Synagogue reopens in Lithuania after gov’t vows security

Lithuania’s Jewish community reopens the Vilnius synagogue, after top politicians vowed to guarantee security there in response to a spate of threats that led to its closure earlier this week.

The tensions come amid a highly charged public debate over commemorations to wartime officials who the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC) claims were either involved in the Holocaust or openly anti-Semitic.

Vilnius authorities recently removed a plaque to one of the men and renamed a street named after another — sparking a backlash that the LJC claims has been stoked by some politicians, who have called for protests.

Jewish Community leader Faina Kukliansky praises President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis for their security assurances and messages of support.

“We do not see the threat at this moment and we trust the state leaders who offered security assurances,” she tells AFP, confirming that both the synagogue and the Jewish community headquarters were reopened.

Two days earlier she announced their closure after receiving “threatening telephone calls and letters.”

— AFP