Continuing their trip to Lithuania, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara on Sunday visited the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius (Vilna), the only synagogue in the city that survived World War II, where they met with Lithuanian Jewish community representatives and leaders including Chairperson Faina Kukliansky. Also in attendance were Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius and Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris.
Afterwards, the Netanyahus visited the Kever of the Vilna Gaon and toured the Jewish Books Division of the National Library of Lithuania.
In his remarks, (see full transcript below) Netanyahu warned that Jews were still at risk even decades after the Holocaust.
“For the Jewish people, what has changed in these 75 years? Not the attempts to destroy us, they still seek to destroy us,” Netanyahu told the gathering of around 300 Lithuanian Jews.
The Israeli leader identified what he termed new existential threats facing the Jews, with Iran and Hamas being among them.
“What has changed is our ability to defend ourselves by ourselves… This is a magnificent change of history,” added Netanyahu, who is the first-ever Israeli premier to visit Lithuania, a Baltic EU state that was once home to his forefathers.
Pre-war Lithuania was home to a thriving Jewish community of more than 200,000 people, with Vilnius a hub of learning known as the “Jerusalem of the North”.
But historians contend that around 195,000 perished at the hands of the Nazis Y”MS, nearly the entire Jewish population.
Today there are around 3,000 Jews living in the EU and NATO member state of 2.9 million people.
(Photo credits: Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO)
At the Jewish Books Division of the National Library of Lithuania, curator of the division Dr. Lara Lempertiene, told them about its books and writings.
The Netanyahus were shown antique books from libraries throughout Lithuania before the Holocaust, including a commentary on the Book of Psalms from 1512 and writings by the heads of Jewish academies (yeshivot) in Lithuania, children’s books and textbooks in Yiddish from the Lithuanian education system from before World War II and the writings of Zeev Jabotinsky, Chaim Nachman Bialik and Saul Tchernichovsky among others.
I am very moved to see here a postcard from Tchernichovsky. My father edited Tchernichovsky and Tchernichovsky recommended my father to Alexander Aaronsohn. Bialik was in the same academy (yeshiva), with my grandfather, in Volozhyn. pic.twitter.com/tftJ3hqagv
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 26, 2018
Together with PM @netanyahu honored Vilna Gaon. His extraordinary life, work & everlasting legacy – indispensable part 700 year-long tradition of #Lithuanian Jewry. Lithuanian Parliament declared 2020 the Year of Vilna Gaon. The unique spirit of #Jerusalem de Lita is coming back. pic.twitter.com/h3PG3UaPK4
— Linas Linkevicius (@LinkeviciusL) August 26, 2018
Full remarks from Prime Minister Netanyahu:
“It’s very moving for my wife Sara and me to be here today with you in the Choral Synagogue with Foreign Minister of Lithuania Linas. A great friend. I want to thank you Linas for standing up for Israel and the truth in European forums, for telling your colleagues the service that Israel performs in saving so many European lives by our resourceful and brave intelligence people. We have saved so many European lives in so many countries. Israel in many ways is the defender of Europe and it’s time that Europe understood this.
Yesterday my wife Sara and I walked through the streets of the Jewish ghetto of Vilna. We saw the Jewish homes. Sara said she could see the faces of the little Jewish children from 75 years ago. We saw the Jewish theatre. We could hear the music of the violins. We saw the ruins of some of the 100 Jewish synagogues. We saw the barricade where Yechiel Scheinbaum and his brave colleagues fought to the deaths the Nazi oppressors. We saw Jewish resistance in the heart of the ghetto. And we saw the courtyards where Jews were assembled before being crated off to Ponar where they were shot by Lithuanian collaborators and the Nazis and then thrown into the death pits. We saw all this.
I saw their pictures on the walls of the ghetto. I heard their stories. I wanted to tell them: We are here. We are back. We are alive. Am Yisrael Chai.
Yesterday we saw the glory of Jewish Vilna that was lost and in this visit we see an expression of what has been retrieved – the rise of the reborn Jewish state of Israel. What a distance we have travelled in 75 years from the death pits of Ponar to a rising power in the world. What a distance we have travelled.
My family has deep Lithuanian roots. I’m a Litvak from both sides. Well, with also some Spanish Jewish genes but we’ll get into that some other time. I come to Vilna, I return to Vilna as the head of a proud, strong, advanced Jewish state. For the Jewish people, what has changed in these 75 years? Not the attempts to destroy us. They’re still [talk-over] to destroy us. Iran says so openly. Hamas says so openly and others. What has changed is our ability to defend ourselves by ourselves. We are no longer defenseless. We are no longer helpless. We are a power that controls our own destiny with the State of Israel and the army of Israel.
This is a magnificent change of history. This is what the Jewish state means – the ability of Jews to defend themselves.
With this newfound capacity of self-defense, we’ve built an extraordinary state in such a short time. We have science, we have technology, we have culture, we have rabbinical studies, we have faith and we have progress, we have an example – much maligned in the world but nevertheless shining as a beacon of what a free people can do once they are given the opportunity to control their destiny.
And with this independence, we now have new friendships and we have such a friendship with the democracy of Lithuania.
Israel and Lithuania – two small democracies facing challenges but confident in our ability to seize the future and we can seize it better together. This visit made this more possible and I thank you for your hospitality. Thank you.
I thank the Government of Lithuania too for its strong stance against antisemitism and for standing up to the truth, a constant effort, constantly nurtured. We support you and encourage you to do more and more of this. Thank you for that too.
We have many friends in the world today, more than people understand, including in the Arab world but none greater than the United States of America. And on this occasion I wish to extend my condolences to the family of Senator John McCain, a great American patriot, a great friend of Israel. I have known John McCain for many many years, I visited him in the US Congress many times and he visited me in Jerusalem many many times, including in recent years. Israel never had a greater champion and a greater defender. The State of Israel salutes Senator John McCain.
Yet with all this friendship and all this support, when I stand here today in the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius, in Vilna and after the wrenching visit on Friday to the death pits in Ponar I know there are two lessons of the Holocaust we shall never and must never forget. The first is: Nip bad things in the bud. Stop bad things when they are small. Fight barbarism and terrorism and radicalism when they’re small. Don’t let them become large. The second is: Be able to defend yourselves, Jews, be able to defend yourselves by yourselves. This is the meaning of the Jewish state. This is what we have done and this is what we will always do.
Netzach Yisrael lo yishaker. [‘The Glory of Israel will not lie; I Samuel 15:29]
Thank you.
Next year in Jerusalem.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
