Discontinuation of the contract of Lithuania’s last Jewish professor — Dovid Katz, founding Yiddish professor at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute and editor of this website — for having mounted a defense of the defamed Holocaust Survivors, and building (via the Vilnius diplomatic community, op-eds in mainstream publications, and this site) international opposition to the ‘Double Genocide’ movement in Europe, and in Lithuania.
Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?
Lithuania’s Last Jewish Professor has Contract Terminated, after Mounting Defense for Holocaust Survivors accused of ‘War Crimes’
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Human Rights, News & Views, Norway, Richard Maullin, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged AHEYM, Borns Jewish Studies Program, Dan Opatoshu, Dov-Ber Kerler, Judaicvilnius.com, Richard Maullin, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius Yiddish Summer Program, VYI
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Holocaust Revisionists Successfully Manipulate Borns Jewish Studies Program (Indiana U, Bloomington); Vilnius Yiddish Institute is Purged with ‘a little help from Bloomington’
After authoring the book on Litvak culture for the Lithuanian section at the February 2009 Jerusalem Book Fair, the editor of this website who is the founding professor of Yiddish at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, declined to attend to chair the Yiddish culture session, when he was told not to bring to the fair Dr. Rachel Margolis, resident in Rechovot. Dr. Margolis is one of the heroic Jewish partisans defamed by the Double Genocide industry.
Is the master J-handler keeping an eye? Prof. Sarunas Liekis (left) and Prof. Dov-Ber Kerler at the Jerusalem Book Fair.
The Lithuanian government unit running these affairs rapidly replaced him with Dov-Ber Kerler, the Alice Field Cohen professor at the Borns Jewish Studies program at Indiana University (Bloomington), who did not have time to keep a promise to visit with Dr. Rachel Margolis in Rechovot, as a symbol of moral support for the accused Holocaust Survivors. The complete program of events paid for by the Lithuanian government is here (but note that contrary to the published-for-PR schedule, Yitzhak Arad did not — as a matter of principle — appear at the event).
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Double Games, News & Views, Richard Maullin, United States, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs, Yitzhak Arad
Tagged AHEYM, Alice Field Cohen chair, Anti-Semitism Studies Bloomington, Antisemitism Institute Bloomington, Anya Kerler, Bloomington Indiana Judaic Studies, Boris Karloff, Borns Jewish Studies Program, Dov-Ber Kerler, Friends of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Jeffrey Veidlinger, Joseph Kerler, Judaic Studies Bloomington, Judaicvilnius.com, Liekis + Kerler, Rachel Margolis, Richard Maullin, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius Yiddish Summer Program, Yerusholaymer Almanakh, Yiddish Studies Bloomington
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Yivo Director Sends New Circular to Staff, Refining Lithuanian Government Talking Points; Claims Support of Veidlinger and Zipperstein for (Inaccurate) Public Statement
Following up on his 9 September 2011 circular to the staff of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research in New York, the executive director today circulated a new missive, likewise sent to all members of staff, and claiming the support of two eminent professors, Steven J. Zipperstein and Jeffrey Veidlinger. [Full disclosure: Veidlinger was one of Bloomington’s Borns Jewish Studies program staff involved in secret 2009 negotiations with the by-then government-manipulated Vilnius Yiddish Institute, a factor in the disemployment of this journal’s editor as professor of Yiddish, language and literature, the post he held from 1999 to 2010.]
This statement follows the publication of concerns of members of the British parliament (on its website), the open letter of Milan Chersonski, longtime editor of the newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, and coverage in English, French, German and Hebrew publications, in addition to the earlier coverage in the Forward, Haaretz and DefendingHistory.com (which first interviewed Joseph Melamed at length on 30 August).
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, News & Views, Yiddish Affairs, Yivo Manipulated?
Tagged Dr. Jonathan Brent (Yivo), Prof. Jeffrey Veidlinger, Prof. Steven Zipperstein
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Yivo Director’s Statements on Legal Swastikas in Lithuania, Plus Some Facts
[updated to May 2013]
“One of the most important statements in the article is that the swastika is banned by Lithuanian law, something that Katz and others have refused to acknowledge.”
———
“Fact: It is illegal to display the swastika in Lithuania today.”
Chronology of events, including the United Nations Human Rights Committee statement of 2012, provided below…
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Antisemitism & Bias, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Symbology, United Nations, United States, Yivo Manipulated?
Tagged Dr. Jonathan Brent (Yivo)
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Vilnius University to Host Exhibit by Antisemitic, Homophobic “Envelope Artist”
According to Vilnius University’s website, a ceremony to open an exhibition of “envelope art” by Antanas Šakalys will be held in the White Hall of the university’s main library on 27 September at 2 PM. Mr. Šakalys’s antisemitic postcards were on sale for many years at the capital’s main Post Office, and were exposed in 2008 by the Jewish community’s newspaper, Jerusalem of Lithuania.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Racism, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
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Vilnius University Calls Antisemitic, Racist, Homophobic Artist “Humanistic” as 9 Young Lithuanians Protest; Yiddish Institute, US Backers, Bloomington-Borns — All Silent
Left to right: Sigita Rukšėnaitė, Anna Shepherd, Fiokla Kiure. Sign at right asks: “Just Envelopes?”
A dedicated Facebook page provides facts and photos on today’s dignified and courageous demonstration by a small group of young Lithuanian human rights advocates against Vilnius University’s proceeding with an exhibition of an envelope designer whose work features flagrant antisemitic, homophobic and racist material (larger selection here).
Fiokla Kiure’s images of the event are available here; a small selection follows this article.
BACKGROUND:
Earlier report (21 Sept)
Delfi.lt report by Eglė Samoškaitė (25 Sept) [English here]
A dozen samples of the envelope maker’s works
Revelation of an additional “humanistic” envelope by the same designer (27 Sept)
For years this artist’s antisemitic envelopes were on sale at the Main Post Office; the Jewish community’s newspaper exposed them in the June 2008 issue of Jerusalem of Lithuania.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Richard Maullin, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Anna Shepherd, Antanas Sakalys, Antisemitism in Lithuania, Dan Opatoshu, Daniel Berg, Fairbank Maslin, FM3, homophobia in Lithuania, Richard Maullin, Tina Lunson, Vilnius University, Vilnius University Library, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius Yiddish Summer Program
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Updates on the Šakalys Scandal: Central Post Office Website Still Features Biased Envelope-Maker
As of today, both Vilnius University and the Central Post Office are still featuring the “historic envelope art” of designer Antanas Šakalys, though neither of the prestigious venues publicly includes any samples of his antisemitic, Holocaust-distorting and homophobic output.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views
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Samples of the Work of a Holocaust-Twisting, Antisemitic, Homophobic Envelope Designer
The following are among the envelopes designed by Antanas Šakalys who continues to be honored by his (other) works being exhibited at both Vilnius University and the Central Post Office in the Lithuanian capital. Details and further links.
These samples are categorized as follows:
1. Holocaust Distortion/Inversion (blaming of victims, honoring of perpetrators, defamation of historians).
2. Antisemitism.
3. Homophobia and Assault on Equal Rights.
4. Defamation of Lithuanian personalities who call for tolerance.
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Holocaust Distortion/Inversion (blaming of victims, honoring of perpetrators, defamation of historians)
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status
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Bloomington-Borns Jewish Studies Arranges for 2nd Right-Wing Soviet-Israeli Self Publishing Poet to be “Professor of Yiddish in Vilnius”
Through the good offices of the Borns Jewish Studies program at Indiana University (Bloomington), and its Dr. Alice Field Cohn Chair Yiddish studies professor, D.B. Kerler (“Boris Karloff”), who allegedly knifed his own doctoral supervisor in pursuit of a summer position in Vilnius (despite having a tenured position in the US), a comrade Soviet-Israeli self-publishing Yiddish poet has been announced as visiting professor of Yiddish on the home page of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute. Both have in some views allowed themselves to be instrumentalized by the right-wing Holocaust-revisionist establishment that seeks to cover for state policies including rampant antisemitism and the “Double Genocide” campaign via events and stunts in the field of Yiddish and Jewish studies.
According to the announcement, Dr. Velvl Chernin is now the “visiting professor” of Yiddish at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, which was purged of full-time Jewish staff in 2010 and has been criticized for being Yiddish-free for eleven months of the year.
That situation has apparently now been remedied by the appointment of Dr. Chernin, who, it is announced,
Posted in Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Double Games, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Bloomington Borns + Vilnius, Bloomington Indiana Borns Jewish Studies Program, Boris Karloff, Dov-Ber Kerler, Dr. Alice Field Cohn Chair, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Richard Maullin, Velvl Chernin, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
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Swastikas From Latvia in Center of Šiauliai (Shavl), Lithuania, as Police Look On
Since 2010, when a Lithuanian court proclaimed public swastikas legal and included in its ruling the “historical wisdom” that it only a harmless ancient Baltic symbol, swastikas have proliferated at public events sponsored by the far right, with police looking on listlessly. Most painfully for the dwindling numbers of Holocaust survivors here and abroad, swastikas and other fascist symbols, along with glorification of local Holocaust collaborators, have figured in sanctioned independence day marches in Kaunas on February 16th each year, and in the capital city Vilnius, each March 11th.
In 2012, the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee commented publicly.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Events, Latvia, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Symbology, Yivo Manipulated?
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Yiddish Roulette? One Resigns in Bloomington, Another Rides In from Buffalo
Sources in Bloomington, Indiana and Vilnius, Lithuania, confirmed this week that Dr. Daniel R. Berg, an eminent physician in the greater Bloomington area, has resigned from the rump “Board of Friends” of Sarunas Liekis’s “Vilnius Yiddish Institute” (VYI). The institute’s website abruptly removed Dr. Berg’s name and photograph from the board. No letter of resignation was released to the media, but a source close to the doctor said he was dismayed to see the institute’s resources being dedicated to a campaign of defamation against its own former Yiddish professor and founder, whose name and contributions have been deleted from the historic faculty page, in the classic Soviet style of revising history.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Double Games, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Richard Maullin, United States, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged AHEYM, Bloomington, Borns Jewish Studies Program at Bloomington, collector's item Yiddish t-shirt, Dan Opatoshu, Dov-Ber Kerler (Boris Karloff), Dr. Daniel Berg (Bloomington, Indiana University, Jerold Frakes + Jerusalem of Lithuania (Vilna), Jerold Frakes + Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Liekis + Yiddish institute, Richard Maullin, Sarunas Liekis, Sarunas Liekis + Yiddish institute, Steven Spielberg + Holocaust, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius Yiddish Summer Program, Yiddish at Borns Jewish Studies Program, Yiddish at Buffalo
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When Yiddish is a Prop for Holocaust Revisionism
NEWS, VIEWS, QUIPS AND SHMIPS FROM SUMMER 2016
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Yiddish summer course again features American author Ellen Cassedy as lecturer on Holocaust topics; her 2012 book, part-funded by the Tides Foundation (a Soros beneficiary), was launched by the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington DC.
But will students be informed of critical reviews of the book (e.g. by Allan Nadler, Olga Zabludoff, Efraim Zuroff, Dovid Katz) or about the peaceful protest that awaited her at London University?
Will organizers invite, for balance, Ruta Vanagaite and Efraim Zuroff to discuss their 2016 book (recently featured in Newsweek)?
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis
Tagged Bloomington + Vilnius, Borns Jewish Studies Program, Dov-Ber Kerler, Efraim Zuroff, Richard Maullin, Ruta Vanagaite, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Summer Program, אידיש אין ווילנע, יידיש אין ווילנע
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In Reply to Summertime Yiddishists in Vilnius
VILNIUS—The following Facebook post, on the page of DH’s editor, issued today, is republished below. For context and a fuller picture, see DH’s recent report on the manipulation of Yiddish by the state’s commission reponsible for promoting the Double Genocide movement in the European Parliament and beyond.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
Tagged Indiana University Borns Jewish Studies, Yiddish at Oxford, Yiddish in Bloomington and Vilnius, Yiddish in Vilnius
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Kerler’s 9 August Lecture on “Yiddish: A Language in Contact Within and Without” Open to Public
VILNIUS—Professor Dov-Ber Kerler, deeply involved in the 2010 purge of Vilnius Yiddish Institute staff (including his own former doctoral supervisor at Oxford) for having disagreed with some Lithuanian government policies on the Holocaust, and in an alleged ongoing effort to obfuscate the history of Yiddish studies at Oxford and Vilnius, will be lecturing this Wednesday, 9 August 2017, at the new Judaica Research Center at Lithuania’s National Library in Vilnius. He is the head of the leading American Yiddish graduate studies program, that currently produces more Yiddish Studies doctorates than any other, at the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University at Bloomington. The topic of the lecture is “Yiddish: A Language in Contact Within and Without” on which Prof. Kerler has carried out pioneering research for decades. The event is open to the public free of charge. The lecture is underwritten by the government’s Ministry of Culture. More details are available on the Center’s Facebook page. Professor Kerler is also a specialist on Ethics in Yiddish Studies. He was honored for his efforts by a popular t-shirt in Lithuania.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Boris Karloff, Borns Jewish Studies Program, Dov-Ber Kerler, Dr. Alice Field Cohn Chair in Yiddish Studies, Jewish Studies Indiana University Bloomington, Yiddish at Bloomington
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Is Prof. Krutikov the Latest Lithuanian Gov. “Yiddish Star” to be Manipulated?
OPINION | JEWISH STUDIES AS COVER | YIDDISH AFFAIRS
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VILNIUS—Beware of any academic conference hosted by a nation’s parliament. This isn’t about Lithuania, the Baltics, or Eastern Europe. It’s about the intellectual independence and academic integrity of bona fide academic conclaves anywhere. There are elementary questions. Was there a public call for papers? Was there an academic committee established to select those papers by the most competent specialists on the actual topic of the conference? An academic committee that would guard against the petty jealousies, politics of revenge and personal exclusions, as well as larger political correctnesses or state-sponsored-agency attempts to predetermine the proceedings or (ab)use them for governmental PR? Is the conference a free tribune for the exchange of ideas in an atmosphere of collegiality and mutual respect? One where scholars of opposing views can thrash it out, robustly and publicly — without the loss of interpersonal respect — to yield positive results for the area of human enquiry to which the conference was dedicated in the first place. One of the ironies is that Vilnius is nowadays host to some of the world’s best (and most academically free) conferences in an array of fields, both in the humanities and the sciences. That Soviet-style rigging should survive in the case of Judaic studies, of all things, will itself be studied one day.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs, Yiddish at Oxford, Yivo Manipulated?
Tagged Dov-Ber Kerler, Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes, Jean and Samuel Frankel Center, Jewish Studies Univ. of Michigan, Jews in Lithuania, Mikhail Krutikov, Red-Brown Commission Vilnius, Richard and Natasha Maullin, Richard Maullin, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Studies in Lithuania
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Curious History of a Yiddish Professorship at Vilnius University & its “Vilnius Yiddish Institute”
LAST UPDATE
YIDDISH AND JUDAIC STUDIES MANIPULATED FOR HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM | VILNIUS YIDDISH INSTITUTE | BORNS JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY | RICHARD MAULLIN
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Its Prehistory (1990-1999), History (1999-2010) and Posthistory (2010-2018) from the Year of Lithuania’s Declaration of Independence Onward
CAN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES STILL WRITE INDIVIDUALS OUT OF HISTORY IN POST-SOVIET SPACE? DO VILNIUS UNIVERSITY’S DEANS AND RECTOR APPROVE OF THE PRACTICE? CAN A PAST PROFESSOR WITH A PERFECT RECORD OVER 11 YEARS (NO COMPLAINTS, NO INCIDENTS) BE WRITTEN OUT OF THE UNIVERSITY’S HISTORY AND DEFAMED IN THE UNIVERSITY’S NAME ON ORDERS OF SOMEONE AT THE “INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THE EVALUATION OF THE CRIMES OF THE NAZI AND SOVIET REGIMES IN LITHUANIA” (THE “RED-BROWN COMMISSION“)?
A “for the record” page in progress, developed in response to repeated public statements by the current director of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, a member of the state-sponsored Commission on Nazi and Soviet crimes, claiming that Defending History’s editor (a) was never a professor at the university, (b) if he was an elementary Yiddish alphabet teacher paid by some surfers in California, he got fired for not turning up to work. Further documents are being processed for inclusion in the bizarre but curiously telling chapter of the history of Yiddish Studies in the 21st century. The political manipulation (ranging from West European far-left to East European far-right) of Yiddish-less “Yiddish” is a theme in the final chapter of Yiddish and Power (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) by the Yiddishist in question, Dovid Katz.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Richard Maullin, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Borns Jewish Studies Program (Indiana), Céline Maullin (Wharton), Dovid Katz, Michèle Tamar Maullin, Nathalie Maullin Nathanson, Prof. Dov-Ber Kerler (Indiana University), Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish in Vilnius
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