[2 May 2025 update at end of post]
OPINION | DOCUMENTS | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY AFFAIRS | A STOLEN ELECTION | CHABAD IN VILNIUS | HUMAN RIGHTS
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OPINION
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VILNIUS—Even people who “thought they had seen everything” were taken aback a week ago, when without prior warning Vilnius’s only functioning synagogue was closed down on the occasion of the first seyder night of Passover, one of the most sacred Jewish calendar days of the year. The “explanation” did come shortly thereafter in the form of an official 13 April 2025 statement on the official website of the restitution fueled “Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania” (the “LJC” as is it is still known from the long time title “Lithuanian Jewish Community”, LZB in Lithuanian). That is the “community” that disenfranchised virtually all the remaining few thousand Jewish people in Lithuania, by changing the system of voting (in the middle of an election campaign season!) from choice by community members to that of “associations” mostly benefiting from restitution funds. This transpired during the allegedly rigged 2017 community elections. See also the contemporary JTA reports (here and here). The official community has received tens of millions of dollars from the government in restitution.
After causing shock near and far, last week’s statement, duly preserved by the Internet Archive (and avilable as PDF), is signed by “Administration of the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community” whose nobly religious leaders will no doubt hasten to announce themselves publicly, as would any honorable authors of such public degredations of Jewish personalities in twenty-furst century Jewish Vilnius. Surely the nobly pious and God-fearing administrators of the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community would not act in the spirit of hitmen for hire.
When will this year’s mandated elections for the Lithuanian Jewish Community chairpersonship be announced on their website, along with gracious invitations to community members to announce their candidacy in a spirit of community freedom, openness, and democracy?