Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community

Divide and Conquer?


Iam very concerned about the situation for the last several years at our Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC). More specifically, about the LJC’s chairperson, whose policies have brought about instability and disunity in the Jewish community. It is a sad paradox, that a non-religious person is responsible for the most acutely religious questions in our community. It is even more unacceptable that a secular person, drawn to mundane and material things, would deign to push around the rabbis in town as if they are pawns on the chess table. Such behavior is totally opposite to Jewish religious standards. Yet for external consumption it is called “a renaissance of religious Judaism.”

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Posted in Chabad in Vilnius, Has Lithuanian Quango ('Good Will Foundation') Been Using Jewish Restitution Funds for Bitter and Sometimes Violent Campaign against Chabad Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky?, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, 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, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Divide and Conquer?

Leon Kaplan Comments on Eviction by Jewish Community Head of Rabbi Krinsky and his Fellow Worshippers



VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  OPINION

by Leon Kaplan

The following two comments appeared in Facebook on 1 November 2016 and on 3 November 2016, following publication of Dovid Katz’s 1 November article in Defending History. They have been slightly condensed and copy-edited here.

1 November 2016:

It is time to stand up to this behavior. Does Madam Kukliansky think that in Ponar and the other 250 places of murder that Jews, our brothers and sisters, our children (kinderlakh) had been separated at the time of murder and thrown into a Chabad ditch and into a Misnagdim ditch? If this is a decision by Madam Kukliansky, to call the police or to lock out Krinsky from the building of the Jewish Community, then it is simply disgusting.

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Posted in Chabad in Vilnius, Has Lithuanian Quango ('Good Will Foundation') Been Using Jewish Restitution Funds for Bitter and Sometimes Violent Campaign against Chabad Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky?, Human Rights, Leon Kaplan, 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, Opinion | Comments Off on Leon Kaplan Comments on Eviction by Jewish Community Head of Rabbi Krinsky and his Fellow Worshippers

Friday, October 28th, in Vilnius



OPINION  |  VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE  |  LITVAK AFFAIRS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS


by Jacob Piliansky

On Friday, October 28th 2016, at 5 PM, I approached the gates of our Choral Synagogue, at Pylimo Street 39, for the weekly Eve of Sabbath service. I saw that the gates were locked shut. Finally I noticed Kalman Krinsky, son of Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, the city’s Chabad rabbi for the past twenty-two years. Kalman told me in Yiddish (we speak Yiddish to each other) that the shul was closed and that the prayer service had been moved to the Jewish community’s building at Pylimo 4.

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Posted in Chabad in Vilnius, Has Lithuanian Quango ('Good Will Foundation') Been Using Jewish Restitution Funds for Bitter and Sometimes Violent Campaign against Chabad Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky?, Human Rights, Jacob Piliansky, 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 | Comments Off on Friday, October 28th, in Vilnius

A Confusing Week in Jewish Vilnius



OPINION  |  VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE

by Zecharya Olickij

This last week has been very confusing to me. I’m a local Vilna Jew, and I have been very happy to see the harmony in the city’s Choral Synagogue for many years now. In fact, for over a year now, all Jews have been praying together in absolute harmony in the main synagogue, the only one to survive the war intact.

I was very happy when I saw a large number of local Jews (most of whom are not personally observant) flocking to the synagogue to celebrate Simchas Torah last week. How beautiful to watch the dancing, the singing, the joy, the Torah. No strife, no quarrels, no negativism. The atmosphere of sheer holiness of this ancient and eternal Jewish joy. It was wonderful.

But then came Friday evening (the 28th of October, eve of the Sabbath of 27 Tishrei).

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Posted in Chabad in Vilnius, Has Lithuanian Quango ('Good Will Foundation') Been Using Jewish Restitution Funds for Bitter and Sometimes Violent Campaign against Chabad Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky?, 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, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Confusing Week in Jewish Vilnius

High Intrigue Over the Fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery



by Dovid Katz

Updates in [brackets] to 12 July 2015  

VILNIUS—According to Lithuanian media sources, including the highly respected English-language Lithuania Tribune (now merged with Delfi.lt), the government, working in concert with property developers, plans to declare the controversial project of a huge convention and entertainment center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery site as a “project of national importance.” The move enables an application to the European Union for a grant of 13 million euros (14.64 million US dollars at current rates) as part of a grand-total (for now) of 22.8 million euros (25.67 million US dollars) for the new complex. The nation’s prime minister has told Lithuanian media that “after the modern congress center is completed, private investors could build a hotel, parking lots and other infrastructure,” eliciting fears that all of the old Jewish cemetery is becoming a cash cow slated for developers for years to come. The Lithuania Tribune / Delfi.lt report concludes with an estimate of “110 million euros in economic and social benefits over 15 years” in addition to “600,000 foreign tourists and 2.2 million local tourists to Vilnius over that time period, with their spending estimated at 183 million and 60 million euros, respectively,” in other words, with profits from the old Jewish cemetery exceeding the equivalent of 250 million dollars, apart from the millions to be had from the building projects per se. Some estimates are provided in Baltic Course.

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Posted in American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Antisemitism & Bias, Appeals to the European Commission on Piramónt, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Games, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, 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), Politics of Memory, United States, US State Department | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on High Intrigue Over the Fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Jewish Community in Shock as Simon Gurevich, Beloved Executive Director for Many Years, is Ousted at Whim of Chairperson



O P I N I O N

VILNIUS—There was widespread shock today among all generations of Lithuania’s small but lively and friendly Jewish community at the unceremonious ousting of Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevicius, known throughout the community as Simontshik) as executive director. He had been the favored candidate to succeed the legendary Dr. Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavicius) upon his retirement in 2013, but “higher powers” with close connections to government agencies concerned with restitution engineered the selection of the famous attorney Faina Kukliansky, who is also, along with the American Jewish Committee’s Rabbi Andrew Baker, co-chair of the Good Will Foundation that decides on the disbursement of the generous restitution funds from the government. This follows dismay at the ousting of other employees, hiring of family members of high Lithuanian government officials, and a general shift away from a Jewish community in the direction of a quango for Jewish issues on behalf of the government that is after all now “paying” for the budge via restitution. More and more Jewish people of all ages, persuasions and backgrounds report that they no longer feel comfortable even entering Pylimo 4.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), 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 | Comments Off on Jewish Community in Shock as Simon Gurevich, Beloved Executive Director for Many Years, is Ousted at Whim of Chairperson

Text of the Restitution Law Passed by the Lithuanian Parliament



D O C U M E N T S

According to sources familiar with the negotiations, the following is the mutually accepted English text of the property restitution/compensation law passed by the Lithuanian Parliament on 21 June 2011, subsequently signed by the president, and coming into effect today, 1 December 2011. It is also available on the website of the Lithuanian parliament, in Lithuanian and in English (a Word doc version is also provided). [Update of 2012:Nina Bruskina’s paper in Lithuanian; in the event of future URL changes, the law can be searched via “Lietuvos Respublikos geros valios kompensacijos už žydų religinių bendruomenių nekilnojamąjį turtą įstatymas. Valstybės žinios, 2011, nr. 803897”.


LAW TEXT (translation)

Draft -XIP -968(4)

LAW OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA

ON THE GOOD WILL COMPENSATION FOR THE IMMOVABLE PROPERTY OF JEWISH RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

2011 Vilnius

The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania,

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First Reading of Jewish Communal Property Restitution Bill passes the Lithuanian Parliament


The first reading of the long-delayed restitution bill dealing with Jewish communal property in Lithuania passed the Seimas (Lithuanian parliament) today. It will next be considered by the Committee on Legal Affairs on 21 December. There are diverse opinions regarding various aspects of the text of the law and accompanying documents.

Most seriously, experts say that the document contains no clear mention of the actual legal recipient, leading to fears (despite verbal assurances)  that the project could in the future be diverted to the ‘Disneyland Vilna Ghetto Theme Park’ as per the wish of powerful forces in the government. That project is anathema to the Jewish community (see here and here).

When the bill was announced, the government’s official  Jewish Affairs Advisor, Arkadijus Vinokuras, published a blistering attack on the Jewish Community of Lithuania’s presumed role as future recipient of restitution. Mr Vinokuras is a close ally of Conservative Party MP Emanuelis Zingeris. English translation here.

Reports on  Alfa.ltBNSEuropean Jewish PressOttawa CitizenReuters.

[updated 14 Nov 2010]

Posted in Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Comments Off on First Reading of Jewish Communal Property Restitution Bill passes the Lithuanian Parliament