TEL AVIV—The famous Vilna Gaon Synagogue (Beys Hakneses Ha-Gro / Bet Hakeneset Ha-Gra), founded in Tel Aviv in 1934, issued a poster that has appeared in synagogues, yeshivas and other institutions in various parts of Israel. Reproduced below (sent by a correspondent), it protests plans by Vilnius government and business entities to further desecrate the old Vilna Jewish cemetery at Piramónt, now in the Šnipiškės district, by plans to build a twenty-five million dollar convention center in the heart of the historic cemetery (background; the paper trail to date). The protest poster is signed by a number of famous rabbis, including Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Halevi, head of the rabbinical court of Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and Rabbi Elijah Landa, a direct descendant of the Gaon of Vilna, Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman (Eylióhu ben Shlóyme-Zálmen, 1720 − 1797), who signs on behalf of the entire family.
Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites
Vilna Gaon Synagogue in Tel Aviv Posts Protest Against Vilnius Convention Center Plan for Old Jewish Cemetery
Rabbi Shmuel Jacob Feffer: Rabbinic Judgment on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery (Manuscript)
by Rabbi Shmuel Jacob Feffer
Editor’s note: The author is president of the World HaGró (Gaon of Vilna) Center in Israel, and co-editor of the Center’s seventy published volumes of the Gaon of Vilna’s works. He has been based in Vilnius around twenty-five years. The digital text of the judgment is available here. For background on the issue, see here. For the paper trail to date, see here.
Rabbi Shmuel Jacob Feffer: Rabbinic Judgment on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
O P I N I O N
by Rabbi Shmuel Jacob Feffer
Editor’s note: The author is president of the World HaGró (Gaon of Vilna) Center in Israel, and co-editor of the Center’s seventy published volumes of the Gaon of Vilna’s works. He has been based in Vilnius around twenty-five years. The original handwritten document, with the rabbi’s signature and personal stamp, is available here. For background on the issue, see here. For the paper trail to date, see here. A registry of the mounting international agreement with Rabbi Feffer’s position is here.
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בס″ד ח′ תמוז התשע″ה לפ″ק פה ווילנא
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זעקת קודש
למען אוהביך שוכני עפר בבית העלמין הישן דווילנא
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אני הרב הדר בעיר הזאת זה קרוב ל-25 שנה ומכיר היטב תהלוכותי′ה ובעיותי′ה, וחרד לעתידה היהודי ועל זכרון עברה הק′ והחשוב כידוע לכל, ועתה ראיתי חובה גדולה בנפשי לצאת בגלוי ולהסיר הלוט בעניין הנשגב דלהלן, ולפרסם האמת ללא צל ספק – העובדות הברורות כשמש בצהרים ולעמוד בפרץ ולא לתת למשחיתים לבוא ולנגוף ח″ו, ואדרבה ביתר תוקף ועוז דקדושה לעמוד איתן על משמרת הקודש למען ה′ ותורתו הק′ והאמונה הטהורה.
Herbert Block’s Clarification on Participation in Lithuanian Government’s New Heritage Commission
NEW YORK—Herbert Block’s office today issued the following statement which in effect modifies the Lithuanian government’s published list of members of its new commission on the Lithuanian Jewish heritage. This clarification is now linked at relevant points in Defending History’s recent report on the cemetery saga in Vilnius.
Herbert Block has informed Defending History that, while he was appointed to the new Commission by the Government of Lithuania without prior notice, and was honored by the designation, he formally resigned this position. As a Member of the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, a US federal government agency, Mr. Block is not permitted to serve on any body appointed by a foreign government.
Mr. Block attended the May 7, 2015 meeting in Vilnius only as an Observer on behalf of the US Commission.
High Intrigue Over the Fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
by Dovid Katz
Updates in [brackets] to 12 July 2015
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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.
New Conflict Over Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, As New Heritage Commission Gets Underway
Updates on the new conflict over the old Vilna Jewish cemetery site at Piramónt (now part of the Šnipiškės [Yiddish: Shnípishok] district), and the related issues surrounding a concurrently established new commission on Jewish heritage will be added here as they become available.
THE PAGE IS HERE
Would this Building Project be Pursued if the Cemetery Were the Resting Place of Christians?
O P I N I O N / C H R I S T I A N – J E W I S H R E L A T I O N S / C E M E T E R I E S
by Pastor Michael Maass
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I would like to make an observation concerning the use of Jewish cemeteries for building projects, as this has come to be a major issue of controversy in Lithuania, and in other nations as well.
I would like to pose a question: Would these building projects be pursued if the cemeteries in question were the resting places of Catholics, Protestant Christians, or other non-Jewish people?
Lithuania’s President and Entourage Lay Wreaths at Ponár on May 8th…
VIDEO
Dovid Katz in Times of Israel (11 May)
Efraim Zuroff in i24 (12 May)
“Equally” at Monuments for Jewish, Lithuanian and Polish Victims, but Skipping the Stone Commemorating the 7,514 Red Army Prisoners of Various Nationalities Starved and Murdered at the Site.
A Protestant Pastor in Vilnius Speaks Out About Church Steps Still Made of Pilfered Jewish Gravestones
O P I N I O N
by Julius Norvila
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“And Rachel died and was buried on the road to Ephrath—the same is Beth-lehem. And Jacob set up a gravestone upon her grave, it is the Tomb of Rachel unto this very day.”
(Genesis 35, 19-20)
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Back in 1989 I had become a minister in our Reformed Evangelical Church here in Vilnius. The end of the 1980s in Lithuania had been a particularly pivotal period for church-state relations. The government changed its policy radically. There was a liberalization of religious activities and along with religious revivals came the idea of restitution of church properties that had been nationalized under the communist policies of the Soviet state. In order to bring to realization that idea, and to speed the process of restitution, we as reformed protestants organized a number of open air meetings and worship services on the street in front of historical church buildings in Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania’s two major cities.
When the Lithuanian Prime Minister Interrupts his Schedule to Greet Some Very Non-Litvak Rabbis from London
Trix & Treats for Londoners in Vilnius?
Why did Lithuania’s Prime Minister Entertain Non-Litvak (“Galitsyáner”) Rabbis from London to “Permit” a $25,000,000 Convention Center Project in the Heart of the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery?
All three Vilnius rabbis were excluded from the conversation. And — an international (secular) “Heritage Commission” was set up to “save” Jewish cemeteries…
Above: Prime Minister of Lithuania Algirdas Butkevičius welcomes London-based rabbis from CPJCE who “permitted” a $25,000,000 convention center project for the middle of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery. Below: Government’s top Jewish affairs maestro Lina Saulėnaitė entertains the delegation. PM is 3rd from left. A 2009 U.S. State Department cable refers to these rabbis being paid $100,000 for “supervising” some “beautification” and “exploratory digging” but what are they being paid this time, for “supervising” construction of the convention and entertainment center? IMAGE: Stills from the Lrytas.lt Lituanian TV video.
Joseph Levinson’s Symbolic Gravestones for His Parents “Speak Out” During His Own Funeral (12 April 2015)
C E M E T E R I E S / P H O T O G R A P H Y
by Dovid Katz
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As dozens gathered at Vilnius Jewish cemetery to bid farewell to dear Joseph Levinson today, those who read Yiddish could not fail to notice the two symbolic gravestones he erected on the family plot, in Yiddish by choice.
Advertisement for Church Service Flaunts Congregation Stepping on Old Jewish Gravestones
CEMETERIES / REFORMED EVANGELICAL CHURCH / CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
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VILNIUS—The website of the Reformed Evangelical Church services this weekend advertised today’s Sunday service with a previously-made photo of pastors and worshippers posing for a photograph with their shoes pressing into the pilfered Jewish gravestones, some of which still have visible writing, of which the steps to the church are made. The church has still issued no public statement on its retention of the Soviet-era made-of-pilfered-Jewish-gravestones steps even after its much-celebrated reconstruction and restoration less than a decade ago.
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Joseph Levinson (1917-2015)
Stated Purposes of Lithuanian Government’s New Commission on Jewish Heritage
D O C U M E N T S
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The following excerpt from the Lithuanian government’s documents, released today, explains the purposes of the new state commission on Jewish heritage. It is excerpted from longer documents available here and here. Updates on the commission’s history will appear on this page.
The Lithuanian Government’s New Commission on Lithuanian Jewish Heritage
D O C U M E N T S
The following English version of the Lithuanian government’s announcement of its new state commission on Jewish heritage was released today. A PDF of the entire document is available here. An excerpt containing the mission statement is available here.
Annual Memorial for the Jews of Svintsyán (Švenčionys): Small but Well Done
by Defending History Staff
Svintsyán [Švenčionys] — Some fifty people gathered in the forest at midday today at the mass grave at Poligón, outside Švenčioneliai (Yiddish: Svintsyánke), in northeastern Lithuania, where around 8,000 Jews were murdered on 7 and 8 October 1941 after more than a week of barbaric incarceration and humiliation. The number includes nearly all the Jews of the county-seat town Švenčionys (Svintsyán) as well as the Jewish citizens of a number of towns and villages in the region, including (Yiddish names first in the following list, followed by current Lithuanian or Belarusian names): Dugelíshik (Naujasis Daugėliškis), Duksht (Dūkštas), Haydútsetshik (Adutiškis), Ignalíne (Ignalina), Koltnyán (Kaltanėnai), Kaméleshik (Kimelishki, Belarus), Labonár (Labanoras), Lingmyán (Linkmenys), Líntep (Lyntupy, Belarus), Maligán (Mielagėnai), Podbródzh (Pabradė), Saldúteshik (Saldutiškis), Salemánke (Salamianka), Stayátseshik (Stajotiškės), Svintsyánke (or Nay-Svintsyán — Švenčionėliai), and Tseykín (Ceikiniai).
Misha (Meyshke) Shapiro (at left), head of a region’s tiny remnant Jewish community, chairs the annual commemoration in the forest at a mass grave where 8,000 Jews were killed in two days in October of 1941.
Yankl-Yosl Bunk – Jakovas Bunka (1923 – 2014)
Yankl-Yosl Bunk (Jakovas Bunka), Famed Wood Sculptor, Last Jew of Plungyán (Plungė, Lithuania), Dies at 91
His Art Commemorates the Holocaust in Western Lithuania
Was World War II Red Army Veteran of the War Against Hitler
Yankl-Yosl Bunk (13 July 1923 – 30 July 2014) Photo: Adam Ellick
The Stones Tell Me. After All, They Lived Here.
O P I N I O N
by Genrich Agranovski
Genrich Agranovski is co-author (with Irina Guzenberg) of Vilnius: Sites of Jewish Memory as well as other works on Jewish Vilna. This comment was translated from the Russian by Ludmila Makedonskaya. See also DH’s section on old Jewish cemeteries and mass graves.
At the beginning of the 1990s a commission tentatively called “Memorial” was founded at the Jewish Community of Lithuania. Its aims included collecting information about the mass murder and burial sites of the World war II period, Jewish cemeteries, as well as other issues connected with the memory of the perished. The commission was headed by Joseph Levinson. Being a member of the commission, I was in charge of collecting information on Jewish cemeteries in Vilnius. There had been two large Jewish cemeteries in Vilnius before the war: the “old one,” founded, according to Vilna Jewish lore, at the end of the fifteenth century and used till 1830, and Zarechenskoye [“beyond the river”; in Yiddish Zarétshe] (Antokolskoye), which was used from 1828 up to June 1941. The latter was the biggest in the city. According to the Jewish ethnographer Solomon Shik, seventy thousand people had been buried there by 1937. In Soviet times both cemeteries were destroyed and the gravestones were used for construction purposes.
Мне камни говорят — они здесь жили
МНЕНИЕ
Генрих Аграновский
В начале 1990-х годов при еврейской Общине Литвы была создана комиссия, условно называвшаяся «Мемориал», в задачи которой входил сбор информации о местах массовых убийств,захоронений евреев в годы 2-й Мировой войны, еврейских кладбищах и другие проблемы, связанные с памятью о погибших и умерших евреях. Комиссию возглавил Иосиф Левеинсон. Я, как член комиссии, отвечал за сбор информации о еврейских кладбищах Вильнюса. До войны в Вильнюсе было два еврейских кладбища-Старое,основанное по преданию в конце 15-го столетия и действовававшее до 1830 года, и Зареченское (Антокольское), действовавшее с 1828г. вплоть до июня 1941 года. Последнее было самым большим в городе-на нем ,по данным еврейского краеведа Соломона Шика, до 1937 г. было похоронено 70 000 человек. В советские времена оба кладбища были разрушены ,и могильные камни были использованы для строительных целей.