Reclaiming the Jewish Narrative in Lithuania Today

Markas Zingeris, a distinguished Lithuanian-Jewish poet and writer, will speak about Lithuanian-Jewish relations since the fall of Communism. As former research coordinator for Lithuania’s Presidential Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Soviet and Nazi Occupational Regimes and current director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum in Vilnius, Zingeris has repeatedly found himself at the center of recent struggles concerning Lithuanian Jewry. His talk will focus on the need to create empathy between Lithuanian Catholics and Jews living both in and outside of Lithuania, and explain the controversies over how Jews are to be rewritten into the narrative of Lithuanian history after the memory of their presence was suppressed during 45 years of Soviet occupation. Anne E. Derse, U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania, will give opening remarks.