IN ISRAEL, LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER OPENS A PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION OF WOODEN SYNAGOGUES OF LITHUANIA
On 19 May in Tel Aviv, the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius opened a photography exhibition “A Kaddish for Wooden Synagogues of Lithuania” at Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People. “Lithuania has remained almost the only European country, where wooden synagogues are still standing. In Lithuania, you can still touch the texture of wood from which the synagogues were built, not only see their photographs and drawings,” Linkevičius said.
There are only a dozen or so surviving wooden synagogues in the world and almost all of them are in Lithuania, mainly in Samogitia.
The head of the Lithuanian diplomacy conferred an award of honour of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Lithuanian Diplomacy Star - on Zeev Bielski, Chairman of Knesset Israeli-Lithuanian parliamentary relations group, and on Mickey Kantor, the vice-president of the association of Jews from Vilnius and Vicinity in Israel “BEIT VILNA”, the initiator and organiser of the “March of the Living” that honours the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Bielski and Kantor were awarded for their efforts in advancing the bilateral partnership.
On the evening of May 20, Linkevičius will also meet with representatives from the Lithuanian-Israel friendship association “ISRAELITA”.
Currently, about 200,000 citizens of Israel have their roots in Lithuania.
Social media
