Lithuania

Gurevich Explains How Kukliansky, Levin, Žakas, and Kanovich Control 40% of Votes in “Kangaroo Election”

Posted on 22 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), candidate for the leadership of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, today issued a statement on his public Facebook page inviting members of the community to participate in the electoral conference for chairperson of the Vilnius Jewish Community, to be held this Wednesday evening 24 May 2014 6 PM (18:00) at the Karolina Hotel in Vilnius. His statement, in Lithuanian, reminds readers that the recent attempts to cancel the conference (whose date was democratically voted on by a clear majority of Vilnius Jewish Community Board members) would result in the application of the “new rules” decided on in the middle of the current campaign that would effectively disenfranchise 2,200 Vilnius Jews by recounting their votes from the present 22 or so (via the longstanding formula of 100 people = one vote) to one vote, while each of the elite power brokers in the chairperson’s circle (not all of whom live in Lithuania) would in effect have the votes to decide the entire future of the Jewish community, resulting in a tragic undermining of the future of the actual living Jewish people in Lithuania. To make matters worse, various of these “machers” have two or three votes each.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Free Speech & Democracy, 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, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl", Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Gercas Žakas, Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish Community elections, Lost Shtetl Museum (Seduva, Maceva, Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund, Sergejus Kanovicius, Sergey Kanovich, Sheduva Lost Shtetl Museum, Shmuel Levin, Simonas Gurevicius (Simon Gurevich) | Comments Off

Wiesenthal Center Appeals to Lithuanian President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 19 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PAPER TRAIL | CEMETERIES

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued the following statement on 18 May, bringing it into full de facto support of Ruta Bloshtein’s petition which now approaches 40,000 signatures from around the world.

LOS ANGELES AND JERUSALEM—The leaders of the Simon Wiesenthal Center have appealed to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite to change the current plans of the government to build a convention center on the grounds of the ancient Jewish cemetery at Piramónt in the heart of the Lithuanian capital.

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), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Arkadijus Vinokuras: Chairperson’s Henchman-Spoiler or Independent Candidate?

Posted on 18 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Arkadijus Vinokuras, the highly talented and successful Lithuanian Jewish author, journalist, and comedian, has today jumped into the fray of the official Jewish Community’s elections for the post of chairperson of the Vilnius Jewish Community. In contrast to Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), who declared his candidacy at the start of the election season and whose candidacy has (as of the time of this posting) not even been reported on the official community website, Mr. Vinokuras’s effort comes one week before the scheduled May 24th Vilnius Jewish Community conference, and has been announced with respect and a fine photograph on the website today (the same moment it came out on his own Facebook page). But that is not the main reason his candidacy is thought by many in the community, on first reaction, to be in the service of chairperson Faina Kukliansky, whose democratic terms as chief of both the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC) and the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) ran out last month.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Tagged Arkadijus Vinokuras, Faina Kukliansky, Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), Lithuanian Jewish Community, Paul Berger (Forward), Simon Gurevich, Simonas Gurevicius, Vilnius Jewish elections | Comments Off

Is “Good Will Foundation” Enabling a Mockery of Jewish Community Democracy in Lithuania?

Posted on 16 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The official trilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian) website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, generously financed from the restitution funds (deriving from prewar Jewish religious communal properties) allocated by the state-sponsored Good Will Foundation, is in the nature of things meant to represent that community. Once a community chairperson’s tenure was expired and a democratic election campaign was underway, it was widely expected that the website and its editor, Lithuanian journalist Ilona Rūkienė, would take every care to ensure evenhandedness, giving the various candidates equal space and each campaign the same respect, coverage, and democratic tools for reaching the electorate, thereby enabling voters to make an informed decision.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), 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, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Comments Off

The Revised “Nationalist Menorah”: New Low in Litvak Identity Theft?

Posted on 12 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | LITVAK IDENTITY THEFT | LITVAK AFFAIRS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | HUMAN RIGHTS

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by Dovid Katz

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A“designer menorah” proposed as an official “new Litvak logo” featuring the candelabrum’s center replaced by a Lithuanian national symbol that is perfectly legitimate but has in recent years frequently been adopted by neo-Nazi and far-right nationalist groups? One that is also at the center of the logo of the far-right organization that sponsored a demonstration defaming 95 year old Holocaust survivor (and anti-Nazi partisan hero) Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky just a few months ago? One over which women’s rights campaigners have been prosecuted in recent years (at the whim of far-right groups) for “desecrating”? One which a far right political candidate has used on his poster along with swastikas?

The official Lithuanian Jewish Community website, lavishly financed in three languages by the restitution-funded “Good Will Foundation” has this week featured on its English and Lithuanian pages the design, under the headline A New Litvak Logo. The accompanying unsigned editorial purporting to represent the “Jewish community” boasts with some potentially obsequious glee that the Justice Ministry has graciously given the community “permission” to use the symbol in its “Jewish” logo, going on to announce for the benefit of readers that incorporating the symbol “into a Litvak logo makes perfect sense” and indeed, to warn any would-be copycats that this dazzling invention is being “patented”. There is no mention anywhere about any local Jewish people (in other words the members of the community in whose name various pronouncements are being made) being surveyed, questioned or consulted.

Lithuanian Jewry may be small and fragile but it is vibrant as ever. The first published protest came within minutes of its publication in the “Motke Chabad” blog on the website of the Vilnius Russian-language publication Obzor [update: following this article, a report appeared in Izrus.il].

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, 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, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Symbology, Ten Euro Gaon Combo Coin (and its prehistory), What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like?, When an East European Gov. Imposes a Far-Right Symbol Beloved of Neo-Nazis as 'Representative' of Nation's Annihilated Jewish Minority Culture | Tagged Lithuanian Jewish Community, Lithuanian Jewish community logo, Lithuanian Jewish culture, Lithuanian-Jewish relations, Litvak logo, Litvak symbols | Comments Off

Lithuanian Jews Dismayed at New Attempt to Crush Democracy

Posted on 7 May 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Coming hard on the heels of the mid-campaign rule-change of 19 April that effectively disenfranchised over 2,000 Vilnius Jews, by “recounting” their collective vote as one vote instead of over 20 (via the long-established formula of 100 persons = one vote), the chairperson of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, eminent attorney Faina Kukliansky, on 4 May placed an announcement on the Lithuanian-language page of the official community website (followed by the Russian section), Lzb.lt, cancelling the widely announced 24 May 2017 conference of the Vilnius Jewish Community decided upon by a clear majority vote of its Council (15 of 21 active members), for which the large hall of Hotel Karolina had already been booked. This was followed on 5 May by an English language version complete with “Red-Ink Warnings from the Leader” which seems to inaccurately report that the planned 24 May conference was an “arbitrary” act of “one” Council of the Vilnius Jewish Community member, presumably referring to her opponent in the race, Simonas Gurevičius.

UPDATES TO 12 MAY 2017:

8 May 2017: Vilnius Jewish Community board member Simon Ceitlin posts a notice on his Facebook page confirming that the 24 May event at Hotel Karolina will proceed as announced.

10 May 2017: Simonas Gurevičius posts refutation of official Community website notice and confirms that the 24 May meeting, decided by all present at the most recent Vilnius Jewish Community board meeting, will proceed.

12 May 2017: Faina Kukliansky reposts announcement on community website assuring readers that the meeting will not occur.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Human Rights, 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 Faina Kukliansky, Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), Lithuanian Jewish Community, Šeduva Jewish museum, Sheduva Lost Shtetl Museum, Simonas Gurevicius | Comments Off

Translation of Lithuanian Radio Debate on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 23 April 2017 by Defending History

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

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The following is a full translation of the radio debate on the fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in the capital’s Snipiskes district), aired by LRT.lt radio as part of its People and Ideas series on 1 March and again on 5 March 2017 and available in the original Lithuanian on the station’s website. The debate was hosted by Audra Girijotė with the participants (in alphabetical order here): Renaldas Augustinavičius, Ruta Bloshtein, Faina Kukliansky, Andrius Kulikauskas, Shnayer Leiman, Remigijus Šimašius.

Note that this translation works from the Lithuanian voice-over on Professor Leiman’s originally English contribution, rather than from a separate tape of the full English interview with Professor Leiman used by the organizers (who put together the “debate” after separate interviews with the participants). This was decided upon in the spirit of trying to characterize, as best we can, the text and texture actually received by the Lithuanian language audience.

Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Comments Off

Moral Imagination: Soviet Sports Palace, European Convention Center, or Historic Jewish Cemetery?

Posted on 21 April 2017 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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I am studying How do people behave? How should they behave? and as part of that, How do issues come to matter? or no longer matter? Today I will share what I am learning about the theoretical power of our imagination to produce and resolve a real life controversy.

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, Symbology | Comments Off

Vilnius Jews “Shocked” by Maneuver to “Rig the Community’s Elections”

Posted on 21 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Interviews by several Defending History staffers with several dozen members of Vilnius’s Jewish community over the past several days have turned up what seems to be a widespread sense of (citing terms that recurred frequently in the conversations) “disappointment” or “shock” at the “unbelievable changing of the rules of an election in the middle of the campaign.” (Such mini-surveys are not scientific, and a professional survey of today’s Jewish community on a number of issues is a critical desideratum here.)

The change seems to be in the cause of in effect disenfranchising the actual living Jews of Lithuania by suddenly decoupling the numbers of living, resident Jews from votes cast for the leadership of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, for which elections are scheduled, as of today, for May 28th (for recent developments see the DH section on Vilnius Jewish Life). A number of those interviewed mentioned the role of the “Good Will Foundation” that allocates funding for the community’s administration, including elections, from the government finance provided as restitution for prewar communal religious Jewish property. Some of its allocations have been highly controversial.

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, 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, Opinion, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl" | Tagged Democracy in Eastern Europe, Jewish community structures in Eastern Europe, Jews in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Lost Shtetl Project (Seduva), Maceva, Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund, Seduva Lost Shtetl Museum, Šeduva shtetl museum, Vilnius Jewish community | Comments Off

New U.S. Video on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery Features Prof. Shnayer Leiman and Malcolm Hoenlein

Posted on 20 April 2017 by Defending History

PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PAPER TRAIL | CEMETERIES

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Would a Lithuanian Church Proceed in 2017 to Honor an Alleged Local Holocaust Perpetrator?

Posted on 19 April 2017 by Defending History

COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | MALÁT (MOLĖTAI) | COMMEMORATING DESTROYED COMMUNITIES

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by Dovid Katz

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VILNIUS—Two regular Sunday worshipers at the grand old church in Molėtai, a town of some 6,000 inhabitants in northeastern Lithuania, reported to the Defending History team in Vilnius earlier this week that their priest, Father Kęstutis Kazlauskas, has publicly announced that the church is organizing the production of a bas-relief to be commissioned from “a major Lithuanian artist” (?!) and erected within the sacred premises, to honor alleged Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Žvinys. Outside the two church goers, Defending History has been unable to obtain further corroboration of what would be a shocking development, and a very negative one for modern Lithuania, in a town where 100% of the Jewish residents were murdered in 1941 by the Nazis, with the majority of the actual killing, and its on-site organization, carried out by local nationalist elements.

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Malát (Molėtai), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged Jonas Zvinys, Malat (Lithuania), Moletai (Lithuania), Stasys Zvinys | Comments Off

Community Democratization: Four Leadership Jobs? Four People!

Posted on 18 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | MEDIA WATCH

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VILNIUS—The disappointing failure of the official website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania to give Equal Space to each candidate, and to each campaign, in the current leadership contest is a scar in the modern community’s history that can still be repaired as the campaign turns to its final stages. Let us hope it will be, and that this minimal democratic standard will be respected by the site’s editor and by the Good Will Foundation that allocates lavish finance for the website, which was never intended to be a Soviet-style paean to a single never-to-be-questioned Leader. Perhaps the Board’s foreign members, in particular, will rise to the occasion, at long last, at next week’s scheduled meeting here in Vilnius, especially in light of the recent series of unsettling reports.

What Should be Done with the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery?

Posted on 16 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PAPER TRAIL | CEMETERIES

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by Shnayer Leiman

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What should be done with the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery (Piramónt, in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius)? It should be restored. For this to happen, the Soviet ruin in its center should be taken down to ground level, with no further earthworks in the cemetery, ever. Let it forever remain a testimonial to the vibrancy of Jewish life in Vilna.

THIS ARTICLE IN LITHUANIAN TRANSLATION

Two of Vilna’s greatest photographers and artists, Juozapas Kamarauskas (d. 1946) and Jan Bulhak (d. 1950) were mesmerized by Vilna’s Jewish sites, and especially by the Old Jewish Cemetery. They left us with an abundance of photographs and sketches of the Old Jewish Cemetery. Jewish scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries, residents of Vilna, recorded and published for posterity meticulous transcriptions of the texts of hundreds of epitaphs inscribed on the tombstones of the Old Jewish Cemetery.

Posted in 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, Sid (Shnayer) Leiman | Tagged Jan Bulhak, Juozapas Kamarauskas, Piramont Snipiskes cemetery, Shnayer Leiman, Vilnius Jewish cemetery | Comments Off

Full Transcript of the “Fania Brantsovsky Witch Hunt Ceremony” on Lithuania’s Independence Day

Posted on 13 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | DOCUMENTS | BLAMING THE VICTIMS? | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | VILNIUS GENOCIDE CENTER | ANTISEMITISM | PRO-NAZI MARCHES | VILNIUS MARCHES

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VILNIUS—This year’s March 11th independence day march here last month was again granted the route of highest prestige, from Cathedral Square, up the whole of the capital’s main thoroughfare, Gedimino Boulevard, and ending at Parliament Square. Defending History’s eyewitness report recounted this year’s “detour” to the presidential palace for the bizarre ceremony of attacking Lithuania’s oldest Holocaust survivor, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Brancovskaja), 95 next month, one of the Jewish partisans subjected to defamation by the state’s campaign of Holocaust revisionism that has included a “blame the victims” components that started eleven years ago.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST (ONLY JEWISH) VETERANS OF THE ANTI-NAZI PARTISANS; RENEWED 2017 CAMPAIGN AGAINST FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Documents, Events, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged Arunas Eifirdas, Fania Jocheles Brancovskaja, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, Genocide Center Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish partisans, Sakalas Gorodeckis, Vilnius neo-Nazi marches | Comments Off

Hon. Herbert Block’s Lithuanian Engagements and the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 13 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION | USCPAHA (US COMMISSION FOR AMERICAN HERITAGE ABROAD) | CPJCE | ADMAS KODESH | PAPER TRAIL | CEMETERIES

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VILNIUS—The Hon. Herbert Block, a prominent and popular personality known to New Yorkers from his days as the highly successful Jewish affairs liaison for the campaign and administration of New York City mayor David Dinkins years ago has emerged as a major force at the confluence of Jewish-Hasidic, American and Lithuanian-government politics on issues in Lithuanian-Jewish affairs. There are conflicting views about his myriad, and some would say conflict-of-interest laden, entanglements that include a Satmar group in Monroe, New York intent on fulfilling the wishes of Vilnius builders for a convention center and annex in the heart of the old Jewish cemetery of Vilnius (allegedly for the financial benefit of their London followers in the CPJCE), a US taxpayer funded agency that exists to preserve Jewish cemeteries (but has yet to issue a word of protest at the “convention center in the Jewish cemetery” project) and the Lithuanian government’s “Good Will Foundation” that allocates monies deriving from the religious properties of the annihilated Jewish communities of Lithuania.

NEW SECTION ON MR. BLOCK’S LITHUANIAN INVOLVEMENTS

Posted in "Admas Kodesh", "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, United States, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad) | Tagged Admas Kodesh (New York), CPJCE (London), GWF (Good Will Foundation, Herbert Block + American Zionist Movement (AZM), Herbert Block + Lithuania, Herbert Block + WJRO, Satmar (Aaron branch), USCPAHA (Commission for Preservation of Heritage Abroad), Vilnius, World Jewish Restitution Organization | Comments Off

Spring 2017 Battle Over Public Honors in Vilnius for Holocaust Collaborators

Posted on 12 April 2017 by Defending History

[last update]

Škirpa and Noreika

17 Organizations in Lithuania Sign Petition in Favor of Central Vilnius Street Name Glorifying Holocaust Promoter K. Škirpa

Among the 17 who signed is Sąjūdis (Vilnius & Kaunas), whose honorary national chairman is Prof. V. Landsbergis, and whose national council includes MP Emanuelis Zingeris. Will Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius in his reply stand up for what’s right?

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius | Comments Off

Lithuanian Jews Call for Democracy in their Community

Posted on 10 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS

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VILNIUS—The human rights of even small, weak and demographically struggling minorities to enjoy a free and open website that offers a forum to people and groups of diverse opinions is well established. It is also a test of democracy that members of such groups feel able to speak out when those rights are abrogated. Against that backdrop, it was significant today that a group of older members of Lithuania’s Jewish community (including Holocaust survivors), spoke out on the subject, around a week after a pubic appeal for website democracy by a younger generation on Facebook. The older group blogs under the name of the semi-legendary 19th century Vilna Jewish “wisecracker and whistleblower” Mótke Chabád in the Russian-language Vilnius-based publication Obzor (not to be confused with Defending History’s “own” Motke Chabad…).

“Bravo to Vilnius’s Jewish community for their pre-Passover 2017 stand for democracy, the younger generation in Facebook, the survivor generation in Obzor.”

Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Free Speech & Democracy, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Human Rights, 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, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Comments Off

Vilnius Workshop, Monday 10 April, on Self-Identity & Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 7 April 2017 by Defending History

EVENTS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS

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VILNIUS—An invitation has been extended by the office of Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas to all interested colleagues to attend a seminar in Vilnius Old Town this Monday, 10 April 2017, from 1 to 5 PM (1300 to 1700) at the campus of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University on “Self-Identity and the Old Jewish Cemetery.” People who can only stop in for part of the event may come and go as needed.

MONDAY 10 APRIL

Come and visit between 1 and 5 PM at Workshop on Self-Identity and the Old Jewish Cemetery, at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Traku Street 1, corner of Pylimo, entrance from Pylimo. Defending History’s section, opposition tracker, and paper trail.

EVERYBODY WELCOME

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) | Comments Off

Sign The Petition for the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery Today!

Posted on 6 April 2017 by Defending History

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Comments Off

Baltic Holocaust: First Stahlecker Report (1941) Digitized

Posted on 3 April 2017 by Defending History

by Rafael Katz

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The two Stahlecker Reports summarize the inner workings of Einsatzgruppe A during the Baltic invasion of Operation Barbarossa, which set in motion the Holocaust. We herewith offer a digitized version of the two reports. For an introduction to the reports and links for download please see our earlier article in January 2015. As of now, we have digitized half of the reports, and will give notice once we complete the conversion. The full reports can be viewed in their JPG version via the link above. Below we offer a digitized version of 1-100 from 1-143 of the first report, and, on a separate page, 1-73 of 150 from the second report.

Posted in Documents, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Rafael Katz, Raphael Katz | Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Rafael Katz, Stahlecker Report (1941) | Comments Off

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Lithuania

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PAPER TRAIL | CEMETERIES

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

OPINION | LITVAK IDENTITY THEFT | LITVAK AFFAIRS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | HUMAN RIGHTS

by Dovid Katz

OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

UPDATES TO 12 MAY 2017:

8 May 2017: Vilnius Jewish Community board member Simon Ceitlin posts a notice on his Facebook page confirming that the 24 May event at Hotel Karolina will proceed as announced.

10 May 2017: Simonas Gurevičius posts refutation of official Community website notice and confirms that the 24 May meeting, decided by all present at the most recent Vilnius Jewish Community board meeting, will proceed.

12 May 2017: Faina Kukliansky reposts announcement on community website assuring readers that the meeting will not occur.

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

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES

by Andrius Kulikauskas

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OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | HUMAN RIGHTS

PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PAPER TRAIL | CEMETERIES

COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | MALÁT (MOLĖTAI) | COMMEMORATING DESTROYED COMMUNITIES

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by Dovid Katz

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OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | MEDIA WATCH

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PAPER TRAIL | CEMETERIES

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by Shnayer Leiman

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OPINION | DOCUMENTS | BLAMING THE VICTIMS? | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | VILNIUS GENOCIDE CENTER | ANTISEMITISM | PRO-NAZI MARCHES | VILNIUS MARCHES

CAMPAIGN AGAINST (ONLY JEWISH) VETERANS OF THE ANTI-NAZI PARTISANS; RENEWED 2017 CAMPAIGN AGAINST FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION | USCPAHA (US COMMISSION FOR AMERICAN HERITAGE ABROAD) | CPJCE | ADMAS KODESH | PAPER TRAIL | CEMETERIES

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[last update]

Škirpa and Noreika

Among the 17 who signed is Sąjūdis (Vilnius & Kaunas), whose honorary national chairman is Prof. V. Landsbergis, and whose national council includes MP Emanuelis Zingeris. Will Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius in his reply stand up for what’s right?

OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS

“Bravo to Vilnius’s Jewish community for their pre-Passover 2017 stand for democracy, the younger generation in Facebook, the survivor generation in Obzor.”

EVENTS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS

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MONDAY 10 APRIL

Come and visit between 1 and 5 PM at Workshop on Self-Identity and the Old Jewish Cemetery, at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Traku Street 1, corner of Pylimo, entrance from Pylimo. Defending History’s section, opposition tracker, and paper trail.

EVERYBODY WELCOME

by Rafael Katz

**Scholars & journalists: When you use DH, please cite DH.**