EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin wrote a letter of thanks to Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius after the Minister made the decision that Lithuania will endorse and adopt the international definition of anti‑Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). “Anti‑Semitism has absolutely no place – neither in Lithuania, nor in other parts of the world”, said Mr Linkevicius as he announced the move.
Yom HaShoah is when Israel and many diaspora Jews honour the memory of those who lost lost their lives in the Holocaust.
This year, given the extraordinary circumstances that we find ourselves in with the coronavirus outbreak, we are proud to help our partners at the European March of the Living in promoting their powerful and important plaque campaign.
Each of you can create your own plaque by clicking on the link here below that will be printed and placed on the railway tracks at the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau. You can do so here: https://nevermeansnever.motl.org/
The head of Lithuania’s Jewish community has strongly condemned a government-sponsored publicity stunt that showed hundreds of chairs marked with fake 1,000-euro notes lined up outside a state-of-the-art convention center that is being constructed on top of a Jewish cemetery.
Simon Gurevich — chair of the Jewish community in the capital Vilnius — told local broadcaster LRT that the display staged by tourism agencies was “immoral,” as the chairs had been stacked “over the heads and bodies of the people who created the ‘Jerusalem of the North,’” invoking a term that was often used to describe Vilnius, then known as Vilna, before the Nazi Holocaust.
Jewish activists and human rights groups have spent the past three years opposing the government’s construction of the convention center on the site of the Old Šnipiškės Jewish Cemetery, where thousands of graves are buried beneath the surface.
Last Friday’s display at the site was organized by Lithuanian tourism chiefs as a mocking response to the continued delays in the construction of the convention center, with the fake cash intended to symbolize the amount of money allegedly being lost because of the continued protests of Jewish organizations and others.
According to Defending History — a specialist website that monitors and analyzes the official depiction in contemporary Lithuania of the country’s Jewish past — Friday’s widely-reported display may have been the result of a photoshopping exercise, rather than an actual event.
One of the site’s reporters asked a contact at the Vilnius municipality “about whether the city’s permission had been given. The employee, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Of course it was virtual, photoshopped, but reported in the press release as being on the ground, in order to wind up the Jews so they will go crazy about their so-called cemetery.’”
Commented Defending History: “Whether on the ground or the web, this is one of the most disturbing manifestations of ‘elite antisemitism’ in Eastern Europe in recent times. Besides the humiliation of thousands of buried from the minority annihilated in the Holocaust, there is the classic antisemitic trope associating ‘Jews and banknotes,’ alongside the insinuation that only a convention center at this location can bring back the tourist industry after Covid-19.”
Local officials insist that there is no other appropriate site for the convention center, which is being presented as a major boon for the tourism and hospitality industry.
“We have been waiting for the Congress Center to be located in this place for many years, but in the face of the crisis, it is becoming critical for our sector,” Evalda Šiškauskienė, president of the Lithuanian Hotel and Restaurant Association, told local news outlets over the weekend.
The Article was published in the Algemeiner
The chairman of the European Jewish Association (EJA), Rabbi Menachem Margolin, today called upon the President of the Central Council of German Jews, Yosef Schuster, to retract his call to Jews to refrain from wearing a skullcap in public space in Germany
In a statement Rabbi Margolin said:
“I have no doubt that the declaration stems from Mr. Schuster’s sincere concern for the safety of The Jews – a concern that I naturally share in light of the growing anti-Semitism in Europe, but unfortunately he is mistaken in the cure for the serious problem, “says Rabbi Margolin.
Emphasising the point, he went on: “ Not wearing a skullcap due to fear of anti-Semitism is in fact the fulfillment of the vision of anti-Semites in Europe.
The leaders of the Jewish communities and organizations must insist that every government care for the security of all its inhabitants and do more to educate and prevent this dangerous phenomena.
But we must not agree, let alone encourage the Jews – or any other religious or ethnic group – to give up its religious attributes. ”
That is why the call to refrain from wearing a skullcap is also liable to turn those who wear skullcaps into a provocative act and deserving of a response.”
It’s a challenging time for Jewish communities in Europe. Anti-Semitism is on the rise as populism and the politics of the lowest common denominator are gaining traction. Our communities often need round the clock protection and our practices and customs such as keeping Kosher are under pressure from increasing political interference.
