It was August in Lithuania. I, twenty-four years old, sat on the floor with the other students. We spoke in Yiddish among ourselves, but our voices were kept soft; the authorities couldn’t know about our meeting. A man with a beard, a noted scholar, stood up and told us why he had not spoken with us before, why we had to meet discreetly in this apartment, high above the streets of Vilna. Things were happening, the man said, and those with power wanted to cover them up. But he had to let us know.
Sounds eerily familiar? It actually wasn’t that long ago. Full disclosure: I’m still twenty-four years old. This was August 2009.
This summer, my last as a student at UCLA School of Law, I left for what is today called Vilnius, but what had once been known to its Jews as Vilna, the Jerusalem of Lithuania. The city’s Yiddish Program, founded at Oxford University in 1982 by the renowned American born-scholar Dovid Katz, attracts scholars from all over the world. It was in hope of studying with Professor Katz, whom I admire deeply, that I had made the trip to Lithuania.
But when I arrived, Katz was nowhere to be found. When I and other students who had come to study with him asked where he was, all we received was uneasy laughter and a dismissive wave of the hand. It was only at the very end of my stay that I found out the truth. In order to sanitize their own involvement in the Holocaust, the Lithuanian government has embarked on a campaign to portray itself, having been under Soviet rule until 1991, as a victim of genocide, too.
The Red-Brown Resolutions, declaring Nazism and Communism as equivalent phenomena, with the purpose of obfuscating the Holocaust into simply an event among other events, have been presented to the European Parliament, starting in 2008.
The Lithuanian government has now made it official policy to target veterans of the Soviet partisans in the forest against the Nazis, a courageous effort vividly depicted in last year’s “Defiance”, starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber. But only Jews, who in fact had been a minority among the partisans, have actually been harassed by police and defamed in the press. Today in their eighties and nineties and honored everywhere else in the civilized world, these heroes of humanity are being targeted as enemies of the people. In order to set the record straight, Professor Dovid Katz started a website, www.holocaustinthebaltics.com.
After he objected to this public defamation of little old ladies, Professor Katz was forbidden to lecture or even speak with the students of his own Summer Program, which is why we had to meet him in a private apartment, away from the university on that Monday night in August. At least at that clandestine meeting I was finally able to meet my hero, who generously took me out for coffee and gave me as a gift all of his books that I didn’t yet have, with a beautiful inscription in each of them.
By the time we had finished, well past midnight, it was already Tuesday. I looked at my watch. I would have to start packing now in order to start my journey out of Lithuania in the morning, I thought. Law school starts tomorrow.
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Correction: the final website cited should read
http://www.dovidkatz.net
Apologies
Deus ex machina statistically unlikely. Sorry, but the so called Michael, Judith, and Dovid Katz are the same. It sounds schizophrenic and without any sign of crediblity. One should read Oxford newspapers from 10 years ago to understand the present actions of this lonely, tastelessly dyed bearded man who destroys himself…by accusing, cursing, and defaming decent people.
Marlene of Oxbridge, if you subject me to the merciless laser beam of your unmatched linguistic expertise, you will find that I also am Dovid Katz. We multiply and we tighten our circle!
You literally are choking with rage, Marlene. What gives? This is kind of pathetic and surely cannot be healthy.
A young student published an article based on information he had been fed, there was no verification, and the source of information has a history. I somehow don’t think there will be pieces like this published by this student again, he is obviously a well intentioned young guy that meant no harm to anybody.
Questions have been clearly asked by posters in this forum as just as clearly, they are not being answered. There are only personal attacks by posters that as Marlene points out, all sound alike. Who knows if they are Dovid or not, does it really matter?
As somebody that cares very deeply about the issues raised in this forum, I hope that those with a public voice would be cautious about allegations they might raise, institutions that it appears some would try to undermine, or causes that affect very many people.
We come from an extraordinary and dignified history, let’s try to comport ourselves in a manner benefiting of our ancestors. I think in the best interests of all we should end this conversation.
Amen.
Grant: I appreciate the effort at reconciliation, but I just can’t let that be the last word. Because these ARE important issues to raise; you can’t just say, “oh, well, nobody knows what’s really going on, let’s go home.” Yes, some of our accusations are unsubstantiated, but not everything. And also, you say that Dovid Katz has “a history”–maybe, but based on what I observed this summer, I find it easy to believe that Dr. Sarunas Liekis is indeed responsible for many of the recent acts of cowardice attributed to the institute. (As students, the only direct contact that we had with him was one very boring lecture on the history of Jews in Lithuania; but even that: How do you manage to bore students who came halfway around the world to learn about Lithuanian Jewish history, with a lecture about Lithuanian Jewish history? If you’re someone who tends to want to sanitize history so that all controversies disappear, though, I suppose you can. Sure, that’s not conclusive, but it’s one data point among many.)
The thing is, Grant, the only one who has really done detailed research into this is Dovid Katz, and you don’t trust him. And Clemens Heni is also in this field, but I’m going to guess that you consider him a “lackey” for Dovid Katz also. This isn’t my field, I don’t have time or the resources to investigate everything fully myself (where that’s even possible). But at the same time, I believe that it’s important to spread the word about what I do know, so maybe others can investigate it more fully, rather than just letting things go past the point of no return, where VYI becomes just another instrument in the Lithuanian government’s sanitized version of history. And there are some places where those of us who were there this summer do have firsthand observations that we can add. (Of course, some may believe that all of us supporting Dovid Katz are just aliases of Dovid Katz, but really: is it that hard to believe that anybody other than Dovid Katz would or should care about this? I don’t really care that much about what I’m assuming is a personal feud between Dovid Katz and Sarunas Liekis. But I do care very much about the larger issues involved with the suppression of Lithuanian complicity in the Holocaust, and I do care about whether future generations of students in the VYI summer program are able to learn the whole historical truth rather than just the sanitized version of it.)
Anyway, answering one of Grant’s questions to me from earlier:
“Would a woman like Fania continue to associate herself with VYI if she believed they were suppressing the truth? ” Well, for one, I don’t know how much Fania even knows of the Institute’s role in all of this. (She doesn’t speak English, and I was only in introductory Yiddish, so I never really got to speak to her directly.) I did hear from one of the other students that she didn’t know in advance that we weren’t going to be going to the partisan forts–apparently, after the first two parts of a tour that she was leading for us (to the Vilna Jewish Cemetary and Ponar), she expected that we were also going to be going to the partisan forts…only to be told that no, they decided that this year it would be better for us not to go there. She is, of course, fully aware of the controversy surrounding her more broadly. But also, I assume that as long as she feels she can get her story out better by being associated with VYI, there’s no reason for her to fight the Institute. Besides, even though she was and still is a courageous fighter…she’s also an 87 year old woman–there’s only so much she can do…especially when it’s the people in charge of an institution that has supported her for many years who suddenly become part of the problem.
And, a few things that are unambiguously true that support Dovid Katz’s allegations:
– The persecution, and threatened prosecution, of Fania and others as perpetrators
– The “genocide museum” barely mentioning the Nazi Holocaust (there’s one panel that mentions it in the entire museum, and that’s in a hallway outside the main exhibits).
And as far as the role of VYI:
– The fact that this year’s group of summer students wasn’t scheduled to see the partisan forts
– The fact that Elliot Palevsky mysteriously wasn’t there this year, after being a strong advocate against the Lithuanian government on this issue in the past–this is the only year I’ve been there, so I’ve never met him, but from what I’ve heard, it sounds like I really missed out. (And in future years…will the one person on the official program who told us to contact Dovid Katz be taken off the program as well? I wouldn’t be surprised…)
– The fact that Dovid Katz wasn’t on the official schedule; I don’t know why this was, and Sarunas Liekas insisted in his comment on here that Dovid Katz wasn’t forbidden from speaking openly to us. Maybe he was never expressly forbidden, but given that he was eager to speak to us once we contacted him, it clearly appears that something kept him off the schedule.
Finally, as far as how Dovid Katz has been punished: No, as far as I know, he hasn’t been threatened with arrest or anything like that. We were free to have coffee with him on the streets of Vilnius. But I have heard that he has been forbidden from supervising graduate students at Vilnius University…and clearly not for any sort of incompetence, given the fact that (I think?) all of the excellent Yiddish teachers at the Institute this year were former students of his. So I’m not sure of any interpretation other than that the University (as an agent of the government?) is trying to reduce his influence. I don’t have proof of this, but I assume that the basic facts wouldn’t be hard to confirm.
So, I guess that’s all for now. I agree that the tone of this discussion has gotten somewhat ridiculous, and hopefully this comment hasn’t made it worse. But just based on the facts that I’ve listed above, I feel very confident that SOMETHING is going on that people need to be made aware of. So we really can’t just blow it all off as the rantings of some “crazy crackpot professor”…
(By the way, while I’m posting, a request for the moderators: Could you please take down my reposting-in-pieces of my original comment, since the original comment is available further up? That would be the comments from Nov. 7 at 2:27, 2:27, and 2:29 PM. Thanks…)
Katz should read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_of_bipolar_disorder
Dovid, you are clearly Judith, there is zero doubt in my mind on that one. Likely you are Michael as well. I would suggest that you be cautious about how you hide your identity on such forums, IP addresses can be tracked easily & identified, so you can be easily identified if anybody tries. Furthermore, you diminish yourself by pretending to be somebody else and presenting such transparent arguments. Please try to keep your dignity intact.
You used the word “lackey”, not me. Let’s not demean academics who have dignity and stature. Personal attacks serve no purpose and demean only the attacker. Academia is not so large that reputations are not discoverable, if there are some who are antithetical to our values, they will be identified, but your incessant name calling and personal attacks serve no purpose other than to alienate good people, something you have done repeatedly. Think back through your career at all that you have alienated, had you allowed them to be the allies they started as, you could be of immense stature today. Try to recognize your own behavior here and stop with the nonsense. Surely you are better than that?
Grant (and others): I’ll post my IP address right here: 164.67.231.xxx (last part masked for security). That translates to “s231-[xxx].resnet.ucla.edu”. I don’t know if the moderators are able confirm that, but if so, they’re welcome to. You’re also welcome to E-mail me at the UCLA address I have linked here.
But yet Dovid Katz is supposed to be the one who’s paranoid?
Dear Mr. Gochin,
You sound like a decent man, but with all due respect — and I don’t have a single reason not to respect you, obviously — you don’t get to decide when others end this conversation. You did not start it, after all.
As a matter of fact, until just now, I was not going to return to this site, having satisfied myself as to the general outlines of this unlovely, erm, discussion, but your last postings have caused me to change my mind..
You sound like a decent man, Mr. Gochin, but I am afraid your earlier Chekhovian lamentations about the sheer tragedy of it all (brilliant mind ravaged by suspicion! vis a vis, presumably, an ordinary one blessedly unweighted by any?) ring a bit hollow against the backdrop of pernicious, truly basement-level vitriol spewed by some of Prof. Katz’s detractors here: the elusive individuals from Oxbridge and Paris and other such fascinating locales, Katz-hair-besotted experts in the intricacies of textual analysis, possessed of PhD’s and poetic monikers (Morning Glory! Pre-dawn Dew!) and strangely subpar command of written English.
Since one’s vitriolic detractor, by default, is someone or something else’s ardent defender, allow me to suggest, as gently as possible, that any entity whose credibility has to depend for its maintenance upon the efforts of such eloquent defenders, may be in some trouble with regards to its identity and could stand at least to pause and re-examine itself.
We all could stand to do that, from time to time, of course. I am aware of that.
Let me assure you of two things first: I am not Dovid Katz, and I am not twenty-four years of age (alas).
I also am not, by nature or virtue of experience, a starry-eyed reveller in conspiracy theories. Rather, I am a fifty-plus Soviet Jewish émigré, originally from Leningrad, with Litvak roots, former refusenik, trained as an engineer (electro-magnetic fields, submarines) and active in the ‘70s-early 80’s Soviet literary underground movement (samizdat), who came to the US, speaking little English, more than twenty years ago, and has for the last five years resided in Canada. I am an associate professor of English and co-ordinator of creative writing program at Montreal’s Concordia University; and I am a writer (switched away from my native tongue, first as an experiment and then for good, in my thirties), winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship and a couple of other literary awards for my work. I also am the founding director of the Summer Literary Seminars program (SLS) – http://www.sumlitsem.org — the largest independent international literary program in the world, held annually in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Nairobi-Lamu, Kenya, and Montreal and, yes, Vilnius (since ‘09), and featuring, as faculty members, the most interesting and accomplished (by our lights, at least: my colleagues’ and mine) among the North-American and European and African writers, poets, playwrights, and literary scholars – and many dozens of beginning writers of all ages and walks of life from all across the US and Canada, in participant capacity.
This CV-style summary is meant for no other purpose but being a way for me to try and convey the fact that I’ve been around, seen rather a lot, am neither gullible or reflexively distrustful of people, and consider myself (perhaps optimistically) no poorer a judge of human character than the next guy. I’ve seen all kinds of people, the stunningly low and the angelically inspired and the crushingly ordinary — although in reality, I found, there are just two essential types: those who at some critical points in their lives happen to become better persons than their own selves, and those who spend the larger spans of their time on this earth being worse than they are.
Well, now that I’ve introduced myself — and my professional life, such as it is, is entirely Google-able, I’d suspect — I wouldn’t mind knowing who you are, since until yesterday, I’m sorry to say, I had never encountered your name (as you’d never heard of me). I commend you for not hiding behind the veil of the mere first name or slippery nom de guerre — and I hope you don’t mind that I have just looked you up on the internet.
Ok. It’s good to know that apparently, you are no stranger to the VYI, because I do believe the issues raised in the young man Josh’s article in its regard are serious, and probably should be addressed, rather than huffily or breezily dismissed, irrespective of your opinion of his source. (Apropos of which: It smacks of, well, unfairness, quite frankly, to beat up on the young man for his basing his article on the words of the world’s leading authority on the Litvak language, culture and history — and the institute’s founder and research director, to boot. I mean, seriously. And if you do care about the issues raised, as you claim and I am sure you do, why question the messenger’s motives or investigate his past, which may well not be all that relevant in present context, instead of addressing the message itself?) Please know, too, that the source for the article does not happen to be the only one person in Vilnius voicing his or her concern on the subject. There is a worry out there about the VYI’s current and future direction. There is also sincere hope for its continued existence as a fulcrum of Yiddish and Litvak culture in Lithuania. It’s just too prominent a symbol.
I’ve known of the institute’s existence for quite some time, and I admired its concept and sense of mission for almost as long (I have friends both among its teaching faculty and former participants), and so it would indeed be much more than a matter of passing interest for very many among those who believe, as you do, that Lithuania occupies a signally and singularly important (both glorious and unspeakably tragic) place in Jewish history, to know that in its unique capacity as the only Yiddish/Jewish portal of permanent action connecting outisde world with Lithuania, it continues to stay an open, unobstructed, unthrottled one; that it does not hesitate to raise its voice, speak out loud and clear, whenever stark injustice is being done by the forces of political reaction to the most vulnerable among the members of the local Jewish community, courageous survivors of the genocide; that no amount of seeming commonsense expediency, even one accepted in perfectly good faith and appearing to serve the long-term good of one’s cause, can justify silence on matters that brook none in the name, indeed, of our ancestors (and we certainly do come from an extraordinary and dignified history, as you say, and I thank you for putting it in such moving terms).
I believe in building bridges. That’s what our literary programs do — we bring cultures and literary communities together, we hope to decrease the amount of mistrust between peoples — and we endeavour to put the locales and the communities we choose as settings for our programs in the literary mind of America, if you will. We strive to serve as a platform, of sorts, upon which the North-American and the international literary and cultural communities can meet; we work hard, too, to bring the culture and literature of each of those places to the attention of North-America’s leading publishers, so as to counter the meager 3% rule (percentage of their output infamously allocated by the leading US publishers to literature in translation).
Building bridges is important. But you just don’t build them on questionable foundations. You only build them on your own terms, with the partners you trust implicitly, whose motives are in full alignment with your own objectives. But – I don’t want to belabor the point. The point has already been made.
It is time for me to start wrapping up this post, and so I’ll say a few words about Professor Katz and the Jewish Lithuania program he organized and directed for us during the course of the SLS-Lithuania program this past summer.
Still one more necessary flashback, however: I have been fascinated by Lithuania since my mid-twenties. I started coming there regularly while still living in the Soviet Union. The reasons for my infatuation with the place are manifold and complex and perhaps not very interesting to anyone. They were both of personal and, to some peripheral extent, political nature. My fellow Leningrader, the late poet Joseph Brodsky, before his exile from the Soviet Union, also spent a great deal of time in Lithuania, albeit way before my first visit there — and I would imagine, not for dissimilar reasons…
Some five years ago, on my way back home from one of our St. Petersburg programs, I decided to revisit the place — and again felt the sheer force of its pull on me. It was then that I started thinking of bringing an SLS program to Vilnius, at some point. Then, two summers ago, while lounging around a friend’s apartment in the Old Town, I came upon and started reading Dovid Katz’s “Words on Fire” — a book on the history of Yiddish. I could not put it down. I was struck by the accelerated effortlessness of its style, the depth of historical connections, the strength of passion informing the narrative. I had not read his work before, although I’d heard of him in connection with the VYI. As a professional reader and evaluator of literary writing, I was impressed very strongly indeed. It was clear to me at once that the man was immensely gifted, both as a storyteller and a scholar. Finished with the book, I resolved to find him some day and ask him to be a part of our future program. Right then I knew this would be the essential, integral missing component for our program in Lithuania: SLS-Jewish Lithuania.
So that’s how it came about. That book opened new windows on the world of my ancestors for me. And if it did so for me, it did so for many other people, as well, because none of us are as exceptional as we sometimes think and hope we are, in the way the world shapes us. That’s Dovid Katz’s legacy, and that’s how he is going to be remembered, long after he and the rest of us have gone the way of our predecessors. The history of Litvaks, their language and cultural inheritance, will live on to a large extent owing to his writings… not mine or yours, I’m afraid, or the inexpressible Oxbridger.
Well. We all try to make the world a better place after our own, individual fashion, and in accordance with the measure of the separate gifts alotted to us. But most of us are also hoping, often unbeknownst to ourselves, to be discovered by, and subsequently contribute to, a cause that would outlive us.
I don’t need to tell you how gifted the man is, for he manifestly is so. Everyone acknowledges this, even those who dislike him perhaps on some personal grounds. He is a man on a mission, animated by one abiding lifelong passion — a cause that found him before he had much of a say in the matter: to forge within the smithy of his mind (to paraphrase Joyce) the ineffable history of his people, by means of re-limning their language. This is a fortunate fate, but also a burden, for true passion and knowledge and the talent for communicating both to others in a passion-igniting way always come with a measure of immoderation. (Don’t berate or pity the young men taken by his words, by the way — they in turn would inherit and become animated by the same passion that guides him, and they will be taught later on, by the inexorable due course of life itself, to be prudent in pursuit of the larger truth. Is the truth, the whole truth, regarding the situation under discussion in Lithuania, more complex than its presentation in the article? Almost certainly so. But the truth of the matter is, too, that the basic truths in life are always simple — one of them being this: you don’t hold your tongue when confronted with injustice. The smart thing to do is not always the wise, or right, thing to do.)
Again, in conclusion, I would like to return to the gentle suggestion made at the outset of this overlong little essay (and I thank you for your patience if you’re still reading): if you care about the issues raised, don’t attack the messenger, and call upon the alarmingly jejune incognitos on this page, so touchingly concerned with Prof. Katz’s hair and mental health and other such nonsense as they are, to do the same; but instead consider the message, lest the credibility of your own subsequent statements gets undermined. Address the essntial underlying issues, and people will praise you, whether they may agree with you or not. The issues are out there. They cannot and should not be ignored.
Had Dovid Katz just given those lectures last summer, there would be the usual, and entirely healthy and understandable, inclination for those in attendance to come away with different judgment on whether he is right or wrong, accurate or hyperbolic. But he also did the solid, scholarly thing, you must agree, by putting his evidence online for all to judge. His website is worth a serious, in-depth look. The materials there speak for themselves, on the pages about anti-Semitism, the Prague Declaration, the Double Genocide campaign… Agree or disagree with his conclusions, it would befit one caring about Lithuania and the Litvak heritage to consider the evidence dispassionately, thoughtfully. Engaging instead in gratuitous personal attacks serves no one’s interests, really — other than, I would submit, the very strident elements in Lithuanian politics we all, I believe, are united in opposing.
Stalin once said, infamously: There are no people in our land we could not replace. Well, it would seem clear to me that in Lithuania, Professor Katz would be irreplaceable. That, to my mind, would be genuinely sad — if he were forced by circumstances to leave that place, discontinuing the work he is doing there.
Were VYI somehow to lose its sense of mission and clear direction, that too would be a tragic development. One cannot imagine Lithuania, this Atlantis of Jewish history, left with such a great void in its Litvak heart.
I for one intend to continue on with the Jewish Lithuania program in Vilnius, either as part of our SLS general program or as an independent academic and cultural entity — and hopefully, with Dovid Katz being actively involved in it.
A few weeks ago, I wrote to Mr. Richard Maullin, whom you must know, expressing my admiration for the VYI’s history and suggesting to him that our Jewish Lithuania program had no intention of competing with VYI, much less attempting to supplant it, now or in the future — in part because we draw from different pools of prospective participants anyway (ours, after all, is a literary program, and Jews are the people of the Book), and that we would be happy to join efforts in the vital cause of preserving and disseminating the knowledge about the history and culture of the Jewish people of Lithuania; I told him we would be open to any forms of cooperation.
I am still waiting to hear from him.
That’s all I wanted to say on the matter, at this point.
All Best Wishes to All.
Michael, I’m glad you exist and I’m pleased for Prof. Katz that he has supporters. The man has given incredible gifts to the Jewish people by the work he has done; that work in my opinion will survive the ages.
Mikhail, you are correct, I don’t get to decide when a conversation is to be ended, it was a suggestion. Is it productive to air our dirty laundry in public? I’m sorry that some have offered such invective, on both sides. The Professor does raise passions.
I am not an academic, I am an outsider, a businessman, but more than anything, a Jew. I care deeply about Jewish issues and preservation of our collective history. I take an avid interest in Lithuania but obviously cannot be as personally involved or invested as others here. I have personally litigated against the Lithuanian government when I felt I experienced anti Semitism in Lithuania.
Unlike you Mikhail, I have never had to pay a price for being born a Jew (which I consider an enormous privilege and honor), my generation has received all the benefit’s of the work and suffering of your, and previous generations. I look with incredulity at the way in which so many walk away from our history and have little recognition for what it took our ancestors to bring us to the position in which we find ourselves today. I personally believe our younger generations owe an enormous debt to our older generations for having endured the suffering that we have escaped. If I were to claim an agenda, that would be it.
I too believe that the issues raised in Josh’s article are serious and deserve attention, I believe that many of the issues raised by Prof Katz are genuine, I’ve never discounted that, in fact, I have supported that to the best of my ability. I don’t believe I have “beaten up” on Josh, but if I have, I extend my apology.
I believe in building bridges as well, I know factually that non Jewish staff of VYI are absolute warriors in the fight against anti Semitism in Lithuania, yet it seemed to me, in some writings here, that aspersions might have been cast upon them & doubts drawn. Why would anybody do such a thing when these are non Jews fighting such a fight? It’s senseless. There are outstanding non Jewish academics on staff at VYI that are doing the work that we are no longer able to do. The gratuitous attacks on here against Sarunas are appalling. These folks are great allies of the Jewish people, they deserve respect and admiration, not derision.
Very unfortunately I have personally experienced Prof. Katz’s paranoia and alienation of good, decent people for absolutely no reason whatsoever. His actions were incredibly destructive, based upon no reason, and served no purpose. I have also been the subject of his manipulation. In reading Josh’s article, I see that same manipulation taking place again, this time on a young person that is an asset for our people. Instead of welcoming young blood into the love of our heritage, Prof. Katz starts filling his head with nonsense. This isn’t the first or second. How much do we as a people risk by possibly alienating our young from our cause? It’s not like they are crashing through the doors in vast numbers and we can waste good talent. How much does it discredit the very necessary fight against anti Semitism when a public voice conjures up mystical conspiracies and breathless melodramatic plots when real ones exist? What does it achieve to attack, name call and vilify non Jews who are our supporters? For all the gifts that Prof. Katz has and brings, he creates destruction in his wake. I hold him no animus, I believe the work he does is critically needed, but why do the things he does?
I think the VYI plays a critical role on behalf of all Jews, who else is doing original research in Lithuania to preserve our history? I read about Jews in USA making charitable donations, yet apparently only 6% of those donations go to Jewish causes. There are still Holocaust survivors in Lithuania & surrounding countries that are literally starving to death, trying to raise money for them is incredibly difficult. Prof. Katz has done such amazing work in that regard – see http://www.survivormitzvah.org
We give to every cause that exists, but what about the food insecure Jews in USA? What about the old Jews in Eastern Europe that aren’t being supported? The museums in Israel that receive too few donations yet vast sums are given to other museums by Jews, the Israeli symphony that has needs, but we give to local symphonies, etc. etc. I believe as a collective people we are the construct of our combined historical experiences, the statistical odds of being a surviving Jew is so remote that each of us should recognize the gifts we are given, and collectively I believe that we have an obligation to support those in our community that have such great needs. These are my belief’s, I’m not imposing them on others. I also believe that we have a collective obligation to fight anti Semitism, and here again Prof. Katz has done great work, but then he goes and destroys his own work by the things he does. That’s why I think this whole thing is so tragic.
Since doubts have been raised who is a person on this blog and who is a ghost, I sign this piece with my full name. I do exist, you can Google me. I am Lithuanian and was born and grew up in Vilnius.
I appreciate Mikhail and Grant talking about building bridges. This is what we all must do regardless of nationality and faith. Lets build from both banks of a river. Too many old bridges have been destroyed and too many new are under a danger of being destroyed intentionally or by insensitivity. I agree with Daiva that mistrust and anti-Semitism must be fought in the minds of people. Politicians are notoriously hypocritical, and anyway they can only deal with anti-Semitism on legal level. That’s not enough. For vast majority of Lithuanians Jewish genocide is a question of moral not legal responsibility. You cannot be proud of the history and achievements of your nation and at the same time be unashamed of the terrible things that some of your people committed. One must accept his nationality as a whole – you are either fully in or you are out.
Regarding Prague Declaration: I don’t know its secret agenda. I cannot claim has none. I also think it is tactless and insensitive to bundle Holocaust with Bolshevik crimes. But international document denouncing Bolshevik crimes was/is needed. My two grandfathers and one grandmother were executed, and my other grandmother with my mother, then 12, and aunt were deported to Siberia. This is not extraordinary, there are victims in almost every family. There must be some closure for them and their relatives.
My best wishes to all, Vidas
The campaign launched by Dovid Katz is extremist and distastful. Psychiatric aspect is also in the defamation and obfuscation he launches in a FullMoon.
Hi Vidas, building bridges is very difficult when few people are willing. I have a number of very close Lithuanian friends who are amongst the finest people I know, yet when they speak out within Lithuanian communities and Lithuanian society, they are virtually excommunicated. I know Lithuanian journalists who speak the truth and are treated like lepers, therefore, I am familiar with Lithuanian treatment of ethnic Lithuanians that actively build bridges and try to educate their own community.
I don’t know, but I can only imagine the ways in which the non Jewish staff members at VYI are treated within their own community, and then to have those brave people attacked by our own is an anathema to me. I know some, but not all the non Jewish staff at VYI, these are very fine people of the highest integrity.
Re-read Michael’s post # 14, the innuendo is horrendous. I know exactly where that came from Michael, it sickens me. I don’t blame Dovid because I really believe he is ill, and I don’t blame students for buying into what sounds like a plausible conspiracy theory. Given the environment of distrust, when a supposedly authoritative figure presents a compelling story in a mesmerizing manner, it appears credible.
Let me repeat myself here – these people at VYI are warriors against anti Semitism. Why Prof. Katz is trying to undermine this fine institution and its staff is beyond my understanding. I don’t pretend to know his personal agendas.
I also don’t know all the realities on the ground in Lithuania, the new President has said all the right things, but I don’t yet see truth telling in Lithuania. The schools do not teach the complicity of the population in the wholesale butchery of Lithuanian Jewry and frankly, the people don’t want to know. There cannot be reconciliation without truth. That being said, there are members of the younger generation of Lithuanians in USA that are actively trying to expose the truth within the Lithuanian community, they should be supported rather than being vilified and accused of nefarious plots created in one mans mind.
The Holocaust and the Soviet are not comparable, one was the complete annihilation of a racial / religious group based only upon ethnicity with widespread collaboration and participation of the indigenous population, the other was political oppression that was not nearly as pervasive within society. They cannot be equated. For a mother that loses a child they are no different, but an objective viewing shows the difference. In my opinion, Lithuanian society tries to absolve itself by blaming the victim, shifting blame and denying the truth. How can there be reconciliation under those terms? Ethnic Lithuanians (and others) suffered terribly under the Soviets, nobody denies that, the Lithuanians want that recognized and should have it recognized, but have Lithuanians even broached the subject of their own murderous complicity prior to that?
I do not have the stature within the community to begin the necessary dialog on a public level, but it takes people of goodwill to open conversations and lay the groundwork for eventual reconciliation. Hopefully people like you and others in this discussion can work towards that and eventually there will be warm relations between Jews and Lithuanians as there are today with Germans. In the interim, it serves none of our purposes to undermine every attempt at dialog and to vilify those that want to make amends.
Grant, I don’t try to compare atrocities against Jews and Lithuanians. I just say that the latter must be also recognized. People who were executed or deported in 1940 could not have anything to do with Jewish massacre of 1941. Unfortunately, official Lithuania’s half measures in telling the truth (mostly to outside world, not to local folks) does not open the door to dialog. I see it as a weakness and provincialism. Germany cannot be compared to Lithuania. No matter how long the history, this new Lithuania was restored and populated by the people who lived 50 years under totalitarian state. Freedom suddenly came without limits of responsibility. With all the celebration there was no time for historic reflection. However, I am optimistic. Over the 20 years of new independence Lithuania mended their relationship with Poland (who annexed Vilnius region in 1922). Current prime minister and new president are technocrats and rely on reason. More young Lithuanians are studying abroad. I talked to some of them and was surprised how much more open their views are. Nothing will happen overnight but there is more hope than in the last 10 years. I think that Lithuanian Jews can contribute to this reconciliation much more by stressing common history and aligning themselves with true Lithuanian friends than just pressuring the officials. I am not a public figure but I privately talk and discuss painful matters with my Lithuanian and Jewish friends. That’s my small contribution.
Grant, some more thoughts on the same subject.
The biggest problem is that many ethnic Lithuanians still do not treat Lithuanian Jews as their own, as part of Lithuania which we share. (There may be historic reasons for that (see my previous post #26).) If we did, we would realize that we had two great tragedies in XX century: (1) near complete extermination of Lithuanian Jews by Nazis and their collaborators and (2) executions and massive deportations of Lithuanian people by Soviets. I do not equate them. The ideology behind them and the scale is different. I agree with Grant and others that Jewish genocide was far more destructive and irreversible. This does not mean we should not recognize both of them. The unwillingness of Lithuanians to accept the blame is quite expected. It takes not only courage but also complete trust in the other side. Lithuanians should be convinced that the demand to accept guilt is only for the sake of truth and justice, and there are no ulterior motives. A patient of psychologist does not open up and tell his most disturbing and painful experiences until he gains complete trust in his doctor. The same is true for nations. We know of courageous examples of Germany accepting their guilt in atrocities of WWII unconditionally and the US public apology and deep grassroots atonement for slavery, racism, and treatment of native Americans. But we also have other examples: of Russia not accepting guilt for massive killings and deportations of her own people and the people they occupied, and of Japan not accepting guilt for sex slaves from Korea and massive killings of Chinese. In both cases there is mistrust in the motives of this demand. Russians and Japanese may think: will it lead to monetary compensations, diminished status in international community, will compromise their territorial claims, will effectively kill the hope of becoming a permanent member of UN SC (for Japan) etc. I will repeat – truth is spoken openly when there is complete trust between partners of dialogue. Nazi propaganda about disproportionate Jewry role in the revolution and repressions in Soviet Union is still alive in many blogs in Lithuania and even more in Russia. Similarly NKVD (KGB) propaganda about wholesale guilt of Baltic nations in Jewish genocide is very much alive in Russia and among some Jews. Even now Russia can produce an authentic or fake document about Nazi (or KGB) collaboration of some prominent politician whenever it serves her own political purpose. This does not create an atmosphere of trust. That is why we need to start with (re)building the mutual trust between ethnic Lithuanians and Lithuanian Jews. Grant, you are absolutely right that building bridges is very difficult, especially if you set a condition of admittance of uneasy truth first. However, psychologist does not confront his patient with demand to tell all truth. He engages in casual conversation, shows interest and starts building trust. It takes multiple sessions until patient starts speaking about things that disturb him most and starts sharing his pain. One insensitive remark or act of a doctor or a friend can set back the whole process. The same applies to nations or states. I do believe that Lithuanians have this deeply hidden sense of guilt that they themselves are unable to recognize. We all (public figures, honest politicians and historians, scientists, writers, artists, and just good will people) need to stress what unites us: common history, shared country, shared literature, shared scientific discoveries, interrelated culture, music, sports, commerce etc. I think that VYI serves that purpose really well, as does SLS that Mikhail brought to Vilnius. More joint cultural and sports events, more commerce between Israel and Lithuania would help very much. I am neither a politician, nor a cultural or public figure – I cannot make these things happen. But I openly speak my mind to my Lithuanian friends: politicians, scientists, businessmen. And blogs like this, even when it strays to extremism, does also help to hear another side of a story.
One point should be added here. People from outside, who come and stay in Lithuania briefly, or only read about it, perceive the country as some mystical ‘Lithuania’ that acts on its own, like a Leviathan. It is perceived as a living organism with the govt as its head, the society in its stomach, and universities, the media and cultural bodies as its limbs. It might sound banal, but one truth is missing from this discussion: Lithuania is a diverse society with many different actors. These actors may be in conflict with each other, may build temporary alliances, or may be influenced by the same factors and arrive at the same conclusions without coordination among themselves. Universities are often critical of the government, while the media is chronically against it. Also, most citizens don’t really identify with political parties and governments (unlike in the US, where some people say about themselves ‘I’m a Republican’).
If you provocatively ask a random neo-nazi in Lithuania whether s/he supports the govt’s actions against, for example, ‘actions of global Jewish lobbies against the independent state of Lithuania’, the neo-nazi would probably answer: “What??? But the govt works hand-in-hand with these lobbies! And I oppose it!!!” Kirkilas, the prime minister who was in office at the time when the proceedings against the former partisans were started, was generally perceived as a ‘philo-Semitic’ politician, who had meetings with American Jewish organizations, made promises about the restitution of property, and whose govt invested into better relations with Israel. The plans of the year when Vilnius becomes the European capital of culture included many ‘inter-ethnic’ events which would promote the image of a tolerant society which once lived in peace [presumably, till the 'bloody Germans' came - a very typical Eastern/Central European narrative].
Since the general elections in autumn 2008 there is a new (Concervative-Liberal) govt. So go figure…
The point I’m trying to make is that from ‘inside’ of the society (at least) it seems that there is no coherent narrative, no permanent alliance between the different actors, and no single anti-Semitic ideology. The govt may give with one hand and take away with another – they would call it ‘pragmatic behavior’. If the first side is publicized more, the society tends to believe that the govt is doing enough (or, in case of right-wing movements, for example, more than enough or too much) to build bridges.
Where do ‘temporary alliance’ among otherwise conflicting actors (the govt and the opposition, the govt and the mainstream society, the govt and the media…) come from? They can be constructed when someone manages to monopolize the representation of criticism and portray it as ‘an attack on our people’. For example, when the media publicizes and ’scandalizes’ some criticism towards anti-Semitism in Lithuania from abroad, some media consumers start feeling uneasy: “there has to be a material claim behind that. That means, tax payers’ money will be spent. Our tax money under threat!” Vidas has already explained this. The nature of the restitution of Jewish property is totally misrepresented in Lithuania, and many people have false assumptions. For example, they don’t know that all religious communities have already regained their formerly nationalized property.
Similarly, the attacks on the former partisans are also struggles for the power to define and classify. When you label someone ‘communist’/'red’, it arouses emotions and builds alliances between the govt, the media and some parts of the society. I think you in the US understand it all too well. The ‘mini-scandals’ that followed contributed to creating this emotionally-loaded atmosphere, which hardly left any room for arguments. This mobilization against the supposedly powerful Other and general tolerance towards it is what worries Dovid Katz and many others. However, (1) I still refuse to believe that there is a grand conspiracy among the different actors (and that these actors constitute a ‘Lithuania-Leviathan’, speaking in one voice), and insist of calling it mobilization, which is both spontaneous and manipulated; (2) I believe that shouting from rooftops that “Lithuania is a racist and anti-Semitic STATE!!!” (state, according to the classical definition, encompasses both the govt and the society) further fuels this emotionally-loaded atmosphere and provokes defensive behavior.
Yes, bridges may be difficult to build when there are few people supporting the cause. Yet the task is to attract the moderate, undecided and opinionless people to the constructive camp, rather than scaring them into the destructive camp by provoking and attacking them.
I attended a fundraiser for Survivor Mitzvah Project last evening in Los Angeles. http://www.survivormitzvah.org This is based upon the most amazing work by Dovid Katz that is so critically needed, such an amazing mitzvah. I urge everybody to go to the website & donate. PLEASE.
That is one side of Dovid that I utterly admire, but since this blog, I have done my own research. According to my understanding, Dovid taught at the first Summer in 1998 and never after that. He does not normally reside in Lithuania during the summers.
Other teachers — for example Jerrold Frakes, a renowned linguist, taught Summers for many years. He and other teachers — whose religious affiliations or intensity of religious observance are not qualifiers — are hired by Katz for their abilities in the language and the expert teaching of it, and not of Litvak heritage. This thing that Katz has been booted out of his own program has no basis in fact.
I understand that he has told other institutions that VYI is going to close down; according to my understanding, that too is incorrect. Apparently Prof. Katz has nowhere else to go — if he leaves he will have to blame it on someone, and therefore his conspiratorial conversations and preparation for laying of blame.
I urge everybody to look at the incredible work Prof Katz has done for http://www.survivormitzvah.org and the wonderful academic work he has done rather than to concentrate on the destructive behavior. Before anybody believes any rumors, verify, verify, and verify again.
Please be sure that I do exhist and I am not your hallucination.
I was there too at the invitation of Professor Dovid Katz.
I think that the defamation campaign against this wonderful, honest man and brilliant scholar Professor Dovid Katz is terrible shame on everyone, who soil their hands by participating in it here, particularly certain Marlene from OXBRIDGE, who is probably suffering from a certain condition when people start to have “diarrhoea” of nasty words and cannot refrain from it. She is also doing this anonymously as a true coward.
I am also sorry that my own country – Lithuania- is not yet mature enough as a democracy to tolerate a second opinion, whether favorable or not.
Birute Usinskaite
I think you are Marlene of Oxbridge here. If you continue to follow me in the shops and on Gedimino to stare and threaten, I will have to call the police.
P.S. Your own hair is dyed with a trully ghastly colour, which you should not do if you wish to resemble Marlene.
Please stop scaring people.
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