March 27, 2014    WASHINGTON, D.C.

Dear Friends,

NCSJ is saddened to inform you that longtime Lithuanian Jewish community leader Simonas Alperavicius passed away after a long illness at age 85 on March 27.

Simonas was the first chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Communities after Lithuania regained its independence in 1992, and he served the community until 2013. A longtime friend of NCSJ, he worked tirelessly for the revival of Jewish community life in Lithuania.

On behalf of the NCSJ Board of Governors, we express our sympathies to Simonas' family, and ask that they be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

Sincerely,

Stephen M. Greenberg Chairman		Alexander Smukler President		Mark B. Levin Executive Director

About NCSJ

NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia, founded in 1971, represents the organized American Jewish community in monitoring and advocating on behalf of the estimated 1.5 million Jews living in the 15 successor states of the former Soviet Union.