Rabbi Chaim Burshtein

2015 m. Vyriausiojo Lietuvos rabino pareiškimą dėl planuojamo kongresų ir konferencijų centro senosiose Piramonto (Šnipiškių) žydų kapinėse

Posted on 11 February 2018 by Defending History

VILNIAUS SENOSIOS ŽYDŲ (PIRAMONTO) KAPINĖS  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION   |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CEMETERIES

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Pateikiame 2015 m. Vyriausiojo Lietuvos rabino pareiškimą dėl planuojamo kongresų ir konferencijų centro senosiose Piramonto (Šnipiškių) žydų kapinėse. Iš karto po jo, vyr. rabinas buvo atstatydintas už šią nuomonę po 11 metų atsidavusios tarnybos, o korumpuoti statybininkai ir verslininkai toliau rinko „leidimus“ iš grupelės galimai korumpuotų kapus pardavinėjančių Londono rabinų…

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Rabinas Chaimas Buršteinas

Vyriausiasis Lietuvos rabinas

Vilnius, 5775 m. Avo 26 d. / 2015 m. rugpjūčio 11 d.

 

Brangieji Lietuvos žydai,

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Motke Chabad Weighs In on Vilnius Debate

Posted on 21 August 2015 by Defending History

C E M E T E R I E S    /    P I R A M Ó N T    /   L I T V A K     H U M O R

by Motke Chabad

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Our community has asked me to help them find a new chief rabbi, and to formulate the primary requirements specific to Vilna, as only Motke can. No problem.

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OUTSTANDING EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

NEW ORTHODOX CHIEF RABBI OF VILNIUS AND LITHUANIA

MAJOR QUALIFICATION:

MUST BE A DEDICATED SUPPORTER OF A $25,000,000 CONVENTION CENTER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OLD JEWISH CEMETERY AND MUST PUT HIS SUPPORT IN WRITING UPON APPLICATION

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Humor (Of Sorts), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Motke Chabad, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Motke Chabad Weighs In on Vilnius Debate

Chairperson of Official Lithuanian Jewish Community Issues Statement After Sacking Chief Rabbi

Posted on 15 August 2015 by Defending History

D O C U M E N T S   /   C E M E T E R I E S    /   P I R A M Ó N T

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VILNIUS—Several hours after the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s website announced the effective dismissal of Chief Rabbi Chaim Burshtein (rapidly reported by JTA and in DH), the community chairperson issued the following statement, also on its website, focusing on the debate over the planned $25,000,000 convention center in Vilnius’s oldest Jewish cemetery, a project that has attracted considerable international opposition and press coverage, and has involved both political and financial intrigue. The text follows:

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Posted in CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Faina Kukliansky, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Comments Off on Chairperson of Official Lithuanian Jewish Community Issues Statement After Sacking Chief Rabbi

Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Fired Days After Public Statement on Old Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 14 August 2015 by Defending History

 

D O C U M E N T S   /   C E M E T E R I E S    /   P I R A M Ó N T

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VILNIUS—The following report appeared today on the website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania concerning Chief Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, who has held the position since March 2004. It comes several days after his public statement on the old Jewish cemetery, and following other disagreements with community head Faina Kukliansky, who recently posted statements on the subject. Defending History has attempted to provide fair representation to both community leaders (see Burshtein and Kukliansky sections), at a time when editorial policy is staunchly in agreement with the rabbi on the subject of the old Jewish cemetery, with personal malice toward none.

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Report by Vilnius Jewish Religious Community on August 14, 2015

We report that today, August 14, 2015, an extraordinary general meeting of the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community was held. The Vilnius Jewish Religious Community resolved that after the current contract with Chaim Burshtein ends, it will not be extended, and that Shmuel Yatom is to perform the function of rabbi temporarily, until a new rabbi is found.

Shmuel Levin
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community

Posted in Chaim Burshtein, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Fired Days After Public Statement on Old Jewish Cemetery

Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Cites Evidence that London CPJCE Gets Paid Secretly for “Permissions” to Desecrate Vilnius Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 13 August 2015 by Defending History

VILNIUS—In a new Facebook post today, Lithuania’s official chief rabbi, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, mentioned a Wikileaks-published cable sent by the United Stated ambassador to Lithuania to Washington in 2009. The cable references the need to supply a $100,000 payment to the London-based CPJCE (Committee for the Protection of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe) for “supervision” of “beautification” and “exploratory digging” at the old cemetery. It notes the rabbis’ request for secrecy about their doings. In the chronology, the cable postdates the unknown arrangements by which the two buildings started in 2005 were allowed to stand, and it predates public mention of future plans for a congress and convention center. Observers have been struck, however, by the disparity between one of the secret agreements reached and the impression given in 2009 to the outside world by press releases that in effect, in return for no further “fuss” over the two buildings on the old cemetery’s land, no more would ever be built on the remainder. It was a “compromise” many could “live with.”

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Posted in CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Cites Evidence that London CPJCE Gets Paid Secretly for “Permissions” to Desecrate Vilnius Jewish Cemetery

Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Issues Statement Opposing Convention Center Project at Old Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 11 August 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N    /    D O C U M E N T S    /   C E M E T E R I E S    /   P I R A M Ó N T

VILNIUS—The office of Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, chief rabbi of Lithuania since 2004, today released to the media the following statement, adding to statements of opposition to the proposed convention center at Piramónt. It follows a contrary statement from the head of the Jewish Community of Lithuania published on its website.

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From the Office of the Chief Rabbi of Lithuania

Vilnius, 26 Av 5775 / 11 August 2015

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My dear fellow Jews in Lithuania,

A primary task of every Jewish community is to care about old and new Jewish cemeteries. The Vilnius cemetery in Šnipiškės (Shnipishok), long known as Piramont, was purchased by the Jewish community for the full price in 1487, and many thousands of the city’s Jewish citizens paid for their and their loved ones’ plots of burial ground. Among those buried there were many of the greatest of our nation: rabbis, dayanim, teachers, authors of books of rabbinical thought and Jewish learning. In virtue of their achievements, Vilna became the capital of the Jewish world for many generations.

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Posted in Chaim Burshtein, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Issues Statement Opposing Convention Center Project at Old Jewish Cemetery

Chairperson of Lithuanian Jewish Community: Statement on Chief Rabbi and Old Cemetery

Posted on 8 August 2015 by Defending History

VILNIUS—The chairperson of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, Faina Kukliansky, today released the following statement on the community’s website. It is reposted here in full in virtue of its references to the debate over plans for a $25,000,000 convention center project in the heart of the old Jewish cemetery at Piramónt (Šnipiškės) in Vilnius.

 

Head of LJC Faina Kukliansky on Articles in Foreign Press about Chaim Burshtein

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Faina Kukliansky, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Chairperson of Lithuanian Jewish Community: Statement on Chief Rabbi and Old Cemetery

Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Felt Threatened with Deportation after Opposing Convention Center Project at Old Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 6 August 2015 by Defending History

Rabbi Chaim Burshtein

VILNIUS—Flying today from Vilnius airport on a routine commute to Israel, the chief rabbi of Lithuania, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, who has held the post for over a decade, experienced what he felt was effectively “an attempt at deportation” during the routine passport control check for passengers traveling to non-Schengen countries. He was threatened by the official, who explained he would no longer be free to enter Lithuania, an EU and NATO member state. Rabbi Burshtein explained to the official, quoting the prophet Jeremiah, that he has always followed the Jewish law of obeying the laws of the state in which one lives.

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Posted in Chaim Burshtein, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Felt Threatened with Deportation after Opposing Convention Center Project at Old Jewish Cemetery

Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Halts Excavation of  Holocaust Mass Grave Site in Šiauliai (Shavl)

Posted on 17 July 2015 by Defending History

Media Summary:

Protest statement in DH by Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, Chief Rabbi of Lithuania, is reported by JTA and backed up by Asra Kadisha’s protest. Authorities back down but only after much disturbance of victims’ remains and lurid, humiliating photographs in local media. Jewish Community praises halt in desecration. Statement by Community head Faina Kukliansky. Report in JHE.

Posted in Chaim Burshtein, News & Views, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Halts Excavation of  Holocaust Mass Grave Site in Šiauliai (Shavl)

Asra Kadisha Faults Lithuanian Authorities for Forming “Heritage Commission” to Preserve Cemeteries While “Doing the Opposite on the Ground”

Posted on 15 July 2015 by Defending History

NEW YORK—Rabbi Lazar Stern, New York area chairman of the international religious Asra Kadisha organization that calls for preservation of threatened Jewish cemeteries, issued a statement today concerning the latest prima facie instance of desecration of the final resting place of dead Jewish citizens of Lithuania. This time the fracas concerns a Holocaust-era mass grave site in Šiauliai (Shavl), in northwestern Lithuania. Published in a number of media outlets, including Baltic News Service (BNS), News.lt, Gnome.es, the Asra Kadisha statement calls for an immediate halt to the ongoing excavations. These works rapidly resulted in lurid pictures of human remains and personal possessions (including shoes) with which these people were murdered, being splashed over a number of Lithuanian online publications, including 15min.lt; Etaplius.lt; Skrastas.lt; Snaujienos.lt. Asra Kadisha is Aramaic for “Holy Place” and refers here to the sanctity of human burial grounds.

UPDATE OF 16 JULY:

Protests lead to Rapid U-Turn by Authorities

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Asra Kadisha Faults Lithuanian Authorities for Forming “Heritage Commission” to Preserve Cemeteries While “Doing the Opposite on the Ground”

Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Pleads for Preservation of Holocaust-Era Mass Grave in Šiauliai

Posted on 14 July 2015 by Defending History

Rabbi Chaim Burshtein

Rabbi Chaim Burshtein

VILNIUS—Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, chief rabbi of Lithuania (and of Vilnius) today issued a heartfelt appeal to both national government authorities, and to the municipal leadership of Šiauliai (known in Jewish history as Shavl), to call an immediate halt to the excavation of hundreds of victims’ remains from a Holocaust-era mass grave site uncovered during a highway construction project.

The discovery was widely reported in the Lithuanian and regional media, including the English-language Lithuania Tribune (English Delfi.lt). Various Lithuanian media outlets have reveled in publishing photos of skulls, bones and other remains from the mass grave being dismantled, sometimes including shoes and clothing (among others: 15min.lt; Etaplius.lt; Skrastas.lt; Snaujienos.lt).

The BNS (Baltic News Service) report quotes the official responsible archaeologist, Audronė Šapaitė on the decision reached (apparently without consultation with Jewish religious authorities): “It’s been decided to excavate the remains, do anthropological tests and then rebury them and also mark this place.”

UPDATE OF 16 JULY:

Protest leads to Rapid U-Turn by Authorities

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Posted in Chaim Burshtein, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Chief Rabbi Pleads for Preservation of Holocaust-Era Mass Grave in Šiauliai