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VILNIUS—There was widespread shock today among all generations of Lithuania’s small but lively and friendly Jewish community at the unceremonious ousting of Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevicius, known throughout the community as Simontshik) as executive director. He had been the favored candidate to succeed the legendary Dr. Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavicius) upon his retirement in 2013, but “higher powers” with close connections to government agencies concerned with restitution engineered the selection of the famous attorney Faina Kukliansky, who is also, along with the American Jewish Committee’s Rabbi Andrew Baker, co-chair of the Good Will Foundation that decides on the disbursement of the generous restitution funds from the government. This follows dismay at the ousting of other employees, hiring of family members of high Lithuanian government officials, and a general shift away from a Jewish community in the direction of a quango for Jewish issues on behalf of the government that is after all now “paying” for the budge via restitution. More and more Jewish people of all ages, persuasions and backgrounds report that they no longer feel comfortable even entering Pylimo 4.
One immediate opportunity presents itself. CARI and the Council of Europe could quickly make clear their view of the Lithuanian government’s decision to allow an SS banner with a swastika to be foisted at the nation’s Parliament (the Seimas) for over an hour on the nation’s hallowed independence day, 11 March 2015. Reports on the day, which funded human rights organizations here generally failed to monitor, 
