Ponovez, Mir, Lakewood Yeshivos meet to save Vilna Cemetery

The Lithuanian Ambassador to Israel Lina Antanavičienė met with Jewish Rabbis representing the Lithuanian yeshivos and a White House journalist  yesterday January 22, 2020  regarding the desecration of the Old Jewish cemetery of Vilna known as Snipiskes cemetery in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Those present at this meeting include Rabbi Avraham Shmuelevitz, Senior Rosh Yeshiva Mir Yeshiva Jerusalem.  Rabbi Eliezer Kahaneman, Dean of the Ponevezh Yeshiva, Rabbi Shneur Kotler, son of Rabbi Malkiel Kotler, Rosh Yeshiva Beth Medrash Govoha Yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J.


Those who attended the meeting

1. Rabbi Avraham Shmuelevitz, Senior Rosh Yeshiva (Assistant Dean), Mir Yeshiva Jerusalem.
Mir Yeshiva is the largest Yeshiva (Talmudic College) in the world with approx. 9,000 students in several campuses.

2. Rabbi Eliezer Kahaneman, Dean of the Ponevezh Yeshiva, third largest Yeshiva in the world with over 3,000 students.
Grandson of the founder of the Yeshiva, the last Chief Rabbi of Ponevezh (Panevėžys), who lost his family, yeshiva and entire community in the Holocaust.

3. Rabbi Shneur Kotler, son and emissary of Rabbi Malkiel Kotler, Dean of the Beth Medrash Govoha Yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J..
BMG is the largest Yeshiva outside Israel, and the second largest in the world (7,000 students). Rabbi Kotler is a Grandson of Aryeh Malkiel Friedman of Vieviržėnai and Klaipeda, murdered at the 9th Fort in Kaunas.

4. Rabbi Sariel Rosenberg, Head of Bnei Berak Rabbinic Court.
One of the most senior and respected Halachic authorities in the world.

5. Rabbi Yaacov Baitler, Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva in Ashkelon.
His family comes from Vilnius, and is the son of Dina Baitler, who at the age of 7 was one of the only people to survive the Ponar massacres.

6. Rabbi Elchonon Baron, Dean, Yeshiva Ahavas Torah Baranovich, son of the late Rabbi Leib Baron of Montreal Canada, who escaped from Lithuania to Japan with a Sugihara visa.
He is named for his father’s mentor, Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman, murdered in Kaunas’ Seventh Fort, and considered an expert in Lithuanian Jewish history.

7. Rabbi Yitzchak Pines, public activist

8. Dr Anthony Harper, White House correspondent of the InterMountain Christian News

9. Batya Liba Weiss, Lithuanian translator

10. Esty Braun, photographer

11. Avi Baron, senior accountant, EY Israel