A dispute that has pitted Jew against Jew in Lithuania may be headed to the courts. Simonas Alperavicius, the president of the Lithuanian Jewish community, told JTA that he was going to file a lawsuit this week to have the authorities remove a group of Jews from the synagogue yard, where they have been holding… More ▸
Lithuanian Jews have done what the Communists never dared to do: close the only synagogue in the country’s capital. The synagogue in Vilnius, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last September, was shut last week by Simonas Alperavicius, the community’s president, because of a dispute over the post of chief rabbi of Lithuania’s small Jewish community…. More ▸
Lithuanian prosecutors are investigating a local newspaper owner after a press commission found him guilty of instigating intolerance against Jews and homosexuals. Nearly three weeks after the publication of several controversial letters and an offensive cartoon in the Respublika newspaper, Lithuania’s Journalists and Publishers Ethics Commission ruled last week against the paper’s editor in chief… More ▸
Dr. Saul Issroff is a dermatologist by training, but his interest in genealogy certainly is more than skin deep. After five years of effort, Issroff and fellow genealogist Rose Lerer Cohen, have produced the first substantive record of the Jews of Lithuania who were murdered in the Holocaust. Lithuania’s Jewish community numbered 250,000 before World… More ▸
It’s 2:10 p.m. and the school bell has sounded, leaving most students free to congregate in their usual cliques before heading toward the city center, where they will gossip over a few beers. Few students want to stick around Saules High School at this hour. But don’t tell that to 15 non-Jewish Lithuanian girls who… More ▸
Jacob Bunka is stumped: The 79-year-old cannot recall how many Jews from his hometown survived the war and returned home. So the feisty man begins rummaging through his desk drawers, frantically searching for a document. Papers, once meticulously organized in bulky folders, now form a chaotic clutter on his desk. The mess mounts. Bunka is… More ▸
A Lithuanian sports association has apologized to the country’s Jewish community for anti-Semitic slogans chanted by fans during a late March basketball game against an Israeli team. Some at a match in Vilnius between Lithuania’s Lietuvos Rytas and Hapoel Jerusalem dressed up as Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and waved Palestinian national flags. In addition,… More ▸
The issue of Jewish property restitution may influence the upcoming presidential election here. In a March 29 meeting with Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas proposed the president form a special committee to solve the nation’s “very urgent and very sensitive” issue of Jewish communal property restitution. Both politicians are the assumed… More ▸
A recently published book listing the names of Lithuanians who rescued Jews from the Holocaust has sparked a debate between the State Jewish Museum and Lithuanian nationalists. After 13 years of extensive research, the State Jewish Museum last week released “Saving the Jews in Lithuania from 1941-1944.” The book by Viktorija Sakaite lists the names… More ▸
Some 4,000 Jewish soldiers who helped defend Lithuania during its bid for independence from 1918 to 1923 have been honored by the government and the State Jewish Museum. The ceremony took place last Friday to mark the eve of Lithuanian Independence Day. Lithuania’s national army was left weak and poorly armed after World War I…. More ▸
First Person
The time Israeli security strip-searched me at their embassy in Jordan