Lithuania’s Jewish community has decided to indefinitely shutter the only functioning synagogue in Vilnius, after receiving multiple threats. This comes amid fierce public debate over the country’s adulation of Nazi collaborators.

A Jewish center and the historic Choral Synagogue in Vilnius will close for “an indeterminate period,” the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC) said in a statement on their website. The decision was made after the LJC received “threatening telephone calls and letters in recent days.”

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Nationalists and right-wing elements in Lithuania’s capital are incensed over the removal of a plaque commemorating a Nazi collaborator at the entrance to the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. In a similar move, the Vilnius municipality last week renamed a street that had been named after one wartime diplomat and Hitler ally.

Lithuanian Jews hailed the decisions as long-overdue – while nationalists threatened with nationwide protests in response.

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