official “Jewish Community of Lithuania” to use the historic term “Litvak” (‘Jew of Lithuanian heritage’) to divide the Jewish community racially and ethnically between alleged “pure-blooded Lithuanian Jews identifiable today by their Lithuanian language” and “Russian-speakers.” On at least one occasion, an international scandal resulted in a half-mouthed apology following the most offensive official posting and a hapless attempted “edit” that followed on. Vilna-born Holocaust survivor Prof. Pinchos Fridberg has commented on the affair.

Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Antisemitism & Bias, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views | Comments Off

Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky: Not Afraid to Blog on Community Leaders’ Injustices

Posted on 2 September 2017 by Defending History

CHABAD IN VILNIUS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION

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VILNIUS—After a number of readers reported technical difficulties in accessing the publicly posted and widely read blog of Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, in the interests of preserving the history of the Lithuanian Jewish community these are here offered in chronological order with separate links for each (the original is also available in internet libraries). Rabbi Krinsky’s respectful call for the resignations of leaders of the Good Will Foundation is perhaps the best known, covering the wider issue of integrity of restitution payments far beyond Chabad issues alone. For highly divergent views on the events the rabbi covers in these blog posts, see the Defending History section tracking Rabbi Krinsky’s recent history in Vilnius, and the official website of the state-sponsored Jewish Community of Lithuania (e.g. here; here).

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Chabad in Vilnius, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged Andrew Baker (AJC), Chabad in Lithuania, Faina Kukliansky, Jewish community in Lithuania, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, rabbis in Lithuania, rabbis in Vilnius, Vilnius Chabad, Vilnius Jewish religious community | Comments Off

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UPDATES TO 12 MAY 2017:

8 May 2017: Vilnius Jewish Community board member Simon Ceitlin posts a notice on his Facebook page confirming that the 24 May event at Hotel Karolina will proceed as announced.

10 May 2017: Simonas Gurevičius posts refutation of official Community website notice and confirms that the 24 May meeting, decided by all present at the most recent Vilnius Jewish Community board meeting, will proceed.

12 May 2017: Faina Kukliansky reposts announcement on community website assuring readers that the meeting will not occur.

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by Leon Kaplan

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by Jerrold A. Zoloto, PhD

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The following Open Letter appeared today on Dr. Zoloto’s public Facebook page and is reposted in Defending History with the author’s permission.

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