MEDIA WATCH | “GOOD WILL FOUNDATION” | GWF’s CAMPAIGN AGAINST VILNIUS’S ONE RESIDENT RABBI | US & ISRAELI MEMBERS OF THE BOARD PROVIDING LEGITIMIZATION [ARCHIVED] | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | TEXTBOOK CASE OF FAILURE OF RESTITUTION FOR VALUE OF PREWAR JEWISH RELIGIOUS PROPERTIES | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA | CHABAD IN LITHUANIA | LITVAK AFFAIRS
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OPINION
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VILNIUS—The excellent and informative web journal Made in Vilnius has once again made the serious error of presenting only one side of a controversial story. A deeply disturbing incident took place in Vilnius on Monday morning, when the city’s resident rabbi of thirty-two years was attacked and injured at the gates of its sole functioning synagogue by a security guard allegedly employed by entities funded by Lithuania’s most notorious quango, the Orwellian-named “Good Will Foundation.” It is the same quango that funds the state-supported “official Jewish community.”
A free press seeks out the opposing views of matters in conflict.
As soon as Defending History published its report — including two eyewitness accounts reproduced verbatim, one of them a Hebrew-language audio recording accompanied by an English translation — we sent the report to Made in Vilnius. It was ignored.
More troubling still, there appears to have been no attempt to speak with Rabbi Sholom-Ber Krinsky or anyone in Vilnius’s religious community.
At the gates of Vilnius’s one functioning synagogue, on Sept. 14. Attack on the citys’ resident rabbi for 32 years.
Rabbi Krinsky required treatment in the emergency room of a local hospital after the attack. Nor, apparently, was any attempt made to speak with witnesses at the scene.
Instead, Made in Vilnius published what amounts to a summary of the Good Will Foundation/Lithuanian Jewish Community press release and presented it as news — right down to the headline: “Incident at Vilnius Choral Synagogue: Conflict between rabbi and security guard.”
That is unfair to the readers of Made in Vilnius, who deserve better. They deserve both sides of the story.
Readers can consult Defending History’s report, which prominently provides, at the top, a link to the GWF/LJC response. They can also consider our opinion; the documented, decade-long history of harassment directed against the city’s own resident rabbi; and the sad history of the profoundly misnamed “Good Will Foundation.”