OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER |  2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO THE NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA  (UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD) | THE CPJCE (COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN EUROPE) | THE AJC (AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE) | THE CER (CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS) | THE GWF (GOOD WILL FOUNDATION) | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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VILNIUS—This evening’s rally dedicated to reconstruction of the ruin of the old and hated Soviet “Sports Palace” built in the middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, entailing de facto permanent desecration of the five hundred year old cemetery, was shaken by a powerful one minute address by Rabbi Elchonon Baron, scion of Lithuanian heads-of-yeshiva who now heads Jewish Heritage in Lita, in his imitable classic Litvak rabbinic style.

Video. Report (with video). On youtube (at timecode 159.06). Alternative video showing rally leader who came up to cut short the rabbi’s speech. Video of last seconds taken from the audience area, and showing the “polite” reaction the rabbi received when he told them all that this is a cemetery. The full rally. The saga: last ten years in the history of a half-millennium old major Jewish cemetery in Europe. Scene from an earlier (2024) rally where participants shouted nationalist slogans from atop a large area of extant Jewish graves.

The rally, surprisingly hosted by Lithuania’s prestigious Academy of Sciences, was a cause of great pain to those who honor the rights of the deceased of minority communities to rest in peace. He was preceded by Daniel Lupshitz, a board member of the Vilnius Jewish Community, who made clear that the cemetery was not just “Jewish heritage” — it is part of a proud Lithuanian heritage. The buried who lie in the cemetery, he emphasized, are Vilnians, citizens of the same country, and equally part of the history of Lithuania. He reminded the audience that one ruling party when in power promises not to establish a “dance hall” on the territory of a graveyard, and another comes to power — and starts building a dance hall.

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Rabbi Baron spoke for precisely one minute.

In response, one of the rally organizers bitterly said (off camera): “But we paid the London rabbis very good money!” in an apparent reference to large sums charged over the decades by the London CPJCE for permissions to in effect destroy Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe. They were initially exposed by Wikileaks.

The video of Rabbi Baron’s historic words appears with the report on the news portal Ekspertai.eu, and on youtube (from time code 159.06).

For many, his bold minute of supreme moral clarity right in the “lion’s den” speaking truth to power contrasts dramatically with the years of antics, obfuscations, politics and games ensnaring a host of major Jewish entities over the years, including the AJC, CER, CPJCE, GWF, LJC, as well as the US taxpayer funded USCPAHA.