Litvak Affairs

See the page
https://defendinghistory.com/litvak-studies
for an introductory reading list on
LITVAK STUDIES

DH Issues and Cultural Projects (Autumn 2026)

Posted on 3 September 2026 by Defending History

[LAST UPDATE]
◊

Welcome! Please come and visit DefendingHistory.com. Recent reports here. Or, review our 18 year history history by scrolling to the end of our dated posts and work your way up. Our 2026-2027 cultural projects are listed below.

Ordering of these issues is not by importance, but rather by which are this season most immediate.

For all those interested in “European Jewish heritage”: Three sites—each endangered in a different way—are sacred to the essence and history of Lithuanian Jewish civilization: The Great Synagogue. The Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. The Vilna Partisans’ Forest Fort (the last remnant of Jewish resistance in the Baltics). By speaking out, you will help save all three.

◊

1  Preserving Eastern Europe’s last Jewish anti-Nazi resistance fort in the forest:

Continue reading

Posted in Germany, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged | Comments Off on DH Issues and Cultural Projects (Autumn 2026)

Panzerbrigade 45, Repeatedly Citing Cemetery Cleaning in its PR, Fails to Mention Even Once the Next-Door Sinking Jewish Partisan Fort

Posted on 2 September 2026 by Defending History

LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | LATEST REPORTS  ON THE FORT| 20-YEAR CAMPAIGN TO DEFAME THE VILNA JEWISH PARTISANS | HISTORY | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

◊

OPINION

◊

VILNIUS—In the present context, we are limiting this survey to the official German governmental and Bundeswehr public-relations apparatus active in connection with Panzerbrigade 45 in Lithuania. We are therefore not including serious journalistic treatments carried by institutions such as the Goethe-Institut, which is legally independent and has mixed public and self-generated funding, even where such treatments importantly discuss the Jewish partisan fort. Our concern here is narrower: what Germany’s own military and governmental communications machinery chooses to publicize about Panzerbrigade 45 and Jewish history in Lithuania, while not uttering  a syllable about the Jewish partisan fort right near its own training ground. As detailed in earlier reports, the arrival of the Panzerbrigade’s massive military infrastructure has already badly damaged the fort’s accessibility and has been responsible for rapid deterioration.

Given the solemn respect that both the Bundestag and the current German government have shown in repeated statements, it seems that there is a disturbing dissonance with the Lithuanian-related PR coming entirely out of the German state’s budget.

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Christian-Jewish Issues, Germany, History, Human Rights, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Panzerbrigade 45, Repeatedly Citing Cemetery Cleaning in its PR, Fails to Mention Even Once the Next-Door Sinking Jewish Partisan Fort

German Bundestag and Government Statements on the Rapidly Sinking Remnants of the Last Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Posted on 2 September 2026 by Defending History

LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | 20-YEAR CAMPAIGN TO DEFAME THE VILNA JEWISH PARTISANS | HISTORY | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

 

◊

Berlin speaks of respect for the last remnant of Jewish partisan resistance, and particularly the partisan fort where the Vilna Jewish Partisans, all escapees from the Vilna Ghetto, lived and fought the Nazis, most famously after the ghetto’s liquidation on 23 September 1943 and right up to the end of Nazi occupation in July 1944.

But the German army’s new Panzerbrigade 45 is the new factor causing the fort’s rapid deterioration. In spite of all the laudable German government statements and commitments set out below (with links to sources), the remnants of Lithuania’s last surviving Jewish partisan fort from the resistance to Nazi rule — in the historic Rudnitsk Forest, today Rūdninkai Forest — have been deteriorating rapidly since the arrival immediately nearby, in the same forest, of Germany’s new NATO-affiliated Panzerbrigade 45 (“Litauenbrigade”).

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Christian-Jewish Issues, Documents, EU, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, History, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on German Bundestag and Government Statements on the Rapidly Sinking Remnants of the Last Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Books in the Debate (a DefendingHistory.com selection)

Posted on 31 August 2026 by Defending History

[last update]

◊

see also: BOOKS SECTION

New: Prof. Karen Sutton’s review

◊

Not yet published:

Michael Shafir, Competitive Martyrdom [working title]. 

Draft manuscript of the book circulated to colleagues (for comments and criticism) before the author’s sudden death in 2022. See Defending History’s Michael Shafir section. It is hoped that Professor Shafir’s heirs will enable rapid publication of this major and indispensable work in the field.

2025

Saulius Sužiedėlis, Crisis, War, and the Holocaust in Lithuania

Reactions, reviews, and citations:

Roland Binet: Autopsy of the Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. Or: How to Subtly Rewrite History

Clemens Heni: Mit Kojak gegen die Rot=Braun-Ideologie

Karen L. Sutton: Review in Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs

Continue reading

Posted in Books, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Rūta Vanagaitė | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Books in the Debate (a DefendingHistory.com selection)

Journalist Shira Li Bartov Breaks Jewish Media Silence on the Fate of the Jewish Partisans’ Sinking Fort in a Lithuanian Forest

Posted on 28 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | MEDIA WATCH | LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | HISTORY | BLAMING THE VICTIMS | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

 

VILNIUS—The following is an adapted version of Dovid Katz’s comment on Facebook today on Shira Li Bartov’s article, “In a forest where Jews fought the Nazis, a German military base and Lithuanian politics encroach on memory” that appeared in JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) yesterday, and is being reposted in other Jewish news media that use JTA feeds.

◊

BRAVO to Shira Li Bartov on her balanced and much-researched JTA article on the Jewish partisan fort remnants in the Lithuanian forest. These precious relics are now in danger of imminent disappearance due to the construction next door of the massive barracks and shooting grounds for Germany’s new 45th Panzerbrigade (the saga in DH’s section on the fort).

Continue reading

Posted in Germany, Human Rights, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Journalist Shira Li Bartov Breaks Jewish Media Silence on the Fate of the Jewish Partisans’ Sinking Fort in a Lithuanian Forest

Blaming the Victims: Documents from a 20 Year Campaign to Defame and Decommemorate the Jewish Partisan Resistance against the Nazis

Posted on 27 August 2026 by Defending History

LAST UPDATE
(originally published 21 Aug. 2010). See also (older, not updated) Responses page.

2006    2007    2008    2009    2010    2011   2012    2013    2014    2015    2016    2017   2024   2025   2026

__

The campaign of defamation by Lithuanian state prosecutors and allied elites (particularly in the Genocide Center and the antisemitic right-wing press) has resulted in a number of cherished Holocaust Survivors being smeared as “war criminals” without a single charge ever having been leveled against anybody. Launched in 2006, the campaign, abusing tools such as “pre-trial investigations” and leaks to the media, have sought to brand as “war criminals” the heroes of the war against Hitler. It grew in 2011 with the addition of equally perverse  “libel charges,” launched with fanfare when Interpol (!) was sent to disturb in Tel Aviv the elected head of the last active group of Litvak Holocaust survivors in the world. Then, in 2013, the state’s “red-brown commission” defamed one of Vilnius’s last survivors on equally perverse grounds, all the while putting on “Holocaust events” for naive Western audiences, usually funded by the (unknowing) Lithuanian taxpayer, in venues  including London, New York, Toronto, and Vilnius.

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Documents, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Blaming the Victims: Documents from a 20 Year Campaign to Defame and Decommemorate the Jewish Partisan Resistance against the Nazis

Office of Vilnius’s Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky Releases Text of Public Letter to WJRO and Foreign Board Members of GWF

Posted on 24 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | LITVAK AFFAIRS | TEXTBOOK CASE OF FAILURE OF RESTITUTION FOR PLUNDERED PREWAR JEWISH ASSETS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA | CHABAD IN LITHUANIA

◊

VILNIUS—The office of Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Chabad’s rabbi in Lithuania, who for thirty-two years has been the city’s only resident rabbi, today released for publication the following statement addressed to the WJRO and other foreign members of the two boards of the Good Will Foundation:

◊

Continue reading

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Chabad in Vilnius, 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 , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Office of Vilnius’s Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky Releases Text of Public Letter to WJRO and Foreign Board Members of GWF

Did State-Manipulated NGO in Lithuania, Called on to ‘Fix’ Germany’s ‘Jewish Partisan Fort Problem’ Even Mention to the German Soldiers the Jewish Fort Remnants Abutting Panzerbrigade 45?

Posted on 18 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | MEDIA WATCH | LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | HISTORY | BLAMING THE VICTIMS | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

◊

OPINION

◊

VILNIUS—Appreciation is due to the Lithuanian NGO Maceva, and both members of its management team, and the German Army’s new Panzer Brigade in Lithuania (Panzerbrigade 45, Litautenbrigade) for their new joint effort to clean and maintain old Jewish gravestones, as reported, inter alia, on Facebook. This is a noble endeavor.

It is a laudable activity for both Maceva and for the German soldiers. Cleaning pre-Holocaust gravestones of a people of whom none exist anymore in those places is in itself a valuable indirect lesson in the meaning of “genocide” on the ground rather than just in the realm of academic and political debate of the day.

But there is a catch.

Continue reading

Posted in Germany, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Did State-Manipulated NGO in Lithuania, Called on to ‘Fix’ Germany’s ‘Jewish Partisan Fort Problem’ Even Mention to the German Soldiers the Jewish Fort Remnants Abutting Panzerbrigade 45?

Ruta Bloshtein Launches New Petition to Stop Modernist Office Build that would Irreversibly Ruin Vilna’s Great Synagogue Square

Posted on 17 August 2026 by Defending History

GREAT SYNAGOGUE SAGA | OLD CEMETERY SAGA | RESTITUTION AWRY | LJC | AJC | GWF | USCPAHA

◊

VILNIUS—Ruta Bloshtein, a prominent member of Vilnius’s small Orthodox Jewish community, today launched a new petition via Change.org asking that the posh modernist office building planned by the “Good Will Foundation” and its state-sponsored “Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community” be moved away from right on top of the remnants of the Great Synagogue, to a venue where it would not serve to irrevocably ruin the majesty and sanctity of the remnants of the Great Synagogue and its square. Many of these remnants were revealed for the first time this summer thanks to archaeological excavations that were sponsored by the same foundation as prelude to its own building project.

Continue reading

Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf) | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Ruta Bloshtein Launches New Petition to Stop Modernist Office Build that would Irreversibly Ruin Vilna’s Great Synagogue Square

Sariel Rosenberg, Chief Judge (Av Beis-Din) of Bnei Brak Rabbinic Court, Issues New Ruling on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 14 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | COMMENT BY ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS, SID LEIMAN, JULIUS NORWILLA, DOVID KATZ | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

◊

VILNIUS—The Hebrew rabbinic ruling signed on 4 August 2026 by Rabbi Sariel Rosenberg, Chief Rabbinic Judge (Av Beis Din) of the Beis Din Tzedek, in Bnei Brak, Israel, was released for publication today by Jewish Heritage in Lita. The release came in the form of one PDF of the original Hebrew text, alongside another of the rabbinical court’s authorized English translation. This is the rabbinical court considered the highest, or one of the highest Orthodox rabbinical courts serving the international Litvish (Lithuanian tradition) sector of modern Haredi Jewish law and practice worldwide.

Continue reading

Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Comments Off on Sariel Rosenberg, Chief Judge (Av Beis-Din) of Bnei Brak Rabbinic Court, Issues New Ruling on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Vilnius’s Newfound Gem in the Old Town: The ‘Greyse Shul’ (Great Synagogue) and ‘Vilner Shúlheyf’ (Great Synagogue Square)

Posted on 13 August 2026 by Defending History

GREAT SYNAGOGUE SAGA | OLD CEMETERY SAGA | RESTITUTION AWRY | LJC | AJC | GWF | USCPAHA

◊

OPINION

by Dovid Katz

◊

Sometimes even the misnamed “Good Will Foundation” (GWF), a failed quango that has squandered millions on its own small circle of friends and family does a public good born of private designs. Even while wholly excluding the bona fide secular and democratic Vilnius Jewish Community and the thirty-two year old continuous-on-site religious community, in short—the actual Jewish people of Lithuania. An investment in major archaeology at the Great Synagogue of Vilna site was wise. But was it to restore something truly huge in Lithuanian history for the benefit of Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish culture, and the people of Vilnius? Or was the idea here to “acquire some prime real estate, do some archaeology and ship off the artefacts to some museum”—and then go and use the most prestigious site in the seven-hundred year history of Jewish Vilna (Yiddish Vílne) for a posh new executive office building for GWF’s leaders themselves, built in modernist Scandinavian style? If the leaked photos of the plans are any guide, it fits into the grace of Vilnius’s Old Town like, as we used to say in New York, a shammes in a pickle factory.

UPDATE

Please consider signing Ruta Bloshtein’s new petition.

Continue reading

Posted in Dovid Katz, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf) | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius’s Newfound Gem in the Old Town: The ‘Greyse Shul’ (Great Synagogue) and ‘Vilner Shúlheyf’ (Great Synagogue Square)

Converging Signs of a New Antisemitic Cauldron in Eastern Europe?

Posted on 7 August 2026 by Defending History

ANTISEMITISM

◊

OPINION

◊

by Dovid Katz

◊

 

VILNIUS—It is never easy to determine with precision the point at which a bigot with a fancy degree should cease to be regarded as a fringer best ignored, and when the moment has arrived for a public alert. In that spirit of frank uncertainty, we offer a PDF of today’s email blast by a veteran mass-mailer whose geopolitical musings from Kaunas—he holds a master’s degree from Vytautas Magnus University—reflect a conspiracy theory about the war in Ukraine that has circulated since its onset, and is ridiculous enough for people far from the current European war zone to laugh off.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Dovid Katz, EU, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Žemaitaitis Affair | Comments Off on Converging Signs of a New Antisemitic Cauldron in Eastern Europe?

Please Email Lithuania’s PM and Vilnius Mayor to Defend Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 6 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | COMMENT BY ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS, SID LEIMAN, JULIUS NORWILLA, DOVID KATZ | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

◊

by Andrius Kulikauskas

◊

VILNIUS—Lithuania’s newly appointed Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius and Vilnius’s Mayor Valdas Benkunskas will be meeting in mid-August to discuss the fate of Vilnius’s oldest Jewish Cemetery and the Soviet Palace which continues to desecrate it.

LITHUANIAN TEXT

Gerbkime kapines (Respect Cemeteries), an informal fellowship led by Ruta Bloshtein, Arkadij Kurliandchik, Artūras Imbrasas, Edmundas Kulikauskas and Andrius Kulikauskas, urges defenders of the Cemetery to write emails to these officials. We include below their addresses and a sample letter.

Lithuania’s Parliament, Seimas, will in its Autumn session further deliberate a bill to revive the Soviet Palace as a convention center, desecrating the Cemetery for decades to come, now in the name of independent Lithuania, a member of the European Union and NATO.

Continue reading

Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Please Email Lithuania’s PM and Vilnius Mayor to Defend Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

The Magic Wand for Making Holocaust Perpetrators into Heroes in Lithuania — While Jewish Resistance Heroes become ‘Enemies of The State’ …

Posted on 8 July 2026 by Defending History

LITHUANIA | POLITICS OF MEMORY | BLAMING VICTIMS | GLORIFYING PERPETRATORS | LAST REMNANT OF JEWISH PARTISAN RESISTANCE IN THE FORESTS OF LITHUANIA | HISTORY

◊

OPINION

◊

by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

◊

  • “Soviet rule has disappeared. The Jews are left behind as fair game.”
  • Entry of July 7, 1941. From  Surviving the Holocaust: Kovno Ghetto Diary, by Avraham Tory.
◊

In the late sixties while working in a small company in Brussels my Jewish boss who had been “geschmuggelt’’ out of the ghetto in Lvov (former Lemberg, now Lviv, Ukraine) in a truck, before it was liquidated in 1942, had repeatedly told me that after his escape he had repeatedly tried to join with partisan groups in the area, mostly Polish or Ukrainian. Had they known that he was Jewish, he would have been killed outright. His luck was that he could pass himself off as a Pole as he spoke the language well. He had been fifteen years old at the time. I remembered these words recently on the occasion of the scandal that has erupted these past months regarding the Jewish Partisan Fort in the Rūdninkai Forest (Yiddish; Rudnitsker vald) which is now in danger of being erased due to the presence in that zone of the new German NATO Panzer Brigade (Litauenbrigade).

EFFECTS OF THE LITHUANIAN GOVERNMENT’S ‘MAGIC WAND’? Left: Public monument to Holocaust collaborator Juozas Krikštaponis (photo: Seimas). Right: One of the collapsing bunkers at Lithuania’s only relic of the Jewish anti-Nazi resistance that sits next door to Germany’s new Panzer brigade and may soon disappear (photo: DefendingHistory.com).

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Collaborators Glorified, Germany, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Magic Wand for Making Holocaust Perpetrators into Heroes in Lithuania — While Jewish Resistance Heroes become ‘Enemies of The State’ …

Session on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Culture for Peace Conference in Washington (Boehning, Fryshman, Kaploun)

Posted on 30 June 2026 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | COMMENT BY ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS, SID LEIMAN, JULIUS NORWILLA, DOVID KATZ | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

◊

A video of the discussion on the fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at the 10 June 2026 Culture for Peace Conference in Washington DC follows (shared from Youtube). The full title of the conference was: “Pathways to Peace. Addressing critical challenges facing Western institutions.” A full conference program is posted on the website of the Culture for Peace Institute.

 

 

 

Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Session on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Culture for Peace Conference in Washington (Boehning, Fryshman, Kaploun)

Averting an imminent grave error on the ruins of the Great Vilna Synagogue. Finding a happy, ethical solution.

Posted on 28 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE SAGA | TEXTBOOK CASE OF RESTITUTION GONE AWRY | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | THE LJC | THE AJC | THE GWF | USCPAHA

◊

OPINION

◊

by Dovid Katz

◊

I have argued that Jewish diaspora history comprises a permanent, central religious spine, a tree trunk if you will, characterized by “secular outbursts” that produce magnificent contributions both to Jewish and to world culture, arts and sciences. The recurring and harmonious patterning includes the great religious treasures remaining precious also to the secularists, be it the Bible, or a wall in Jerusalem or a synagogue in Prague. There has also been bidirectional cross-fertilization of achievements and their use, without either group wanting to usurp the other’s treasures, but rather to benefit from them. One of the outcomes is that great Jewish religious sites around the world, including synagogues and cemeteries, have become invaluable survivals of a rich and varied diaspora history that have a profound meaning for the non religious or not-so-religious — as well as for wider, multiculturalist non-Jewish society.

UPDATE

Please consider signing Ruta Bloshtein’s new petition.

Continue reading

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Averting an imminent grave error on the ruins of the Great Vilna Synagogue. Finding a happy, ethical solution.

Lithuania’s Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky Challenges WJRO (‘World Jewish Restitution Organization’) to Stop Enabling Travesties of State Sponsored GWF (‘Good Will Foundation’)

Posted on 25 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | LITVAK AFFAIRS | TEXTBOOK CASE OF FAILURE OF RESTITUTION FOR PLUNDERED PREWAR JEWISH ASSETS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA | CHABAD IN LITHUANIA

◊

VILNIUS—Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Chabad’s rabbi in Lithuania, who for thirty-two years has been the city’s only resident rabbi, today issued the following statement addressed to the president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO):

It is deeply painful that the restitution process in Lithuania has been flawed from the start.

Continue reading

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Chabad in Vilnius, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Vilnius | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky Challenges WJRO (‘World Jewish Restitution Organization’) to Stop Enabling Travesties of State Sponsored GWF (‘Good Will Foundation’)

Der Spiegel’s Solveig Grothe Elicits Official Culture Ministry Position on Destruction of Lithuania’s Last Relic of Jewish Anti-Nazi Resistance

Posted on 19 June 2026 by Defending History

◊

OPINION

◊

by Dovid Katz

◊

VILNIUS—Solveig Grothe’s article in Germany’s weekly Der Spiegel, appeared today in the journal’s print edition, and yesterday, in a slightly longer version, in the online edition (alternate link; PDF of print edition). The piece resulted from months of research including onsite work in Vilnius, and at the forest fort, and seeking out statements for the record from all sides in the debate.

For some, the article’s greatest revelation will be the degree to which not only the state-sponsored Genocide Center, but also its prestigious Ministry of Culture, rushed to go on the record to trash the legacy — and the memory and possibility of commemoration — of the tiny handful of Lithuanian Jewish citizens who survived the Holocaust by joining up with the partisan anti-Nazi resistance in the forest.

Continue reading

Posted in Germany, Human Rights, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Der Spiegel’s Solveig Grothe Elicits Official Culture Ministry Position on Destruction of Lithuania’s Last Relic of Jewish Anti-Nazi Resistance

Berliner Zeitung’s Maritta Tkalec Breaks (Weird) German Media Taboo on the Sinking Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Posted on 16 June 2026 by Defending History

◊

OPINION

◊

by Dovid Katz

◊
VILNIUS—Maritta Tkalec is to be congratulated on her fine article in today’s Berliner Zeitung (PDF; English; Lithuanian). It breaks the (weird) taboo in mainstream German media on the mystically powerful and rapidly sinking Jewish anti-Nazi partisan fort in a forest in Lithuania that — by the majesty of history or the hand of higher powers — has ended up just next door to the vast German Army 45th Brigade training grounds now under construction in the context of NATO.

Continue reading

Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Germany, History, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Berliner Zeitung’s Maritta Tkalec Breaks (Weird) German Media Taboo on the Sinking Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Respect Cemeteries Issues Brochure for Campaign to Inspire Seimas to Respect and Preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 15 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

◊

VILNIUS—The Respect Cemeteries group (Gerbkime kapines), based here in the Lithuanian capital, today released its new brochure with members of the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament, in mind. They will be voting this autumn on whether to (mis)invest substantial state assets in a national convention center or memorial complex in the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Shnípishok, today’s Šnipiškės in modern Vilnius) or, as Respect Cemeteries (and the Defending History community) hope, discard both plans in favor of the ethical solution (supported by tens of thousands internationally who have signed petitions) — restoration of the major Jewish cemetery in the historic Lithuanian lands. Thousands still lie buried there.

Continue reading

Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Respect Cemeteries Issues Brochure for Campaign to Inspire Seimas to Respect and Preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery