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Israeli Foreign Policy and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe (1990 — 2023)
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“Good Will Foundation” (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania)
Israel Chronicle
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem and Lithuania, Yitzhak Arad
Tagged Amir Maimon (Lithuania), Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Efraim Zuroff, HE Ambassador Amir Maimon, HE Ambassador Chen Ivri Apter, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust in the Baltics, Israel + Holocaust, Israel and the Holocaust, Israeli Embassy in Vilnius, Israeli Foreign Ministry + Lithuania, Israeli Foreign Ministry + Yiddish, Israeli Lithuanian, Israeli policy on Holocaust (Baltics), Joel Lion, Lithuania, Lithuanian Israeli, Menachem Begin, Menachem Begin + Vilna / Wilno / Vilnius, Yad Vashem, Yad Vashem + Lithuania
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Updates from Lithuania’s Liveliest Cemetery
OPINION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | WHO ARE THE MEMBERS? | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | THE “CPJCE” | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS
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“Letter of Moral Capitulation” from Three Rabbinic Organizations?
Tale of Two Visions — for Lithuania’s most sacred Jewish site, the Old Vilna Cemetery, where many thousands still lie buried
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), 2023-2024 'Working Group' on the Future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, Christian-Jewish Issues, Conference of European Rabbis (CER), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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Arkady Kurliandchik Critiques German Embassy’s Kukliansky Award
OPINION | LITHUANIA’S JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | GERMANY
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by Arkady Kurliandchik (Vilnius)
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I am aware that it has long been a practice to award assorted leaders with assorted honors on assorted occasions. Perhaps there is some logic behind it. If you are the leader of something, well, then surely you must deserve recognition!
However, the recent award which was bestowed on the D-Day anniversary upon the head of the “Lithuanian Jewish Community” by the German Embassy here in Vilnius seems rather misplaced. As stated on the LJC website, the award was presented to Ms. Faina Kukliansky “for her tireless work commemorating Lithuanian Holocaust victims and long-term efforts to unite the LJC including enhancing the organization’s role on the national and international level.”
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Arkady Kurliandchik, Faina Kukliansky, Germany, 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, Opinion
Tagged American Jewish Committee (AJC), Andrew Baker (AJC), Arkady Kurliandchik, Faina Kukliansky, German Embassy in Vilnius, Jewish Community of Lithuania, Vilnius Jewish community
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Opinion: American Jewish Committee (AJC) Needs to Look Again at its Involvement in Lithuania
OPINION | LITHUANIAN MISADVENTURES OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE (AJC) | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS (CER) | THE “CPJCE” | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES
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VILNIUS—The American Jewish Committee (AJC), founded in 1906, is one of the world’s accomplished advocacy groups for Jewish, and more broadly, minority and human rights causes, in addition to other lofty missions. Those who revere and support it now need to ask frank questions about, one is sorry to say, a disturbingly consistent infidelity to Jewish causes in one country, Lithuania. The lamentable record speaks for itself. It has for decades been represented by its director of international Jewish affairs, Rabbi Andrew Baker, a recipient of multiple grand awards from a number of presidents of Lithuania. In the AJC’s name and with its wherewithal, he has consistently let down, first, the living small-c Jewish community of Lithuania; second, the true narrative of the Holocaust when it is under attack by the forces of Holocaust obfuscation, distortion and revisionism; and, finally, the preservation of Jewish cemeteries. We do not ascribe to him any nefarious motives or conscious malice on any of these counts. He is not the first, nor the last American Jewish organization bigwig to be mobilized (and a little intoxicated by a slew of high Lithuanian government medals) as a kind of “useful Jewish functionary” to provide Jewish cover and cred for government policies in countries where, in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe, local Jewish communities can be small, weak, and demographically challenged.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), 2023-2024 'Working Group' on the Future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Vilnius
Tagged AJC in Lithuania, American Jewish Committee, Andrew Baker + Lithuania, Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Rabbi Andrew Baker, Rabbi Andy Baker award
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Vilnius’s Resident Rabbi for Last 30 Years is Called ‘Mr. Krinsky’ in Latest Hate Piece from State-Restitution-fueled ‘Official’ Jewish Community
[2 May 2025 update at end of post]
OPINION | DOCUMENTS | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY AFFAIRS | A STOLEN ELECTION | CHABAD IN VILNIUS | HUMAN RIGHTS
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OPINION
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VILNIUS—Even people who “thought they had seen everything” were taken aback a week ago, when without prior warning Vilnius’s only functioning synagogue was closed down on the occasion of the first seyder night of Passover, one of the most sacred Jewish calendar days of the year. The “explanation” did come shortly thereafter in the form of an official 13 April 2025 statement on the official website of the restitution fueled “Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania” (the “LJC” as is it is still known from the long time title “Lithuanian Jewish Community”, LZB in Lithuanian). That is the “community” that disenfranchised virtually all the remaining few thousand Jewish people in Lithuania, by changing the system of voting (in the middle of an election campaign season!) from choice by community members to that of “associations” mostly benefiting from restitution funds. This transpired during the allegedly rigged 2017 community elections. See also the contemporary JTA reports (here and here). The official community has received tens of millions of dollars from the government in restitution.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Chabad in Vilnius, Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged American Jewish Committee + Lithuania, Faina Kukliansky, Geros valios fondas, Good Will Foundation, Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania, Passover 2025 in Vilnius, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Vilnius Jewish community
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Bravo to VILNIUS Jewish Community for Standing Up for Democracy, Justice and Continuity of Lithuania’s Jewish Peoplehood
OPINION | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | LITVAK AFFAIRS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA
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OPINION
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VILNIUS—The following is an edited and updated version of Dovid Katz’s post on Facebook today in reaction to the statement posted today by the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) on its website and on Facebook.
[Updates: See also the media report in Alfa.lt; the statement posted by Jewish Heritage Lita (JHL) on its website; Defending History’s newly compiled section, Lithuania: a Textbook Case of East European Restitution for Lost Jewish Assets Abused to Dismantle and Diminish a Vibrant Jewish Community, which includes contributions over the years by Ruta Bloshtein, Alexander Chernov, Pinchos Fridberg, Simon Gurevich, Leon Kaplan, Arkady Kurliandchik, Zecharya Olickij, Josif Parasonis, the late Jacob Pilansky, among others.]
BRAVO to our democratic Vilnius Jewish Community (which represents over 1,600 Jewish people in Vilnius, constituting the majority of today’s small Jewish community in Lithuania) for proudly standing up and speaking out on this week’s monkey elections at the corrupt “Lithuanian Jewish Community” (which is state-sponsored, via “restitution” no less, deriving from the property values of the annihilated prewar religious institutions). Their statement is on Facebook and their website.
In the middle of the 2017 election campaign, when a certain conflict-of-interest passport lawyer saw that her opponent was winning, the rules were changed mid-campaign to disenfranchise the living Jewish people of Lithuania and replace them with kangaroo “associations” comprising entities themselves receiving monies and/or other benefits from the same restitution.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Dovid Katz, 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
Tagged American Jewish Committee (AJC), B'nai B'rith International, Conference on American Zionist Movement (AZM), Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Dovid Katz, Faina Kukliansky, Geros valios fondas, Good Will Foundation (Lithuania), Jewish life in Lithuania, Lieuvos zydu bendruomene, Lithuanian Jewish Community, National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry, Vilniaus zydu bendruomene, Vilnius Jewish community, World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), World ORT
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