LAG BAOMER
Lag Ba’Omer was celebrated last week with great fanfare in Vilnius. Children and young families enjoyed a barbecue and archery, with instructors on hand to ensure everyone hit their targets. Fun for all ages was had, on an unseasonably warm and gorgeous day in the park!
PURIM 2012
Purim in Lithuania was a huge success this year. We celebrated with a concert on Purim eve for 350 joyous participants, a costume party for students in Kaunas, and a banquet and children’s event.
The concert featured a performer from Israel, who shared his original songs, poems and jokes. The children in our school put on a wonderful performance of the Purim story, and the Megilla was heard by all!
In Kaunas, the students thoroughly enjoyed the costume party, which has been taking place for close to a decade. This year featured a competition for the most original costume, lively dancing, Megilla reading, a video of an artist creating the Purim story in sand, and much more!
Public Menorah Lighting in Vilnius
Chabad of Lithuania celebrated the first night of Chanukah with a public Menorah lighting.
From Orphan Child to Beaming Bride, A Jewish Wedding in Vilnius
Without Chabad of Vilnius, the bride would have walked down the aisle alone. Or maybe, she wouldn’t have married Jewish altogether.
Chaya (Luba) Gelemson had every reason to be lonely. She never knew her father. Her mother died when she was a year old. Four summers ago, the grandmother who raised her passed away. If nature had run its course, Chaya, a student at Chabad of Vilnius’s high school, would have become a case number in the State foster care system. But Chabad of Vilnius’s Rabbi Sholom Ber and Nechama Dina Krinsky were not going to let that happen. Then the parents of six children, ages nine and under, the Krinskys opened their home to Chaya and became her guardians.
The Chaya that twirled happily in her flounced white gown and shared quiet looks with Roman Itzkovitch, her groom, is miles from the sad teenager that first crossed the Krinskys’ door. Coming from a home where authority was held in the frail hands of an elderly woman, Chaya was accustomed to staying out past midnight. She balked at the Krinskys’ insistence that she come home earlier or check in if she was going to be late. There were more unsettling discoveries. Unbeknownst to the Krinskys, missionaries had been quite involved in Chaya’s grandmother’s life, adding more confusion to an already complicated situation.
Please click here for the full story.
Historic Discovery in Vilnius
The site of the Aron Kodesh, or Holy Ark of The Great Synagogue of Vilnius dating back to the end of the 16th century, was recently uncovered in the excavations of this historically significant synagogue. Lithuania’s Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius visited the site Friday to view the synagogue’s excavated fragments and attend as 25 Jewish Lithuanian students of the local Beis Menachem school prayed there.
“For us it is very important to bring back an authentic part of Lithuanian history which included the history of the Jewish community,” the Prime Minister told Lubavitch.com in a phone interview after the modest ceremony. The findings so far, he said, “are important not only for Lithuania, but for the global Jewish community. It is a powerful symbol of both a great Jewish heritage, a great tragedy when the entire Jewish community was destroyed, and it is a very powerful symbol for the Jewish future.”
Please click here for the full story.
Chabad Lubavitch of Lithuania
Lithuania is a country replete with Jewish history, and its capital city Vilna (Vilnius today) was know as “Yerushalayim de Lita” due to its history as a world famous center of Jewish scholarship and tradition. Tragically, the advent of World War II saw the destruction of most of Lithuanian Jewry, and the ensuing 50 years of Soviet occupation snuffed out any chance of a revival.
Since 1994, Chabad Lubavitch of Lithuania has been serving the Jews of Lithuania, as well as tourists from all over the world, working hard to rebuild a semblance of that which was destroyed, by providing social welfare and educational services to Jewish families across Lithuania. To this end, numerous institutions and activities have been created, including a kindergarten and full twelve-grade day school, adult education programing, community wide Holiday programming, and a thorough array of welfare activities that provide for the young and elderly
