NEW YORK – Ahead of his visit to Lithuania, World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald S. Lauder is applauding the country’s parliament for backing a legislative amendment aimed at protecting the right of kosher and halal slaughter in the Baltic country. “Lithuania’s lawmakers deserve praise for moving to protect this important religious freedom,” Lauder said. “This sensible and progressive approach should be a model for neighboring countries examining this question.” He also welcomed last year's law on property restitution. Lauder will be in Vilnius this weekend for official commemorations on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Nazis’ liquidation of the Jewish ghetto there.
The WJC president will also hold talks with Lithuania’s Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius, Lithuanian Parliament Vice-President Gediminas Kirkilas, and the leadership of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, which is headed by Faina Kukliansky. He will also visit a Jewish school and kindergarten and host a reception for the local community.
From 1941 to 1943, 40,000 Jews were forced to live in the Vilna Ghetto. Only a few hundred of them survived the Nazi German occupation. In the autumn of 1943, the ghetto was liquidated, and the majority of the Jewish population was sent to the Vaivara concentration camp in Estonia, killed in the forest of Paneriai, or sent to the death camps in German-occupied Poland.
The Holocaust obliterated a vibrant Jewish culture in the capital Vilnius (Vilna), which was once known in the Jewish world as the 'Jerusalem of the North'. During the three years of its existence, the Vilna Ghetto was called the “Jerusalem of the Ghettos" because of its intellectual and cultural spirit.
Ronald Lauder also commended Lithuania for the adoption of legislation on the restitution of communal Jewish property looted during World War II, and for the establishment of the Goodwill Foundation. “The government and parliament of Lithuania deserve credit for this initiative, and the fact that representatives of world Jewry and of the local community are being involved in the process provides a good basis for the renaissance of Jewish life in Lithuania,” Lauder said.
The Jewish population of Lithuania numbered up to 240,000 before World War II. Today, the community has around 5,000 members.
