Lithuania

Turto Bankas Discusses the Terms for Desecrating Vilnius

Posted on 15 July 2018 by Defending History

 OPINION  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

 

On July 2, 2018, at 11 AM, Lithuania’s state property bank, Turto Bankas, led an open meeting to discuss the rental terms for the operator of the Vilnius Concert and Sports House, previously known as the Soviet Sports Palace (Sporto rūmai), which the Soviets built on Vilnius’s oldest Jewish cemetery. The search for an operator is part of a plan by the Lithuanian government to remake the decrepit building as a modern convention center and a symbol of Vilnius. According to critics, the plan is senseless and the symbol shameful.

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, 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), Opinion | Comments Off on Turto Bankas Discusses the Terms for Desecrating Vilnius

Prime Minister’s Office Gloats Over “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery” Project in Reply to Plea from Vilnius Native Ruta Bloshtein

Posted on 15 July 2018 by Defending History

 HUMAN RIGHTS  |  LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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VILNIUS—In March of 2017, Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, author of the international petition on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that has achieved 44,000 signatures to date, presented a copy of the petition with a full list of signatures to the office of the prime minister. In June of 2017, she received a reply from the government restating the supposed justification for desecrating the five hundred year old Jewish cemetery on the basis of “permissions” obtained from the (allegedly corrupt) “grave-trading CPJCE rabbis” of London, who are currently under investigation in London.

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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), Politics of Memory, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein | Comments Off on Prime Minister’s Office Gloats Over “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery” Project in Reply to Plea from Vilnius Native Ruta Bloshtein

Herbert Block Issues Public Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 11 July 2018 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  USCPAHA  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  CEMETERIES

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by Herbert Block

 

I have been involved in Jewish community, heritage and Holocaust-restitution issues in Lithuania for almost two decades, through various professional and personal capacities. While I have worked on these matters in other European countries, I have a special interest in and bond with these subjects as almost all my family came to America from Litvak areas. In the past few years I have spent a lot of time on the issue of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery in Šnipiškės (Piramónt) and the future plans for the Sports Palace building which has been on that site for decades. I met with many rabbis and community leaders with vastly different views and no meeting or photo should be interpreted as an endorsement of any position.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Herbert Block, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad) | Comments Off on Herbert Block Issues Public Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Three U.S. Senators Appeal to Pres. Grybauskaitė to Spare Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 6 July 2018 by Defending History

CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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WASHINGTON DC—Three United States senators, Benjamin L. Cardin (Maryland, D.), Pat Roberts (Kansas, R.), and  James E. Risch (Idaho, R.) today wrote to Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaitė, appealing to her to move the planned national convention center away from the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to another venue. It follows a similar appeal by twelve members of the American Congress last summer, a wide range of religious, community and religious figures and institutions internationally, and a recent statement to The New York Times by the elected head of the Vilnius Jewish Community, representing the vast majority of Lithuania’s surviving Jewish citizens. Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, a prominent figure in Lithuania’s small Orthodox Jewish community, initiated a petition signed by close to 44,000 people internationally.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, United States | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Three U.S. Senators Appeal to Pres. Grybauskaitė to Spare Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Environment as Spiritual Capital: Restoring Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 5 July 2018 by Defending History

 CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

Text of the abstract for a paper for the First Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS), Oct 8-9, 2018, Riga, Latvia.

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We develop a concept of “spiritual capital” which has suggested itself in the public debate regarding the future of the Vilnius Sports Palace, a large forum which the Soviets built in the 1960s on a Jewish cemetery which is the oldest in Vilnius and perhaps all of the Baltic states. This concept of spiritual capital is relevant for analyzing cultural surroundings but could also perhaps ground a healthy human relationship with natural surroundings.

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, 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), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Environment as Spiritual Capital: Restoring Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Landsbergis and Pavilionis Address June 23rd Rally in Central Vilnius

Posted on 23 June 2018 by Defending History

  JUNE 23rd MEMORIALS  |  EVENTS  |  OPINION  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  |  ANTISEMITISM

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by Julius Norwilla

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Today’s central Vilnius event celebrated the 77th anniversary of the 23 June 1941 “uprising.” Between fifty and sixty people took part. Half of them are members of the motorbike  club. The event was organized by the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament). The Seimas was represented by three MPs – Žygimantas Pavilionis, former ambassador to USA; Audronius Ažubalis, former foreign minister; and Laurynas Kasčiūnas. One of the speakers was the Roman Catholic priest and motorbiker Egidijus Kazlauskas who spoke about the suffering and the perseverance of Lithuanians when persecuted by deportations to the eastern Soviet Union. Vilnius city Mayor Remigijus Šimašius was not present, but he has sent his greetings via advisor Mindaugas Kubilius.

A guest of honor was Vytautas Landsbergis, the elder statesman who was modern democratic Lithuania’s founding head of state. In the new century he became a European parliamentarian dedicated to revision of World War II history, most famously via the Prague Declaration which he signed. The event was co-organized by the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Union (Lietuvos laisvės kovotojų sąjunga).

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, History, Julius Norwilla, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , | Comments Off on Landsbergis and Pavilionis Address June 23rd Rally in Central Vilnius

Meeting with Vilnius City Officials on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 21 June 2018 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION   |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CEMETERIES

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by Julius Norwilla

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Earlier today, I had the honor to be one of three individuals from very different backgrounds who partnered to visit with the highest city authorities we could reach to plead for the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. In the current situation, that means, pleading with authorities to move the national convention center projects away from the thousands of Jewish graves going back to the fifteenth century, so as to enable this amazing site in modern Vilnius to be restored to the city’s great benefit and reputation.

The meeting was initiated by Ruta Bloshtein, author of the international petition asking the Lithuanian government to move the convention center project (it has achieved around 44,000 signatures to date). The third participant was Rabbi Samuel Jacob Feffer, a major scholar of the Gaon of Vilna, who has been based in Vilnius for over a quarter of a century. He is co-editor of dozens of books of the works of the Gaon of Vilna.

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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), Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Meeting with Vilnius City Officials on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Vilnius Municipality Endorses Old Town Motorcycle Gala to Celebrate June 23rd

Posted on 21 June 2018 by Defending History

  JUNE 23rd MEMORIALS  |  EVENTS  |  OPINION  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  |  ANTISEMITISM

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With “extraordinary insensitivity” Vilnius Municipality again endorses Old Town motorcycle gala to celebrate June 23rd, day the Lithuanian Holocaust broke out (initiated by the LAF “heroes” being celebrated)

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Vilnius Municipality Endorses Old Town Motorcycle Gala to Celebrate June 23rd

Sources in London: Legal Action in Preparation Regarding CPJCE’s Betrayal of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 8 June 2018 by Defending History

UK  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION   |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CPJCE

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LONDON—Reliable sources in London reported this morning that solicitors are being instructed by a group of international clients whose ancestors lie buried in the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, in today’s Snipiskes district of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. For years, the Lithuanian government’s justification for planning to situate in the cemetery its new national convention project, confirmed on numerous occasions in writing, is the “permission of the CPJCE in London,” a group of renegade rabbis who have ignored the pleas of all other rabbinical groups, and all major Litvak (Lithuanian origin) rabbis internationally, to give “permission” for the convention center in the heart of the cemetery. When Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, the then chief rabbi of Lithuania dared speak up in opposition, in 2015, he was rapidly dismissed. In late 2016, Rabbis Kalev Krelin and Sholom-Ber Krinsky were among the first to sign the international petition (see also Rabbi Krinsky’s blog and DH section). Rabbi S. J. Feffer, author of dozens of learned books on the Gaon of Vilna, based in the city for a quarter century and head of its Litvak rabbinic authority, published a powerful ruling in 2017.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), 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), United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sources in London: Legal Action in Preparation Regarding CPJCE’s Betrayal of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

100 Jews from Across Lithuania Peacefully Protest Undemocratic Hijack of Official Jewish Community

Posted on 28 May 2018 by Defending History

VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE  |  GOOD WILL FOUNDATION

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VILNIUS—As covered sequentially by DH over the past year, the official “Lithuanian Jewish Community” (LJC) saw its democracy abruptly dismantled in the spring of 2017 with the mid-campaign rule-change whereby the three thousand or so surviving Jews of Lithuania were disenfranchised and their voting rights replaced by a roomful of “Jewish oligarchs,” most of whom are beneficiaries of funds allocated by the government’s Good Will Foundation. Some have two or three votes, some represent defunct organizations, and one, who has two votes actually lives in Brussels. Western observers have compared it with some irony to the original Zero Mostel version of the Hollywood film The Producers. In any case, the “election” was ruled illegal by the Lithuanian courts in a case that brought their judicial independence to the fore, to the nation’s great credit.

UPDATES: JTA REPORT

Observers have pointed to the dangers of restitution settlements with East European governments that end up destroying communities’ democracy and independence in the direction of becoming “Jewish PR” units for the state with massive glories falling upon one or a handful of “court Jews” who serve to showcase state policies to the outside world.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), 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, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Comments Off on 100 Jews from Across Lithuania Peacefully Protest Undemocratic Hijack of Official Jewish Community

Professor Pinchos Fridberg Turns 80 in Vilnius

Posted on 25 May 2018 by Defending History

Happy 80th Birthday to Professor Pinchos Fridberg

Vilna-born Holocaust survivor, prominent physicist, author, Yiddish literature scholar, satirist, longtime director of a foundation for helping the Christian Righteous of Lithuania, Jewish community icon, and

Defender of History: DH’s 2014 Person of the Year

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Posted in Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Pinchos Fridberg | Comments Off on Professor Pinchos Fridberg Turns 80 in Vilnius

Milan Chersonski’s 80th Birthday Celebrated in Vilnius

Posted on 24 May 2018 by Defending History

EVENTS  |  VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE

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Milan Chersonski at his storied editor’s desk in the Jerusalem of Lithuania office at the Jewish Community of Lithuania at Pylimo 4 in Vilnius, c. 2011. Photo: Jurgita Kunigiškytė.

Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij), was for a dozen years (1999-2011) editor of Jerusalem of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s world famous (former) quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper (with each issue produced in four separate hard-copy editions, each with its own worldwide constituency, appropriate to the role the community has played for the large and variegated Litvak Jewish diaspora since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of independent democratic Lithuania). Before that he was for twenty years director the Vilnius Yiddish Folk Theater, which in Soviet times was the USSR’s only Yiddish folk theater company.

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Posted in Events, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views | Comments Off on Milan Chersonski’s 80th Birthday Celebrated in Vilnius

Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) Announces Peaceful Demonstration on Monday, 28 May

Posted on 23 May 2018 by Defending History

OPINION  |  VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE

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VILNIUS—The 21 democratically elected members of the Council of the Vilnius Jewish Community have issued an invitation to Vílner of all backgrounds to come this Monday morning, 28 May 2018, at 10:30 AM, to a friendly and peaceful event at the park right across the street from the long “kidnapped” official Jewish community building at Pylimo 4. Indeed, the purpose of the meeting is to speak out against the destruction of the community’s proud democracy by last year’s disenfranchisement of the thousands of Jewish residents here by a mid-campaign switch to a new “voting system” comprising a roomful of powerbrokers loyal to the chief. The election was declared illegal by the Lithuanian courts. That roomful comprises wannabee oligarchs who have nearly all received favors of one kind or another from the same “Good Will Foundation” that has been the distributor of restitution funds, deriving from the religious properties of the annihilated communities, that they themselves often decide how to disburse. Loyal and beloved Jewish employees of many years’ standing have been fired and replaced by folks with zero lifetime Jewish background or prior interest, but lots of political ties to high places and a penchant from the plumb salaries offered courtesy of the assets of annihilated Jewish people of the land. Some of these wannabe oligarchs have two or three votes each. Some represent defunct organizations. One happens to live in Brussels.

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Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, 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 Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) Announces Peaceful Demonstration on Monday, 28 May

Lithuanian Television Documentary Exposes Heartless, Power Obsessed “Official Jewish Community” Leaders

Posted on 22 May 2018 by Defending History

OPINION   |  VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE  |  MEDIA WATCH  |  GOOD WILL FOUNDATION

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VILNIUS—A powerful mini-documentary aired this evening in Lithuania by Lryras.lt television exposed the cruelty with which everyday Jewish people are treated by the leaders of the official “Jewish Community of Lithuania” that is lavishly financed by the government restitution monies deriving from the religious properties of the Jewish communities annihilated in the Holocaust. Last year the official community’s leaders staged fake elections in which the rules were changed mid-campaign to disenfranchise the thousands of Jewish people who still live here, allegedly to keep themselves in power, while placing all electoral choices in a roomful of would-be oligarchs, some of whom have two or three votes and most of whom benefit personally from the funds.

VIDEO HERE

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Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Film, 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, Media Watch, News & Views | Comments Off on Lithuanian Television Documentary Exposes Heartless, Power Obsessed “Official Jewish Community” Leaders

Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky Turns 96 in Vilnius

Posted on 22 May 2018 by Defending History

Happy 96th Birthday to Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky!

אַ ליכטיקן געבאָרנטאָג, טײַערסטע פאַניע יאָכעלעס בראַנצאָווסקי!

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Posted in Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Comments Off on Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky Turns 96 in Vilnius

Prof. Lipstadt is Star at Lithuanian Government’s Latest One-Sided ‘Holocaust & Litvaks’ Conference on 29-30 May

Posted on 18 May 2018 by Defending History

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VILNIUS—Various officials of the Lithuanian government’s Genocide Research Center, its Genocide Museum, and its “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania” (known for short as the “Red-Brown Commission”) are rather gleeful this week at the latest master PR coup for the long hard road to “soft core” Western legitimization of East European Holocaust revisionism. One of the world’s leading Holocaust scholars, and the activist who did more than any other to bring to an end the era of classical 20th Century Holocaust Denial, Professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University, has been attracted to headline a “one-sided Holocaust conference in a Baltic capital” where the naive foreign star’s eminence may help provide cover for ongoing policies. The  conference program has just been released in PDF format with, as usual, the star’s appearance artfully sandwiched between much else.

The “ham sandwich” model for political conferences made to look like pure, open, intellectually balanced academic conclaves?

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Posted in History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Prof. Lipstadt is Star at Lithuanian Government’s Latest One-Sided ‘Holocaust & Litvaks’ Conference on 29-30 May

New York Orthodox Jewish Woman Posts Video Exposing London “CPJCE” Cemetery Sellers

Posted on 13 May 2018 by Defending History

SENSATIONAL 2015 VIDEO NOW ON YOU TUBE

Did London “CPJCE” Rabbis Come to Vilnius to “Permit” A Convention Center in the Heart of City’s Old Jewish Cemetery in Defiance of All Major Rabbis on the Planet (Plus Those in Vilnius…)

The London CPJCE has since been exposed by Wikileaks, and in reports in the Jerusalem Post, JTA, and Times of Israel, for taking secret payments for their clandestine, acquiescent agreement. What happened to transparency? Most recently, the elected head of the Vilnius Jewish Community has spoken out forcefully in the New York Times.

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Posted in CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on New York Orthodox Jewish Woman Posts Video Exposing London “CPJCE” Cemetery Sellers

Timeline: Can a Foreign Gov. Plonk Monument to Alleged Nazi Collaborator in the Heart of New Britain, Connecticut?

Posted on 11 May 2018 by Defending History

[UPDATED]

 NEW BRITAIN’S PROPOSED MONUMENT FOR LEADER OF A 1941 HITLERIST MILITIA |  GLORIFYING COLLABORATORS  |  USA  |  LITHUANIA  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  | ANTISEMITISM & BIAS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS

SEE DEFENDING HISTORY’S NEW SECTION ON NEW BRITAIN, CONN. ISSUES

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Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on Adolfas Ramanauskas (Vanagas), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, New Britain, Connecticut: Plans to Glorify Alleged Nazi Collaborator?, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Timeline: Can a Foreign Gov. Plonk Monument to Alleged Nazi Collaborator in the Heart of New Britain, Connecticut?

Ruta Bloshtein Calls on Vilna Jewish Cemetery Petition Signers to File Complaints Against the “CPJCE” with the UK Charities Commission

Posted on 11 May 2018 by Defending History

UK  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION   |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CPJCE

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VILNIUS—Ruta Bloshtein, a native of this city and stalwart of its small Orthodox Jewish community, this week published an update to her international petition calling on the Lithuanian government to move its national convention center project away from the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt in today’s Snipiskes district of Vilnius. Over 43,000 people from several dozen countries have signed her petition to date.

In the update, Ms. Bloshtein calls on people of good will to contact the United Kingdom’s Charities Commission to file complaints against a rogue group of allegedly “cemetery selling rabbis” who allegedly issue permissions for building projects on old Jewish cemeteries on ground zero of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe in return for secret cash payments. They have been exposed by Wikileaks, and in reports in the Jerusalem Post, JTA, and Times of Israel. They are known as the “CPJCE” which stands for “Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe.” See Defending History’s section on the group, and DH’s 2015 open letter (to which a reply was never received). Ms. Bloshtein asks in her update, that when reporting the “CPJCE” to the Charities Commission, its official charity-status number, 1073225, be mentioned.

 

Posted in "Admas Kodesh", CPJCE (London), 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), Politics of Memory, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, United Kingdom | Tagged , | Comments Off on Ruta Bloshtein Calls on Vilna Jewish Cemetery Petition Signers to File Complaints Against the “CPJCE” with the UK Charities Commission

City Council of New Britain, Connecticut Confirms Cancellation of Monument that would Honor Alleged Collaborator in the Lithuanian Holocaust

Posted on 9 May 2018 by Defending History

 NEW BRITAIN TIMELINE  |  NEW BRITAIN’S PROPOSED MONUMENT (SECTION) |  GLORIFYING COLLABORATORS  |  USA  |  LITHUANIA  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  | ANTISEMITISM & BIAS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  DOCUMENTS

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NEW BRITAIN—The City Council, known here as the Common Council, of this central Connecticut city, to the south of Hartford, today passed the following resolution, introduced by Alderman Professor Aram Ayalon, by a vote of 9 to 5. The vote split along party lines, with the Republicans in the minority. A spokesperson was quick to point out, however that “None of them supported this awful monument idea either. They were, however, supporting the mayor’s position that the monument was in fact never agreed to by the mayor’s office or town council, obviating the need for any resolution.” Mayor Erin E. Stewart is currently one of the candidates for the Republican nomination for governor, with the decision due at the party’s convention this weekend.

The text of the resolution follows:

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Debates on Adolfas Ramanauskas (Vanagas), It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, New Britain, Connecticut: Plans to Glorify Alleged Nazi Collaborator?, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States | Comments Off on City Council of New Britain, Connecticut Confirms Cancellation of Monument that would Honor Alleged Collaborator in the Lithuanian Holocaust