Lithuanian Jewish groups at loggerheads over prewar property

  • 2007-06-15
  • From BNS report
Litvakes, a worldwide organization uniting Jews originating from Lithuania, has urged Lithuania's government not to accept an amendment to the law on restitution of property rights of religious communities as submitted by the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Lithuanian Jewish Heritage Foundation. The amendment would make the Lithuanian Jewish Heritage Foundation the sole recipient of the country's remaining prewar religious communal property, or any or the compensation paid out for it.

Lithuania is currently facing the difficult process of deciding on compensation for Jewish communal property that was appropriated or destroyed by Nazi and Soviet occupation administrations in the mid-20th century.

"It is astonishing and extremely troubling that neither the Lithuanian Jewish Community, nor the Lithuanian Jewish Heritage Foundation, nor the United States government, nor the World Jewish Committee informed us about an ongoing process of negotiation," the letter from the Litvakes World Federation of United Jews and the Litvakes Movement Center to Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas reads. The letter was signed by Rabbi Samuel Jacob Pfeffer, the Dean of the Jewish Rabbinical Court of Vilnius.

In his letter, the rabbi speaks firmly against "those immoral and illegal demands of the Jewish Heritage Foundation."

For his part, the president of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Simonas Alperavicius says that the organization that sent the above letter should not be trusted.

"This is all a lie. That organization is small, no one knows anything about it at all. We are taking care of Lithuania's citizens, there are only individual units that do not want to be affiliated with the LJC. Our organization represents the vast majority of Jews in Lithuania. The foundation is registered by the Lithuanian government, if someone has something against it, let them argue with the government in court or anywhere else," Alperavicius said.

The prime minister's adviser Vilius Kavaliauskas has said he does not know what the government's response to this letter will be.

"We are slightly stuck. Obviously, Samuel Jacob Pfeffer is an influential man, a Litvake leader," Kavaliauskas told BNS. At the same time, he stressed that without a strict centralized Jewish clergy hierarchy like the one that, for instance, the Roman Catholics have, there are a lot of opinions that may claim to be the most authoritative.

"We cannot negotiate with every Jewish community or religious organization separately. We have fixed a requirement that our partners in the negotiations 's the Jewish delegation 's should obtain a power of attorney from the appropriate Lithuanian organizations to represent them, something that they have not done," the prime minister's adviser noted.

In its statute, the Lithuanian Jewish Community claims to represent "Lithuanian Jews and Jewish organizations," yet there are Jews who object this statement.

Lithuanian citizen Jewish Arkadijus Vinokuras says that the LJC's administration should resign and the government should dismiss the above amendments and liquidate said foundation on top of that.

"The Lithuanian Jewish community lied when they suggested setting up the foundation. This foundation has no legal basis to claim someone else's property as there are legal heirs. The foundation calls itself the sole receiver of rights without any legal basis. Not to mention the absence of any moral grounds, as there are living heirs," he said, stressing that the world's strongest Jewish religious communities have voiced their approval through Samuel Jacob Pfeffer.