Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky
The following is Defending History’s translation into Lithuanian of Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky’s statement of 11 March 2026, Lithuania’s Independence Day. The original English appeared the same day in DH, and on 17 March it was published in The Times of Israel. See also Professor Sid Leiman’s response from New York. For some weeks, there was no mention of it in Lithuanian language media, a priori rather curious given the rabbi’s thirty-two years of resident service in the Lithuanian capital. But by mid April there were cracks in the efforts to keep from Lithuanian language readership the very existence of the opinion that it is in Lithuania’s interest to honor, not humiliate, the five hundred year Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, not to reconstruct a Soviet ruin where throngs would cheer, drink and flush lavatories surrounded by thousands of extant graves of fellow citizens of Vilna. Would this even be contemplated if it were about a half-millennium old cemetery that was the resting place of the great scholars of the ethnic and religious majority?
The ice started to break with veteran journalist Arvydas Jockus’s article in Alfa.lt (16 April), a survey of views that exposed the misimpression that the state-financed official “Lithuanian Jewish Community” is somehow representative of Jewish views (whether local or international). Then, the Vilnius-area Vilniaus kraštas published a translation, on 22 April, albeit with a classic “biased headline” implying that the “purpose of the Jews” is to take away the Soviet Sports Palace. This was somewhat rectified by the publication of a Lithuanian translation with the correct author’s title, carried as a press release by BNS (Baltic News Service) and by Elta.lt, among others, on 24 April. Since 2015, Defending History has offered a section in Lithuanian on these issues.