Lithuanian President Shrugs Off Protest Over Jewish Cemetery Construction
Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — The president of Lithuania dismissed concerns raised by 12 U.S. Congress members over the planned construction of a conference center atop what used to be a Jewish cemetery in Vilnius.
Responding to a letter sent last month by the lawmakers about the Piramont cemetery, Dalia Grybauskaitė on Monday told the BNS news agency that “decisions on Jewish cemeteries are taken together with the Lithuanian Jewish community and the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe.”
The congressmen, including Randy Weber, R-Texas, and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., wrote that the plans “conflict with the respect for human dignity.”
Lithuanian Jews are split on the approval for the project given by Faina Kukliansky, who heads the national umbrella group that is charged with representing the community. Kukliansky has long faced accusations of corruption, which she has denied.
A petition launched online against the plan last year has gathered approximately 40,000 signatures. Jewish Orthodox law prohibits disturbing human remains except in special cases.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
