The government of Lithuania has asked Israeli President Shimon Peres to head an international advisory board on the restoration of the Vilnius Great Synagogue. “The [restoration] project is an important part of the effort to both preserve and restore Vilnius’ Jewish heritage, and I think that President Peres could bring valuable guidance and insight to our project,” Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas said, according to the Baltic Review news site. The restoration and construction project could be …More

Lithuanian police discovered Nazi slogans drawn on a former concentration camp after Adolf Hitler’s birth date. The slogans "Heil Hitler," “Jews out” in German and a swastika were scrawled on the pavement near the HKP 562 labor camp in Vilnius, Evelina Pagounis of the Vilnius police told AFP. She added that police were looking for the perpetrators. The graffiti was discovered April 22, two days after what would have been Hitler's 124th birthday. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius …More

Lithuania has agreed to pay out $48 million over the course of 10 years in Holocaust restitution. The money will go to an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 Jews who suffered under the Nazi occupation in Lithuania during World War II. The news was announced by Faina Kukiansky, chairperson of the Foundation for Goodwill Compensations. “Pursuant to the law, we have to do this by the end of 2013, but I hope we will manage much faster. As soon as we have all the data, we will simply divide the sum by the number of …More

A Lithuanian literature professor—who is also a Holocaust survivor—is a recipient of this year’s Goethe Medal. Irena Veisaite, 84, has spent her time since the end of World War II working to benefit the community at large, through societies she founded like the Lithuanian Soros Foundation, as well as her literary work. The Goethe Medal is a German honor designating “outstanding service” from foreigners in the area of German language and international cultural relations. Veisaite …More

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the leader of the Lithuanian haredi Orthodox and considered this generation's leading halachic authority, died Wednesday at the age of 102. Elyashiv had long suffered from congestive heart failure, and had been hospitalized at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem for the past several months due to heart, lungs and kidney complications. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement about Elyashiv's passing mourning that the "nation of Israel has lost a great rabbi, an …More

A Lithuanian synagogue was vandalized shortly after a memorial ceremony for the country's wartime prime minister, a Nazi collaborator. Green paint was thrown at the front wall of the Choral Temple of Vilnius on May 18, Haaretz reported, hours after an official ceremony in memory of Juozas Ambrazeviciu, who was the prime minister of the 1941 Nazi-backed regime in Lithuania. The two events likely were related, local Jewish leaders told Haaretz. The Lithuanian government held four days of events over the weekend …More

Lithuania’s 800-year-old connection to its Jewish population broke down in 1941, when the Nazis invaded the country and murdered nearly all of its 200,000 Jews–often with the complicity of local Lithuanians. This month, 70 years on, Lithuania finally passed historic compensation legislation to provide some $50 million in compensation to Jewish families whose property was confiscated during the Holocaust. Jewish groups hailed the move as a milestone for Lithuanian-Jewish relations. But lingering …More

A deal garnering $50 million in restitution for Lithuanian Jews has been criticized by foreign groups and officials. The agreement, signed into law last week and promising funds to support descendants of Holocaust victims, comes “too late,” according to some critics of the effort. Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius first approached the subject in 2009, though negotiations stalled until recently. The $50 million sum is to be paid out over a 10-year period and will be distributed by the …More

The Lithuanian government has created a fund to compensate Jews for property confiscated during the Nazi and Soviet nationalist eras. The more than $50 million fund was approved by the Lithuanian government on Wednesday. The funds will be distributed over the next 10 years to help support Jewish life and heritage in Lithuania. An additional $1 million was allocated to assist needy Lithuanian Holocaust survivors. "This took far longer and was far more difficult than he had imagined, but Prime Minister Andrius …More

Joseph Melamed, 86, a survivor of the Kovno Ghetto and a partisan who fought in the forests and the chairman of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel said he would boycott the conference. He now says he will attend. Yad Vashem has canceled the participation of Lithuania's culture minister, Arunas Gelunas, and of Darius Degutis, Lithuania's ambassador to Israel, in a conference on the destruction of Lithuanian Jewry, which is scheduled for next week in Jerusalem. The move is a protest against …More

Lithuanian foreign minister Audronius Ažubalis has been invited to a New York event commemorating the Jews of the Vilna Ghetto. Holocaust survivors and their advocates are angry that the official is the guest of honor at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research event. Ažubalis plans to attend “The Vilna Ghetto Experience” on September 22. The invite was issued to ease sensitive negotiations between YIVO and Lithuania about the return of archives lost during the Second World War. In the process, YIVO …More

Israel’s EuroBasket campaign got off to a humbling start on Wednesday night. The national team had hoped to surprise Germany in its first game in Group B in Siauliai, Lithuania, but it was completely outplayed in a 91-64 defeat, seriously complicating its situation in the European Championships. With the strong Serbia and France sides also in its group, and with only the top three teams advancing to the next stage, the blue-and-white had targeted the game against the Germans as the encounter which could …More