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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE
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LITHUANIA NEWS PAGE
Vandalism at Vilnius (Vilna) Jewish Cemetery
European Day of Jewish Culture in Lithuania
Vandals demolished 22 gravestones in the Vilnius (Vilna) Jewish cemetery on the night of 23 June 2006. The President of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, city officials, and others all reacted strongly to the destruction, saying they hoped the perpetrators would soon be identified. With assistance from the municipality, the gravestones were quickly restored, but the vandals have not been apprehended. The news was announced on the Jewish community of Lithuania website in July.
For more information, see:
www.litjews.org/Default.aspx?Element=ViewArticle&ArticleID=1167&TopicID=2&Lang=EN
(29 August 2006)
Lithuania will celebrate the European Day of Jewish Culture on Sunday, 3 September with a series of events, including several tours of the country's surviving historic synagogues.
Roza Bieliauskiene, chief curator of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, will lead a bus tour of part of Lithuania's 'wooden synagogues route', with stops in the villages of Alanta (Moletai district) and Kurkliai (Anyksciai [Anykšciai] district). The tour will also visit masonry synagogues and the remains of the shtetl (Jewish town) of Ukmerge.
Researcher and tour guide Asia Gutermanaite will lead a bus to Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania's second largest Jewish centre, and the former Jewish settlements of Seta [Šeta], Jonava and Kedainiai. In Kedainiai, the director of the regional museum, historian Rimantas Zirgulis [Žirgulis], will give a guided tour of the synagogue complex at Senoji rinka in the heart of the Old Town, where remains of three former synagogues survive near the market square. The Multicultural Centre of the Kedainiai Museum is housed in the so-called Small Synagogue, built in the 19th century. It is used for cultural events, concerts, exhibitions, conferences and seminars. A permanent exhibition about the Kedainiai Jewish community and the Holocaust is being prepared here.
In Siauliai [Šiauliai], the exhibition "Jewish Cultural Heritage in Šiauliai County" will open. Šiauliai is the fourth largest city in Lithuania. A hundred years ago approximately half its population was Jewish. The excursion will include a tour of the former villa of Chaim Frenkel (now the Ausra [Aušra] Museum), who is said to have owned the largest leather factory in the Russian empire.
All tours and events are free.
For times of locations of events, and to make reservations for the tours, see:
http://www.heritage.lt/naujienos/2006/eu_zydu_diena_eng.htm
(28 August 2006)
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