May 20, 2022

Let there be no doubt about the central priorities in the intensely focused life of Grant Arthur Gochin, the honorary consul for the Republic of Togo and vice dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps.

“Outside of my family, this is the most important thing in my world: educating about past genocides and preventing future genocides,” he said.

Gochin’s mission as a one-man, international human rights advocate began modestly.

His grandfather, Sam Gochin, “simply was the most decent human being who ever lived,” he said. Sam and Grant were quite close throughout Grant’s childhood and teen years.

Since the elder Gochin frequently alluded to the family’s Lithuanian roots, Grant fervently wanted to know more – not realizing how much of an impact it would have on his life.

By his 20s, “I wanted a formal tie with Lithuania,” said Grant. He had no idea, though, of the nightmarish stonewalling and lying that he would face ahead. Nor did Lithuania.

In 1990, the year Lithuania gained its freedom from the Soviet Union, he applied for citizenship.

“I was met with utter deception when they denied me,” he said.

The persistent 27-year-old applied twice more. “Again, I met absolute dishonesty,” he said. “I was informally advised that citizenship of Lithuania was not available for Jews. I sued the government of Lithuania five times and exposed their Judenrein citizenship policy. Citizenship was required before anyone could claim restitution. To ensure no Jews could, they would deny Jewish citizenship applications.”

When the restitution claim period ended, the Lithuanian legislature changed the law, making citizenship available for Jews, Gochin believes, in part because of his work.

“I urge every Litvak entitled to Lithuanian citizenship today to claim it,” he said.

It would be almost impossible to exaggerate how fond young Grant and his grandfather were of each other.

Growing up in South Africa, he’d often hear stories about Lithuania from his grandfather.

Lithuania was behind the Iron Curtain. No one was allowed in or out.

“He always said to me, ‘If, in your lifetime, you are ever able to go to Lithuania, you need to go and say Kaddish. You also need to go and look for anybody who survived,’” said Gochin “This was something he put on me before my bar mitzvah. It always was understood he would die before me, and that was the charge he was giving me.”

While his grandfather would show him photographs from the old days in Lithuania, he never told the boy what happened.

“I did not grow up knowing 100 members of my family had been killed by the Nazis,” Gochin said.

And recently, he made a startling discovery, surrounded by almost unbelievable irony.

“In 1984, the German magazine Der Spiegel published the story that one Jonas Noreika was the murderer [of my family] in the edition of April 22,1984,” Gochin said. “I worked in a bookstore in South Africa. That is why I remember the date so well.”

Since copies were shipped to South Africa by boat, the April edition would have gone on sale at the end of May.

“My grandfather, because of his Yiddish, always read Der Spiegel. He also read Newsweek and Time. And he read the newspaper every day.”

Gochin calculates that at the end of May 1984, his grandfather definitely would have picked up Der Spiegel. The inveterate reader would have seen the article revealing that his whole family had been murdered, at least 100, that there had been no survivors, and that the person who murdered them was Jonas Noreika.

Gochin believes his grandfather would have read thestory on May 30, May 31 or June 1.

Those dates are crucial, because his grandfather died on June 2, 38 years ago.

“He had a massive heart attack and dropped dead,” Gochin said. “I don’t know if Der Spiegel was in his hands at the time. But I assure you he had read that article in the day or two before he dropped dead.”

Gochin’s descriptive recollection of Sam’s death is memorable: “It was like cutting off an arm,” he said.

Five years later, the love and imagery of his grandfather as fresh as it is today, Gochin began his one-man drive to expose the truth about Lithuania’s murderous conduct throughout the Holocaust.

He did not dream how many continents he eventually would impact or how long his journey would be.

“My whole childhood I heard about the old country,” he said. “Remember, all of the adults had the old Yiddish accent. When I grew up, everybody around spoke in Yiddish.”

But with the grownups, Yiddish would pass away when they did.

“They would not let the children learn,” Gochin said. ‘That is the old language,’ they would say. ‘You learn English.’”

When Gochin reflects, the picture he sees is that “we were innocent, ignorant children. I wish I would have learned Yiddish from my grandfather.”

As Gochin looks back on his younger days, he said, “all they did was take the shtetl from Lithuania and move it to South Africa.”

In the separatist 1970s and ‘80s, the Jews were the Jews and the non-Jews were the non-Jews in apartheid South Africa.

“I was one of those ‘naughty’ children in South Africa, demonstrating, teaching literacy to Black kids, feeding Black kids in the ghettoes,” he said.

“I was one of those ‘naughty’ children in South Africa, demonstrating, teaching literacy to Black kids, feeding Black kids in the ghettoes.”

He called it “a response to my grandparents’ victimization. They trained us in South Africa not to let the Blacks be victimized the way they had been victimized. In Lithuania, they could not defend themselves. In South Africa, we could. My grandparents certainly were not going to tolerate racism. It was a requirement of us children that we stand against bigotry.”

Gochin, who came to the U.S. in 1986, declares publicly to international audiences that he will not be deterred in his campaign to reveal the truth about Nazis in Lithuania and elsewhere.

He mentioned Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, who exposed Lithuania’s “rampant heroization” of Lithuanian murderers.

“Lithuania made all forms of promises, and kept none,” said Gochin. “They waited for people to get bored with that story and move on. Their strategy was to delay and obstruct until people were so tired, they would go away. They have never told the truth.”

He has filed between 20 and 30 lawsuits against the Lithuanian government, which never have left the ground. He used to believe truth would triumph.

“When I discovered that the murderer of my own family was Jonas Noreika, I was still naïve,” said Gochin. “I thought that the Lithuanian government would rectify the situation based on facts. Clearly, I have failed. Their strategy was to obstruct, deny and delay. They even threatened me with criminal charges for exposing their history. The threats of criminal charges against me still stand.”

“As a proud Litvak, I will not stand by as our families are revictimized. They require the truth. I will fight to my last breath to ensure they have it.”

When Gochin realized that “truth was not a component of their consideration,” he set out to get “every possible department on record as a participant in this fraud.”

In the dozens of legal actions he has filed against Lithuania, he proudly asserts that he has “exposed” virtually every corner of the government, courts, Parliament, public prosecutors, the president and prime minister.

“All of them are involved in this coverup,” Gochin said.

While Lithuania’s historic denials have been internationally acknowledged, the country’s official, unswerving response has been: “No partisan ever murdered a Jew.”

The Lithuanian government officially has announced that Noreika was saving the Jews he was murdering.

“Their strategy here is to say they will examine these statements and respond,” Gochin said. “These are just delaying tactics while waiting for everyone to forget. My lawsuits prove they will not examine the facts and will not respond.”

Decades into his work, Gochin is stunned by his findings, which is news to most of the world.

“Noreika is just one of very many murderers Lithuania has converted into national heroes,” he said. “They do it openly, deliberately. We cannot change Lithuania’s conduct. Their Foreign Ministry stands in front of Jews and tells us how sad they are that their Jews were ‘lost.’

He continued, “As if the Jews wandered off into the forest and kindly Lithuanians are still looking for them. If Lithuania cannot find them, I suggest they find new Jews and issue citizenship to 220,000 Israelis of Litvak heritage.”

It should not be difficult, he said, since Spain and Portugal did it.

Gochin does not believe Lithuania wants to “find” lost Jews.

“There is a very easy path,” he said. “Unless they do this, I never want to hear their ‘lost Jews’ garbage again.”

While Gochin declared that his “agenda is to educate Jews,” he is busy on numerous international fronts, including the often overlooked African continent – and stimulating memory is one of primary goals.

He recalled that Hitler bragged since “no one remembers the Armenian genocide,” therefore he was free to kill Jews.

Often, Gochin audiences are hearing for the first time that today, now, genocides are going on in Cameroon, in DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), in Ethiopia and in Darfur.

As a Jew and as a native of the continent, Gochin is disturbed that people discount the African genocidal leaders.

“This is a bad mistake,” he said. “They are highly intelligent people. They look at something like Lithuania and say they can just rewrite history and get away with it because there are not so many cameras in Darfur filming the atrocities.”

He reported that 5 million people in Tigray are being starved to death, “a deliberate genocide. They say, ‘Israel doesn’t recognize the Armenian genocide, but that is for geopolitical reasons. Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary – they are all Holocaust revisionists.”

More than 80 years have passed since the Holocaust softly began stepping into news reports.

“Do our families not ever deserve the truth?” Gochin said. “Lithuanian government officials say tthe murders were committed by Nazis and ‘criminals.’ They avoid using ‘Lithuanian criminals.’ One is just supposed to interpret that these were random criminals.”

In Gochin’s view, “according to the Nuremberg Laws, every single member of their provisional government should be listed as a Holocaust perpetrator,” he said.

“Our families were murdered. Lithuania did not punish one single murderer. Not one.”

He prefers bold language: “I ask for no assistance,” he sad. “I do not expect to succeed. Others did not, and neither will I.”

But that kind of realism does not slow Gochin.

“The genocide of our people was the most industrialized in the world,” he said. “But 50 million Chinese were murdered by Mao. Genocides are happening all over the world. It is a natural state of humans to kill anybody you oppose. If we are ever to stop these genocides, perpetrators need to know they will be held to account.”

He warned that Lithuania he is different from his fellow activists and difference-makers.

“I am young,” said Gochin. “I have time. We have truth and dignity. Each time they deceive, I re-focus. I will not go away. As a proud Litvak, I will not stand by as our families are revictimized. They require the truth. I will fight to my last breath to ensure they have it.”

Over the past decade, nutrition labels and restaurants have been increasingly offering gluten-free options, bringing celiac disease into the public eye. 

However, the disease is more serious than people realize. According to the Celiac Disease Foundation, a Woodland Hills-based organization that invests in biomedical research to find a cure, the disease causes the body a number of issues, including attacking its own small intestine. This can result in heart disease, cancer and other severe health conditions. 

Additionally, celiac disease is one of the world’s most prevalent genetic autoimmune diseases and affects an estimated three million Americans. The only treatment, currently, is adhering to a radically gluten-free diet; ingesting even small amounts of gluten, even crumbs, can cause long-term health issues.

In May, which is Celiac Awareness Month, the Celiac Disease Foundation announced that the NIH issued its first research grant for celiac disease. 

“Improving the quality of life for celiac disease patients and their families will always be the top priority of the Celiac Disease Foundation,” said Marilyn Geller, chief executive officer of the organization. “We are working tirelessly toward treatments and a cure for celiac disease.”

The NIH grant is significant, considering that there is currently a lack of research committed to celiac disease. 

“Unfortunately, for the millions who suffer, the disease has largely been ignored by our federal government, which provides little to no funding for research nor for public awareness of its serious consequences,” said Geller. “NIH plays a central role in the expansion of biomedical knowledge. Every drug approved by the FDA since 2010 had its start with NIH-funded research.”

The NIH published the Notice of Special Interest funding opportunity for celiac disease research in December of last year. Before that, Congress launched the first Celiac Disease Caucus, chaired by Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), who has celiac disease. 

While the foundation is celebrating the news, they are going to keep advocating for more research until a cure is found. 

“Our work is not done, as each year we must ask Congress to continue to fund celiac disease research,” said Geller.

As a mother of a son with celiac disease, the issue is near and dear to Geller. Her son was ill from birth, and the best specialists in Los Angeles didn’t understand why. 

“He suffered from unbearable pain, can’t-get-out-of-bed fatigue, endless stomachaches, headaches, medical procedures and, at the lowest point, in middle school, would say to me, ‘Mommy, my brain is telling me to kill myself again, and I don’t want to. Please help me,’” said Geller. “It was a 15-year ordeal until a doctor finally ordered a blood test for celiac disease.”

Although Geller said she was grateful to have finally received a diagnosis, the implications of celiac disease are physically and mentally taxing. Her son was diagnosed with thyroid disease and vitamin deficiencies, which is common in people with the disease.

“[He] continues to suffer from chronic back pain and fatigue, and will always have an increased mortality risk, even with his strict adherence to a gluten-free diet,” she said. 

While gluten-free food is becoming more and more available, it’s not possible for people to always avoid gluten. 

“There is no such thing as a gluten-free diet because of the constant risk of cross-contact with gluten, with gluten in 80% of our foodstuffs,” said Geller. “Something as simple as a server removing croutons from a salad that [my son] ordered without, instead of making a clean salad, can leave him experiencing symptoms similar to food poisoning for days.”

According to the foundation, which was founded in 1990, it’s not uncommon for celiac disease to go undiagnosed; an estimated 60-70% of Americans are still undiagnosed.

According to the foundation, which was founded in 1990, it’s not uncommon for celiac disease to go undiagnosed; an estimated 60-70% of Americans are still undiagnosed. In addition, people with a first-degree relative like a parent, sibling or child with celiac disease have a one-in-10 risk of developing it themselves. 

The prevalence of celiac disease among Ashkenazi Jews is 1.83% and among Sephardic Jews is 1.39%, compared to the worldwide average of 1%l. 

“Celiac disease is genetic and is strongly linked to the HLA-DQ2 and HLA-DQA genes, which are found more commonly in Caucasians of European ancestry,” said Geller. “However, while about 30% of the overall population carries these genes, only 3% of that group actually develops celiac disease. Because of this, researchers believe there may be environmental factors that trigger celiac disease.”

Along with advocating for research, the Celiac Disease Foundation promotes labeling standards for gluten-free foods, offers patient and provider education and has a network of student ambassadors. The foundation also provides a Symptoms Assessment Tool on their website that people can take and give to their doctor to see if they might be suffering from the disease.

Even though people joke about gluten-free and celiac disease being overdiagnosed, Geller stressed that it’s not a laughing matter.

“Americans are dying because we haven’t paid sufficient attention to this disease. We are working tirelessly toward treatments and a cure.” – Marilyn Geller

“Despite what you might see in popular media, celiac disease is not a fad,” she said. “It is not a punchline. Americans are dying because we haven’t paid sufficient attention to this disease.”

Still, she is grateful for those who do take the disease seriously, including the NIH and the foundation’s supporters.

“We are working tirelessly toward treatments and a cure for celiac disease,” she said. “All of our work on behalf of the celiac patient community, for adults and children, is made possible by the generous support of individual donors.”

For many people, their relationship with Judaism ends after their bar or bat mitzvah. After going through this coming of age ceremony, they become less and less engaged and eventually, unaffiliated altogether. 

However, when they grow up, they still have fond memories of their bar or bat mitzvah, and they want the same for their kids. If they don’t belong to a synagogue or send their children to a religious school, they may not know how to make this happen. 

That’s where the Bar and Bat Mitzvah Experience program comes in. An initiative of The Community Shul, an Orthodox synagogue in Pico-Robertson, the program offers unaffiliated Jewish families affordable Sunday school lessons and a bar and bat mitzvah ceremony. 

“If these families go to any other shul or temple, they may have to take out a membership or be a member for more than one year before being admitted into the bar or bat mitzvah program,” said Rabbi Moshe Cohen of The Community Shul. “There are too many hurdles. That’s how I came up with this idea.”

The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Experience started in 2017. During the six weeks of the program, presenters from around the community, including TV writer David Sacks of The Happy Minyan, screenwriter David N. Weiss and film animator Saul Blinkoff, teach the classes. Topics range from Israel to what it means to be Jewish and the definition of a bar or bat mitzvah. The son or daughter will study with their parents, making it a family affair.

During the six weeks of the program, presenters from around the community, including TV writer David Sacks of The Happy Minyan, screenwriter David N. Weiss and film animator Saul Blinkoff, teach the classes.

“It’s your family celebration,” said Cohen. “Each bar or bat mitzvah is unique. We’ve had people from very different walks of life and nationalities including Americans, Israelis, Ethiopians and Russians. We’re doing it as a service to the broader Jewish community who otherwise couldn’t or wouldn’t do it.”

One parent, Ami Curtis, enrolled her son in the program after her family couldn’t find a temple they wanted to join. Since he enjoyed the experience so much, she then enrolled her second son in it as well.

“The speakers and teachers were fantastic and really kept the boys and girls interested,” she said. “It was really like hiding the vegetables in the food. They didn’t realize how much they were learning while listening to and interacting with these fascinating people.”

When Anya Vaysman was looking at bar and bat mitzvah options for unaffiliated children online, she found the program. It stood out because it offered a traditional approach to Judaism and it wasn’t cost-prohibitive, like other programs. 

“The classes were both very educational and entertaining at the same time,” she said. “They made my son more proud of his heritage and I believe they inspired him to learn more about Judaism. In fact, when a new Jewish club opened up at his public school, he was one of the first kids to join. I am extremely grateful to The Community Shul for providing such a valuable resource for the community.”

Debbie Hirschmann, the program director for the Bar and Bat Mitzvah Experience, said that the boys and girls can do as much or as little as they are comfortable with. 

“Many kids are unable, uninterested or unwilling to do all the preparation for a traditional ceremony,” she said. “We make it possible to celebrate in a meaningful, but user-friendly way.”

According to Cohen, the boys and girls don’t read the entire parsha. “Most kids haven’t been to Jewish day school,” he said. “They don’t have any religious training so it’s too difficult for them to do.” 

The goal is not to have a perfect ceremony but, instead, to inspire the teens to stay connected to Judaism even when the celebrations are over. 

“We hope this program accomplishes planting a seed,” Hirschmann said. “[We’re] planting a positive connection to Judaism, and [they’re] seeing that Judaism can be a positive, relevant and meaningful part of their lives.”