Vilnius is celebrating its 700th anniversary. Lithuanian Jews are commemorating a darker one.
This year also marks the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto, once the heart of a thriving Jewish community
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News In Vilna, where thousands were murdered, I learned how difficult it is to mourn an absence
I did it all backward. Instead of taking my research trips before writing my book, like any normal historian would have, I’d waited. Only after I had completed my first draft of the book did I finally make my way to Lithuania and Vilna (now Vilnius), the capital of Lithuania during its brief moment of…
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Fast Forward Pope Francis Prays At Former Vilnius Ghetto On 75th Anniversary Of Its Closing
(JTA) — Pope Francis prayed at the site of the former Vilnius Ghetto in Lithuania on the 75th anniversary of its liquidation. He offered the prayers on Sunday in the presence of survivors and Jewish community leaders at the site. He also led a mass for more than 100,000 in Kaunaus, the second largest city…
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Fast Forward Holocaust Reparations At Risk After Lithuanian Court Voids Election Results
(JTA) — In an unusual move, a Lithuanian court voided the local Jewish community’s April internal elections, declaring that communal bosses have no legal authority to continue their rule. The Dec. 21 ruling by Vilnius District Court, which is the first of its kind in years in Europe, is the latest development in the fight…
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Fast Forward Lithuanian President Shrugs Off Protest Over Jewish Cemetery Construction
(JTA) — The president of Lithuania dismissed concerns raised by 12 U.S. Congress members over the planned construction of a conference center atop what used to be a Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. Responding to a letter sent last month by the lawmakers about the Piramont cemetery, Dalia Grybauskaitė on Monday told the BNS news agency…
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Breaking News Bitter Ethnic Struggle For Control Of Lithuania’s Jews
(JTA) — Dan Sofer and his wife considered it a great honor when they became the first couple since the Holocaust to be wed in Lithuania by a chief rabbi of that country. Sofer, a Ukraine-born businessman from Israel, said his wedding in 2004 was a chance to play a small part in the revival of…
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Breaking News Vilnius University Won’t Honor Holocaust Victims Who Fought Nazis
(JTA) — Vilnius University in Lithuania said it would give academic degrees posthumously to Jewish students who were unable to graduate because they were murdered in the Holocaust — unless they were partisans. In a statement published on Wednesday on its website announcing the initiative entitled “Recovering Memory,” Vilnius University encouraged relatives of Holocaust victims…
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Breaking News Chabad Rabbi Banned From Lithuania’s Main Synagogue
(JTA) — In an escalation of the internal feud dividing Lithuanian Jews, the Chabad movement’s senior emissary to the country was banned from the capital city’s main synagogue. Rabbi Sholem Ber Krinsky, who has lived in Vilnius for 22 years, was informed in an email Monday from the chairman of the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community…
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