Before Tisha B’Av, Lithuanian Ambassador to Israel Edminas Bagdonas visited Bnei Brak’s Ponevezh Yeshiva and spoke of how his country was once a source of spiritual renaissance for the Jewish world before the Holocaust and a major Torah center.
The ambassador was excited to see thousands of talmidei yeshiva toiling in Torah study and a special stained glass memorial at the entrance to the Ohel Kedoshim Kollel inscribed with the name of the Lithuanian towns where Torah flourished, such as Ponevezh, Vilna, Radin, Baranowitz, Novardok, Telz, Karlin, Kelm, and others.
In recent years, diplomatic and business links between the Lithuanian Republic and Israel have increased. More chareidim than ever visit the kevorim of tzaddikim interred there, such as the Chofetz Chaim, the Vilna Gaon, Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz, Rav Yitzchok Elchonon Spektor, the Alter of Kelm, and many others.
The ambassador also visited the Bnei Brak municipality and met Mayor Chanoch Zeibert and his deputy, Rav Avrohom Rubinstein.
David Steger – Matzav.com Israel
Rabbi Berel Wein tells how Rav Kahaneman told him that when the Yeshiva was in Ponovezh they used to fly the Lithuanian flag on Lithuanian independence day, so they fly now the Israeli flag on Israeli independence day.
If they are such friends and admirers, why is Lithuania planning to (Hashem yeracheim) imminently build a convention center on the site of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery??
Do friends act like that?
Something doesn’t add up here, big time.
Let us not be fooled or bamboozled by nice speeches, when acts paint a different picture.
Actions speak louder than words.
A delegation of Litvishe Roshei Yeshiva (Rav Malkiel Kotler, Rav Kalmanovitch, etc.) went to Vilna to protest months ago. Did they listen to them? No. And now they want to pose as our friends anyway? Are we so easily fooled?
The Lithuanian do not even acknowledge their responsibility for the death of Jews during the war. The blame it all on the germans. If i remember well they do not even have a Holocaust museum, they call it the museum of the fight against oppression ( communism, fascism etc.) .
The Lithuanians ARE the reason for the slaughter of Jews they WILLINGLY helped the Germans and it was the Russians that ultimately stopped the killing and killed the Jew killers by sending them to Siberia. by the way half the towns listed above are either now or were in Poland or Belarus like Radin and Baranovich.
Um… most of those towns were in poland! And are now in belarus. Litvish the term is connected with the territory of the polish-lithainian commonwealth. Not the current country of Lithuania. Vilna Radin baranovich novardok and karlin (pinsk) were part of eastern poland ( the belarussian part). Which today is in belarus. These areas were litvish but not part of the country of Lithuania!
Ponevezh and Telz were and are in the modern day state of Lithuania.
Kelm too I believe.