Lithuanian Jewish community leader warns of security gaps amid synagogue bomb threats

The Lithuanian Jewish community warned of a rising threat of antisemitic violence in the country during an interview published Saturday by the Russian-language edition of Delfi, in cooperation with Lithuania’s ELTA news agency.

The Jewish community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said that synagogues, Jewish schools and community centers were not adequately protected, leaving unarmed volunteers to perform security duties that she said should be handled by police officers and other armed, trained security personnel.

“We have already received three threats to blow up the synagogue and kill Jews,” Kukliansky said. “We protect ourselves, but our security is voluntary. We have neither weapons nor the authority that the police or other institutions responsible for security have.”

She also lamented the lack of established security procedures within the Jewish community, citing confusion over whether a synagogue should close following a bomb threat. Kukliansky called on the government to establish clear protocols and ensure that everyone responsible for implementing them is familiar with the procedures.

She called for clear security procedures, armed and trained guards at Jewish institutions, and stronger legal protections, noting that similar measures are already in place in other European countries. She said the Jewish community was already working with police and prosecutors to establish procedures for protecting synagogues.

Kukliansky, a lawyer herself, praised Justas Laucius, a senior prosecutor in the Vilnius region, for taking the issue seriously and taking concrete steps to address harassment of the Jewish community. However, she said other officials often treat antisemitic graffiti on synagogue walls as ordinary vandalism, while online harassment of Jews in Lithuania largely goes unaddressed.

Kukliansky also noted some warnings she had received came from intelligence agencies outside of Lithuania rather than from local law enforcement. “Why do the Americans inform us about a threat to blow up the synagogue, while our own authorities know nothing?” she asked.

Despite her concerns about domestic antisemitism, Kukliansky described the Lithuanian government’s diplomatic stance toward Israel, particularly its response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, as “very appropriate, proportionate and suited to the situation.

For centuries, Lithuania was a major center of Jewish scholarship in the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe. During World War II, Nazi occupation forces murdered an estimated 95% of the country’s Jewish population. In the decades that followed, the Soviet government maintained an often hostile relationship with the small Jewish community that remained.

Today, according to the most recent census, just over 2,000 Jews remain in Lithuania, most of them over the age of 60.