(June 30, 2021): The Shnipisok (Šnipiškes) Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, has been a target for desecration since its founding over 500 years ago. It is an internationally renowned cemetery, the initial burial ground of the legendary Torah scholar, the Vilna Gaon and the resting place to over 50,000 Jewish graves. During the post-Nazi era of Soviet governance, tombstones from the cemetery were harvested for Russian construction sites. Due to the shortage of building materials, the Jewish cemetery became a quarry to mine marble and high quality stone. These were the grave robbers of the twentieth century. In the 1960s the Soviet regime built the Vilnius Concert and Sports Hall (Sport Palace), ruthlessly desecrating hundreds of graves. In 2004 the edifice was closed and abandoned.
Between 2005 and 2008, after Lithuania’s independence, the government constructed a set of apartment buildings on the cemetery. In that process hundreds of skeletal remains were desecrated. The world shook and protested. In 2008 the US Senate passed a resolution condemning the action of the Lithuanian government.
In 2009, the Lithuanian Government came to an agreement with the Committee for Protecting Jewish Cemeteries in Europe ( [FURL=https://asaproject.com/about/]CPJCE[/FURL]) and the Lithuanian Jewish community, defining several protective zones on the cemetery. The agreement was met with mixed sentiments. Many believed that the agreement didn’t offer sufficient protection to Jewish cultural and heritage considerations. Savvy onlookers were concerned the terms of the agreement would be manipulated and that the cemetery could be desecrated.
In 2015 Lithuanian Seimas passed a law (resolution 597), facilitating the state-owned Turto bankas acquisition of the Sports Palace and paving the way for the development of the conference center.
The 2015 resolution states: “Vilnius Concert and Sports Hall Reconstruction and Adaptation Project for Congresses, Conferences and Cultural Events (hereinafter referred to as the Vilnius Congress Center Project) as a state important project aimed at establishing a new congress, conference and cultural event center, promoting and developing business tourism, in order to increase Lithuania's awareness and competitiveness of the tourism sector and to create conditions for attracting investments, taking into account the results of the Vilnius Congress Center (VCC) project and their indicators, implementation deadlines and measures specified in the Annex to this Resolution.”
The VCC conference center initiative was supported by Ms. Faina Kukliansky, the Chair of the Lithuanian Jewish Community together with the CPJCE who vowed to manage its development within the framework of Jewish law. In terms of the provisions of the 2009 Agreement, the development of the VCC required “the express approval of the Lithuanian Jewish community.”
Interestingly, in 2015 the Chief Rabbi of Lithuanian Rabbi Burshtein, the former chairman of the Lithuanian community Dr. Simonas Alperavicius, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik, Rabbi Israel Isaac Kalmanovitz and Rabbi Tzvi Rotberg opposed the VCC. Prominent rabbis from the Kotler and Feinstein rabbinic dynasties lent their signatures to letters condemning the VCC project.
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