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    "News and Events"

This page is for announcements of recent changes and additions to this website and announcements of noteworthy events,
touching on the website's contents and aims.

The 'news and events' and changes to the website are in chronological order below.

September 2019

Main Changes and Updates to the Website

The webmasters would like to express their deep appreciation to Barbara Ellman & Susana Leistner Bloch, of JewishGen Kehilalinks, and to volunteer richie baum, for their guidance and support.

August 2019

The webmasters of the Mazheik Memorial Website are deeply sorrowful following the passing away of our dear friend and partner Ben-Zion (Benzi) Kahana z"l at the age of 75 years.

Benzi (1944 - 2019) was co-founder and dedicated co-webmaster of the Mazheik Memorial Website. He made significant contributions to the development and maintenance of the website, taking part in conserving and commemorating the community of our ancestors.

On behalf of all descendants of the Mazheik Shtetl, we offer our sincere condolences to the mourning family.

26th February, 2009

Under Memorial , Holocaust Victims ,
List 1 - List of Jewish Holocaust Victims from private sources
has been updated.
Under  Memorial , Virtual Family Cemetery ,
List of (former) Members of the Mazheik Community has been updated.

Under Photo Gallery ,
2 photos from the South African Jewish Board of Deputies Archive and
12 Mazeikiai pictures from theYad Vashem Photograph Archive have been added.

Under The Holocaust recent pictures from the mass murder site in Mazheik have been added;
courtesy Emma Karabelnik, 2008

31st January, 2008

detailed map of contemporary Mazheik, with marked locations of Jewish institutions and Jewish homes, uploaded under rubric Geography

the two Mazheik researchers Charlotte Gamsu and Tsevi Minster have been added to the List of Researchers under the rubric Family Research

details regarding the family history of Michael Ruskin (Rusken) have been placed in the Guestbook on Page 2

the family name Ruskin (Rusken) has been added under Families Researched in the rubric Family Research

the names of four Jewish WWII victims from Mazheik who served with the Russian military have been added to the list under Memorial

19th June, 2007

uploaded under Memoirs & Stories, Dr. Bella Rosenberg Gurevitz's memoirs on her childhood in Mazheik, from Pages of Testimony, Beit Lochamei Hagetaot;

List of reference literature, compiled by Ilan Ganot, accessible from both History of the Jewish Community and Family Research;

The new rubric Photo Gallery has now been activated; this is for pictures of a more general nature;

24th March, 2007 see on the Links page under #5 and #8, links added to the Mazeikiai Historical Museum webpage (in Lithuanian) and to Archives for Researchers
first placed 2nd February 2007; updated article uploaded 24.03.07 Article placed, on the Rabbis Avrech and Mamyoffe of Mazheik, researched and written by Oren Sarig, great-great grandson to Rabbi Zeev Wolf Averech  ~ see under Family Research
15th October 2006 Yehoshua Trigor, born in Mazheik on 21 July, 1926, passed away in Tel Aviv 15 October, 2006, z"l. He was laid to rest in Petach Tikve on 17th October, 2006 (m.h.r.i.p.). (See below)

 

Transfer of the Mazheik Memorial Website to JewishGen. in January/February 2006.

Acknowledgements

For sound and practical reasons we have transferred this site to kehilalinks.jewishgen.org . We wish to thank Susana Leistner Bloch, coordinator of the JewishGen kehilalinks Project, for having guided us through the procedure with such patience and caring. We also thank Barbara Ellman, kehilalinks Technical Coordinator, for her much appreciated assistance. 

Furthermore, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Ariel Kahana, son to webmaster Benzi Kahana. Ariel is the one who got the whole show on the road in the very beginning and generously offered his technical knowledge and the services of his server until the transfer. Last, but not least, we are endebted to Sofia Grondman of the Netherlands for her untiring and generous help and expertise.   

We are also endebted to the folowing people for their kind assistance in helping to make data and/or materials available to us : Mr. Algimantas Muturas, Curator of the Algimantas Museum of Mazeikiai, for gathering infomation on Jewish inhabitants of Mazeikiai prior to August 1941. Anna Przybyszewska Drozd & Yale J. Reisner of The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Warsaw, Poland for making a copy of the 1940 edition of the Lithuanian Telephone Book (Mazeikiai pages) available to us.

The Webmasters.

 

16th December 2005 Family picture of Rabbi Yosef-Zeev Mamyoffe uploaded ~ with kind thanks to Ella Barkan,
3rd April 2005 updated: Lists of names of Holocaust victims from Mazheik (from private sources and from Yad Vashem's Pages of Testimony)  and List of names of former residents of Mazheik (Memorial rubric); compiled by co-webmaster Ilan Ganot
22nd March 2005 picture of the last Rav of Mazheik, Yoseph-Ze'ev Mamyoffe, posted on the site (under Jewish Religious Life, Rabbis )
7th March 2005 uploaded group picture of  Memorial Ceremony at the Mazheik Memorial Plaque, 'Ya'ar HaKdoshim' (Forest of Martyrs) 1960's; courtesy Nechama Frid
20th November 2004 Launching of mazeikiaishtetl.com at the Aharoni-Aharonovitz family reunion in Kfar Sava, Israel
13th November 2004 3 Lists of Mazheik residents (early 1920's) posted on this site ~ Yahrzeit commemoration posted and a list of Murderers
25th October 2004 Yehoshua Trigor presents memoirs


October 25, 2004 :

On above date, the Jewishgen. Mailing List for the Lithuania Special Interest Group (S.I.G.) posts Ilan Ganot's report on Yehoshua Trigor's autobiographical book, dedicated to the memory of Mazeikiai:

Subject: BOOK CITE: TRIGOR's new book of memoirs about MAZEIKIAI Shtetl

Publishing of the new autobiographical book by Yehoshua TRIGOR:  "The Litvak
who Survived, Rescued, and Went to Eretz-Israel", was celebrated yesterday
afternoon at the Jerusalem Renaissance Hotel, the same hotel where the IAJGS
2004 genealogical conference was held this July.

The audience included Litvaks, government and academy persons and "Amacha
Yisroel", past and present diplomats and other high officials from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the author worked for decades with the
Israeli Diplomatic Service. Among the participants were Supreme Court
justice Dr. Elyakim Rubinstein, former Ambassador Dr. Meir Rosen, Prof. Dov
Levin from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (who was the keynote speaker),
and many others.

This book of memoirs and remembrance is dedicated to the destroyed Jewish
community of Mazeikiai and covers the history of the Shtetl and its Jewish
community. This autobiographical book covers the memoirs of the author from
his childhood and growing-up in Mazeikiai, through the tragic and heroic era
of the Holocaust, his personal struggle for survival and finally his way to
Eretz-Israel.

The book includes a comprehensive introduction by the Historian Prof. Dov
Levin about the Lithuanian Jewry before and during the Holocaust.
The book also includes short remembrance articles written by former Jewish
residents of Mazeikiai or their descendants, pictures, name lists and
photocopies of documents of the Jewish Community Council of Mazeikiai during
the period of Autonomy (1920-25).

The book is written in Hebrew, [named "Litvak she'Sarad, Milet ve'Heepil"],
includes 301 pages of text, documents and pictures.
The book was published by the YUVALIM publishing house in Jerusalem, ISBN
965-440-051-0.

Ilan GANOT,
Holon, Israel
Researching: ITING, TUCH, KURS from Mazeikiai, Zidikai in north-western
Lithuania
Co-Webmaster of Mazeikiai Shtetl Website

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13th November 2004

Changes/New additions to the website :                                                                                

1) In the Family Research rubric, under (A), three lists have been uploaded:

a)  List of residents who signed various documents and/or registers, administered by Va'ad  HaKehila in the early 1920's

b) List of residents in alphabetical order

c) List of residents who made donations of clothing and shoes.      

 

2) In  The Holocaust  rubric:

a)   Mazheik Jewish Community Yahrzeit  (commemoration) has been added

b) A link has been made to the above Yahrzeit commemoration from the  Memorial rubric, under Yahrzeit Calendar   

c) The list of The Murderers of Mazheik Jewry has been added under The Holocaust  rubric. 

 

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Launching of Mazheik Memorial Website

After over a year of hard work, including the gathering of pictures, stories, lists of names, the translating and editing of existing material, doing intensive research and uploading the material onto the website, the memorial website to the destroyed Shtetl of MAZHEIK (Mazeikiai in Lithuanian) has been formally launched. 

Launching of the Website was hosted by the Aharoni-Aharonovitz family at their reunion, which was held at Beit Sarah (Sarah House) in Kfar-Saba, Israel, on Saturday, 20th November 2004. About 40 Aahroni family members and visitors attended the meeting, including guests of honor, Barbara Aharoni and her husband, Arie-Harry Shamir from Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA.

The co-Webmasters of MAZHEIK Shtetl Memorial Website, who initiated and established this Website, are children and grandchildren of Jewish natives of Mazheik, who took upon themselves the mission of preserving the memory of this vanished community.

The co-Webmasters gave short presentations, describing how they got acquainted, and how the idea for the Website came about. They further described in brief the creation of the Website, as well as its main contents 'at a glance.'

Finally, a short review of the Mazheik Jewish Community material at the YIVO Archives in New York was given, including presentation of samples of representative documents.

         
   
 

 

 


From left to right: co-Webmasters of MAZHEIK Shtetl Memorial Website,                         Benzi Kahana, Ilan Ganot and Raymond Ravinsky, presenting the website.                          

Much gratitude is owed to Ariel Kahana, son to Benzi, who in the beginning stages of laying the site's foundations gave generously of his time and technical know-how.   

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Compiled by Raymond Ravinsky
Updated: July 2021
Copyright © 2009 Raymond Ravinsky

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