Lithuania: Sale of Vilna Ghetto Library Building Halted

Lithuania: Sale of Vilna Ghetto Library Building Halted

The Jewish Telegraphic agency has reported that the contested sale of a former Jewish property that once was the site of library in the Vilna Ghetto has been halted. Getting claims settled on properties like this one - one of hundreds stalled in the lengthy and complex restitution legal (and political) process is sometimes like getting blood from a stone. And these stones - and those nearby - certainly witnessed their share of blood.

Sale of Jewish property in Lithuania thwarted

March 30, 2009

PRAGUE (JTA) -- A Lithuanian plan to sell a building that once housed the Vilna Ghetto Jewish library was halted by the U.S. Embassy, JTA has learned.

The library building, which the World Jewish Restitution Organization and Lithuanian Jewish community identify as Jewish community property, housed 450,000 books of Jewish literature in Vilnius under the Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1943.

Herbert Block, an executive vice president with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and a top official with the restitution group, said the embassy in the Lithuanian capital had informed him by e-mail that the Foreign Ministry had acceded to the embassy's request to cancel the sale, which was to have taken place April 8.

Lithuania is among the few countries in Europe that has yet to come up with a restitution or compensation plan for Jewish communal property.

''For eight years the Lithuanian government has been promising to come up with a plan, but so far nothing has come of it,'' Block told JTA Monday.

The library is on a list of 438 buildings claimed as Jewish property that were taken over by the Communist government of Lithuania after World War II. The U.S. Embassy in Vilnius argued that the Lithuanian government should not be selling disputed properties.

In fact, the sale was not announced to any Jewish authorities but was uncovered by a local non-Jewish American activist in Vilnius, Wyan Brent, who alerted Jewish groups in the United States.

The restitution organization and the Lithuanian Jewish community recently rejected a $41 million compensation package for property, saying the sum, and how it was to be paid out over 10 years only if it was feasible for the government, was insufficient.

With numerous delays by previous governments and now the current government, the restitution process remains stalled, said Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee.

Baker also was informed by the embassy of the library sale cancellation. ''It seems it was only blocked by a last-minute intercession,'' he said.

USA: Thoughts About Touro Synagogue as Public Tours are Cancelled

Touro Synagogue Cancels Public Tours
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) On March 5th journalist Richard Salit reported in the Providence Journal that the Touro Synagogue Foundation had laid off the last of is staff, including Executive Director Steve Sitrin, and Malka Benjamin, coordinator of public programs. You can read the article here:


Update: Touro Synagogue tours suspended; museum on track


The immediate result is that tours of Touro Synagogue, the most historic and probably best known synagogue building in the United States have been canceled. Closing the synagogue is a dramatic step - since it is an important link in Newport's tourism network, and also the flagship Jewish tourist site in the country. Since almost everything about Touro has been elevated into the realm of national symbol, the symbolism of this move is very important.

Obviously the current financial situation which has hit all not-for-profits hard is at least partly to blame for the demise of the Foundation. Presumably the Foundation counted on grants and gifts to help cover salaries. There are probably other factors in play, too. The Foundation has been erecting an expensive - but to me somewhat problematic - visitor and interpretive center on a lot adjacent to the synagogue. My guess is that as happens with so many small organizations, the strain of expansion - even though funded primarily by a donor (former Ambassador John Loeb, a descendant of Newport Jews for whom the new Center is to be named) - was too great, especially when the new facility is forcing the organization to reinvent itself. Matters are, of course, complicated by the fact that the synagogue is owned by the historic (Sephardi) Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, and leased for a nominal fee to the active Orthodox Congregation Jeshuat Israel of Newport (which though its members are Ashkenazi, by agreement follows Sephardi ritual). Many other players have gotten involved over the years, most noticeably the U.S. Park Service - playing a role I have never quite understood. The Foundation exists beside the congregation, entrusted to protect and preserve the historic building, and to properly present it to the public.



According to the Providence Journal article, the 3,100 square foot Loeb Center for Religious Freedom is still scheduled to open in August. At that time, according to the article, tours will begin again (though I had previously been told when I visited Newport last summer and met briefly with recently fired Executive Director Sitrin that the presentation of the Center would, in fact, replace formal synagogue tours.)

I was impressed with Foundation's program that brought college students to Newport for the summer to serve as guides - I was even looking forward to encouraging some of my own students to apply. But was troubled but what I perceived to be a lack of legitimate historical and social inquiry in what I learned of the program of the new center. Like much of the work on Touro's history over the past century, the presentation as presently made known seems to lean more to the ideological and hagiographic view of Newport. We will have to wait and see what the new center's content is. My requests on behalf of ISJM and this blog for more information last fall went unanswered. I am concerned that even when open there may not be sufficient funds available, for now money will be needed for maintain and staff both synagogue and interpretation center.

Will the exhibition be static, or will there be an historian and/or curator at work? Will the Center encourage new research and interpretation (about Rhode Island and New England Jewish history, synagogue architecture, historic preservation, etc.) or will it maintain what the fairly static view of Touro and Newport's Jews which has been fine-tuned since Touro became a National shrine more than a half century ago? In the past there seems to have been a serious disconnect between history taught at Touro and the more wide-ranging work of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Society. It would a boon to both organizations if George Goodwin or some historian of similar qualification were brought in to link the two.

The website of Loeb's organization focuses almost entirely on the earliest history of Newport's Jewish community - and its religious freedom guaranteed by President George Washington in his famous letter to the congregation which stated that the new nation would give "bigotry no sanction." Still, that episode is just one small part of Touro's history, since the original Sephardi community dissolved not long after Washington's pronouncement.

Touro as the Foundation of Jewish Heritage Preservation

It is because Touro's greatest legacy may be its pioneering efforts at historic preservation (the very reason it is called the Touro Synagogue is because of an early endowment made to protect and preserve the empty and unused synagogue by Abraham Touro that the building survives today. More than a half-century before the Anti-Demolition League was formed to save Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, and more than 150 years before the World Monuments Fund started its Jewish Heritage Program, a few early American Jews had the foresight to plan the preservation of Touro.

As early as 1822 the Rhode Island American and General Advertiser wrote: We are told that the Jewish Synagogue at Newport is still standing, and with little expense might be long preserved, as a “handsome specimen of ancient architecture." A few months after this notice appeared, Abraham Touro made a bequest of $10,000 to the legislature of the state for “supporting the Jewish Synagogue in the State.” The following year, in the June 1823 session of the General Assembly there is mention of “An Act to Secure and Appropriate the Touro Jewish Synagogue Fund.” Endowing the building, even when it was not in use, protected it. It was in today’s terminology “mothballed,” until it would come into regular use again when Eastern European immigrants reconstituted the Newport Jewish community.

Thus began a nearly two century tradition of conserving the historic synagogue, which remains today the oldest standing synagogue buildings in North America. Most recently, the Touro Synagogue Foundation funded and oversaw an extensive restoration of the building that reversed some earlier work, and notably saw the complete restoration by Newman's, Ltd. of Newport of the synagogues many metal light fixtures and other valuable fittings (for a full and exemplary preservation report click here). The new Visitors’ Center will open in 2009, and I hope it tells this story, too. The interest shown by Abraham Touro established a precedent among American Jewish congregations of care and reverence for their synagogue buildings. Still, the vicissitudes of man and nature have caused most of the oldest synagogue buildings in American to be destroyed or demolished (and donors often prefer to build new synagogues than maintain older ones) so Touro remains among American Jewry's most precious possessions.

For further readings on the architectural and preservation history of Touro see:

Allen, T.J., 1948. "Touro Synagogue as a National Site," in Touro Synagogue of Congregation Jeshuat Israel. Friends of Touro Synagogue, Newport, R.I.

Goodwin, George M., 2000. “The Politics of Preservation: How Touro Synagogue Became a National Historic Site,” Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes, 13:2 (Nov 2000), 177-207.

Schwartz, Esther I., 1958. “Touro Synagogue Restored, 1827-29,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XVII (summer 1958), 23-26.

Schwartz, Esther I., 1959. “Touro Synagogue Restored,” Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes, III (Oct 1959), 106-131.


More general histories include are varying reliability include:

Gutstein, Morris A. et al, 1948. Touro Synagogue of Congregation Jesuat Israel, Newport, Rhode Island, Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue National Historic Shrine, Newport.

Gutstein, Morris, A., 1958. To Bigotry No Sanction: A Jewish Shrine in America 1658-1958. New York: Bloch Publishing Company.

Lewis, Rabbi Dr. Theodore, 1975. "History of Touro Synagogue." Newport History: Bulletin of the Newport Historical Society 48, Part 3, No. 159 (Summer 1975):281-320.

Pool, David de Sola, 1948. “Some Notes on the Touro Synagogue,” Touro Synagogue of Congregation Jesuat Israel, Newport, Rhode Island, Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue National Historic Shrine, Newport, 7-13.

Schless, Nancy Halverson, 1973. “Peter Harrison, The Touro Synagogue, and the Wren City Church,” in Winterthur Portfolio 8 (1973), 187-200.

Belarus: Kobrin Synagogue Restoration Project Needs Emergency Funds or Risks Losing Building to Government Seizure

Kobrin synagogue photos: courtesy Yuri Dorn

Belarus: Kobrin Synagogue Restoration Project Needs Emergency Funds or Risks Losing Building to Government Seizure
by Samuel D. Gruber (ISJM)

In Bratislava last week I had the pleasure of getting to know Bella Velikovskaia, Executive Director of The Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in the Republic of Belarusand an expert member of the Jewish Heritage Research Group. Bella and her colleagues have one of the hardest jobs in Europe – documenting and protecting Jewish heritage in Belarus. They have made a good start with the documentation –and the results can be seen on the webpage of the Jewish Heritage Research Group, especially in the list of Jewish heritage sites. Protecting and preserving synagogue, former synagogue and cemeteries more difficult. Though some properties have been returned to the Jewish Community, the Jews of Belarus lack the funds to carry out many successful projects to repair, restore and reuse these buildings. Attempts have been made in the past to restore the great synagogue in the western Belarus town of Slonim, and also to find a use for the former Yeshiva building in Volozhin, both of which are important historical, religious and architectural sites. Unfortunately, both projects languish, though although the World Monuments Fund recently awarded a planning grant to all the Volozhin project to be re-addressed and re-formulated. A third pending project is the adaptive restoration of the the former synagogue in Kobrin. This project may have a better chance of succeeding – if funds can be found – since the building could serve again as a synagogue for the many Jewish communities in that part of Belarus who presently have no religious center.

To my great regret, I have never been to Belarus During the many years I was associated with the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad as Research Director, I was discouraged from engaging in projects in Belarus because of the frosty relations between the US Government and government of Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko. In this, and in many other ways, the Belarus Jewish community has suffered from being out-of-touch with many foreign institutions, and ineligible for certain kinds of foreign assistance. Besides humanitarian aid from the JDC and some other Jewish charities, there has been little formal support from aboard for Jewish heritage projects. Mostly there have been donations from individuals which are usually directed as specific cemetery care projects.

The situation at Kobrin is now urgent, because the government which returned the large 19th-century masonry synagogue to the Jewish community in 2004 threatens to take it back unless restoration work begins. This is a situation that is also becoming common in Poland. After holding Jewish properties for a half century or more and letting them deteriorate into near-ruins, they are returned to communities - but without any financial assistance to restore them. Communities must not only quickly find a use for the building, but also the funds to make them work. Sometimes years pass and nothing happens. Sometimes governments demand quick action. I frequently say the situation is similar to being asked to make soup. On is given the carrots and potatoes, but not pot to cook them in, and sometimes not even a fire. Consequently communities are overburdened. In Belarus, there is a real plan for Kobrin. But there is not enough money. And the government threatens to take the building back if nothing happens soon.

Synagogue of Kobrin

According to Yuri Dorn, Coordinator of Jewish Heritage Research Group in Belarus, the 1868 synagogue building was given to the Jewish community of Kobrin and the Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in the Republic of Belarus in 2004. It had been used for grain storage after the Second World War, and later beer and nonalcoholic beverage production plant in the building prior to 1996. Then the building was given to the local history museum, but the museum lacked funds to start restoration. The synagogue building was left unguarded, and fell into further disrepair.
The restoration project was formally announced last September, and since 2004, much has been done to develop a project for the rebuilding and move it forward.

- all legal documents for property rights have been executed
- all legal documents for the right to rent the adjacent territory without any compensation have been executed
- new technical passport for the building has been executed
- a web site related to the restoration of the synagogue building was designed (www.kobrinsynagogue.com)
- $8,500 was given by a private donor to clean the synagogue and the adjacent territory and to remove of the garbage outside the city.
- physical and chemical analysis of plaster and outside wall paint was conducted, the research of the history of the building in historical archives was been made
- the grounds have been partially fenced and a watchman hired.

Still, beginning last year the local authorities began to for the restoration of the building exterior . According to sources, this is because he President of Belarus is going to visit the city of Kobrin in the mid-September of this year. Local authorities want the town to look its best for the President’s visit. They insist on implementing the following work on this building:

- replacing roofing with partial repair of the support system
- painting the building (exterior walls)
- closing window openings with wooden shields
- installing new iron entrance door

The cost of this immediate work amounts to $38,250, money the Jewish community does not have on hand. Estimates for the cost of the total renewal of the building are about a half million dollars (but this depends on the scope of the final project and the world economic situation). Certainly some of this work is needed – the building should be secured against the elements to prevent even worse damage. Some of the work, however, may be premature, since a complete preservation plan and design for reuse has not been completed.


The Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in the Republic of Belarus will continue to negotiate with local authorities to gain tie, and to create a situation where scare funs are spent on the most important parts of the project. Meanwhile they are raising money. In a worst case scenario, if the work is not done, they will lose the synagogue forever.

For more information and to make contributions contact:

Yuri Dorn
Coordinator of Jewish Heritage
Research Group in Belarus
Minsk
13B Daumana St.
tel/375-173-345612
fax/375-173-343360
http://www.jhrgbelarus.org/

Ruth Ellen Gruber writes about Bratislava Seminar of JTA

Ruth Ellen Gruber writes about Bratislava Seminar of JTA

JTA columnist Ruth Ellen Gruber (and my esteemed sister) has written about the recent Bratislava seminar (see my previous post). Ruth's advice was important in organizing the seminar, and her extensive experience in almost all the countries represented provided the participants with valuable perspective. Over the past twenty years Ruth has traveled extensively in and written about Jewish heritage in all of the countries participating except Estonia and Belarus.

Ruthless Cosmopolitan: New effort to preserve restituted property

By Ruth Ellen Gruber · March 26, 2009

RUTHLESS COSMOPOLITAN

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (JTA) – The restitution of Jewish communal property in Central and Eastern Europe has been a hot-button issue since the Iron Curtain fell nearly 20 years ago.

But often forgotten amid the slow and painful legal battles to get back historic Jewish properties that were seized by the Nazis or nationalized by postwar Communist regimes is the practical and urgent need to care for, conserve and maintain the properties once they’ve been recovered.

For two decades and more, I've documented, written about and photographed these sites, which include many yeshivas and synagogues.

Many are huge. Many are dilapidated. Some are recognized as historic monuments. Most stand in towns where few, if any, Jews now live. Even basic maintenance can stretch already strapped communal resources.

In March, I joined Jewish community representatives from 15 countries who gathered to address these concerns at a seminar held in the Slovak capital, Bratislava.

Read the full story here