OPINION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | WHO ARE THE MEMBERS? | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | THE “CPJCE” | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS
◊
“Letter of Moral Capitulation” from Three Rabbinic Organizations?
Tale of Two Visions — for Lithuania’s most sacred Jewish site, the Old Vilna Cemetery, where many thousands still lie buried
They sanction a new museum (to be called a “memorial”) in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery (surrounded by extant graves on all four sides). “Conference of European Rabbis” — after alleged (financial) “favors” from Lithuanian government-financed “Good Will Foundation” brokered by American Jewish Committee’s point man — moves toward reversing with obfuscation its internationally admired and morally clear statement of 2020. A major European rabbinic scandal of the 21st century. Conference of European Rabbis shleps along others to greenlight massive renovation of a huge Soviet eyesore in the middle of Vilna’s sacred Old Jewish Cemetery. Members of the 2023/2024 commission. Its history.
The “final proposals” of the commission (English text follows the Lithuanian), forbids cafes and souvenir shops in the cemetery, but makes no mention of toilets, electricity cables or parking. Question: Do these truly represent the view of all the members, including the “Orthodox representatives” well aware of the views of the heads of Lithuanian yeshivas and Orthodox leaders internationally (here and here recently; earlier). Now that the Commission has been dissolved after “completing” its mission, one of its members, Professor Sid Leiman, has made public his own statement of profound dissent about plans that amount to a museum in the middle of a Jewish cemetery — a use-of-cemetery project that does not, and cannot, exist anwhere on the planet. Did the Orthodox members not consider that a kohen will be forbidden to enter a “museum” surrounded by graves? Did the liberal and equal-rights champions on the commission not consider why such treatment would never be accorded a Christian cemetery? Who will be next to speak out?
THE SAGA OVER THE YEARS.
❊
But one member of the commission, Prof. Sid Leiman, foremost scholar of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, had the courage to resist the “directed conclusion”.
Prof. Leiman’s Nov. 2023 letters to fellow commission members and to the prime minister of Lithuania were confirmed as remaining valid on 20 March 2024, when these documents were released for publication.
On 21 March 2024, his office further released an excerpt from his paper of Oct. 2023, and a new statement confirming the commission’s failure to rise to the occasion.
It is the true friend of Lithuania who would now respectfully warn the president, prime minister, and Seimas, that these “specific Jewish organizations” are misinforming them. A museum (by whatever name, with whatever content) in the middle of a cemetery with human remains lying on all four sides, will be a source of permanent shame and conflict. Major international figures would not set foot in it. Like all the other hated Soviet monstrosities in town whose “protected status” has been withdrawn, this one too needs to come down, and the cemetery lovingly restored. Many hundreds of inscriptions are preserved and await loving reconstruction, not around a huge Soviet eyesore — but in its stead.
See also the last-minute appeals to the Commission from Ruta Bloshtein, Rabbi Elchonon Baron, Dovid Katz, Julius Norwilla, and the heads of Lithuanian heritage yeshivas internationally. And, if you enjoy George Orwell, you might well relish the official minutes of the commission’s pivotal meeting — with DH’s blow by blow commentary.
ברוכים הבאים! קומט זשע אַריינעט און שעפּט נחת פונעם רעסטאַוורירטן ווילנער יידישן בית עולם! אַ בית עלמין איינער אויף דער וועלט! מיט די שענסטע רבנישע הכשרים, התירים און הסכמות. ממש למהדרין!
◊
HUMAN RIGHTS INCLUDE THE RIGHT OF THE DEAD TO BE LEFT IN PEACE