Lithuania’s Jewish community has described an attack on visiting Israeli rabbis in Vilnius earlier this month as shocking but said such incidents remain rare in the country.
Police have opened a pretrial investigation after a man allegedly spat on three Orthodox Jewish visitors in central Vilnius and later posted a video of the attack online while encouraging others to target Jews in the same way.
The suspect, a man born in 1972, was briefly detained before being released. He later announced online that he was seeking donations to cover his legal expenses.
Faina Kukliansky, chair of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, said the organisation had contacted the victims and would provide them with legal assistance.
She said the men were rabbis from Israel who had been visiting Jewish heritage sites in Belarus before traveling to Vilnius to visit the grave of the Vilna Gaon, one of Judaism’s most revered scholars.
“This is not a mass phenomenon. It happens occasionally,” Kukliansky said, adding that rising tensions linked to Israel’s war on Gaza have contributed to anti-Jewish incidents in Europe.
She said, however, that the situation in Lithuania remains better than in some Western European countries, where attacks on Jews are more frequent and many avoid wearing traditional clothing or religious symbols in public.
Kukliansky expressed particular concern that the attacker had encouraged others on social media to target Jews.
“That is a dangerous phenomenon. Public incitement like this will not lead to anything good,” she said.
Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, the Chabad-Lubavitch representative in Lithuania who has lived in Vilnius for more than three decades, said he had never previously heard of visiting Jews being subjected to such an attack.
“I have never heard of Jews visiting Vilnius becoming involved in incidents like this,” he said.
Krinsky added that attacks on members of Lithuania’s local Orthodox Jewish community are extremely rare and that most people seen wearing traditional Orthodox clothing in Vilnius are visitors touring sites of Jewish historical and religious significance.
“When I arrived here in 1994 and walked through the streets dressed as a rabbi, people would turn around and look at me. That no longer happens. People are used to it now. Vilnius is a cosmopolitan and international city,” he said.
Kukliansky said the incident had also raised concerns among foreign embassies in Lithuania, with diplomats contacting the Jewish community to ask what had happened.
She said the attack could discourage Jewish visitors from traveling to Lithuania. The rabbis who were targeted had planned to attend a major event in Vilnius but now feel unsafe, she said.
Kukliansky also noted that the community recently found red graffiti on its premises calling for violence against Jews, adding that victims of such incidents are often reluctant to report them to law enforcement.
Krinsky said he had not noticed increased fear within the local Jewish community.
“We live in a democratic society. The police maintain order, and the government and political parties pay attention to these issues,” he said.
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