Emanuelis Zingeris (born 16 July 1957 in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Tra ...

, Lithuania) is a Lithuanian

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as ...

, museum director, politician, signatory of the 1990 Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, currently serving as a Member of the

Seimas The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas), or simply the Seimas (), is the unicameral parliament of Lithuania. The Seimas constitutes the legislative branch of government in Lithuania, enacting laws and amendme ...

(1990–2000 and since 2004), chairman of its foreign affairs committee (since 2010), Vice President of the

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, a 46-nation international organisation dedicated to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Assembly is made up ...

(since 2009) and President of the Parliamentary Forum of the

Community of Democracies The Community of Democracies (C.O.D), established in 2000, is an intergovernmental coalition of states. Its aim is to bring together governments, civil society and the private sector in the pursuit of the common goal of supporting democratic rul ...

(since 2010). A

Lithuanian Jew Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent area ...

, he has been director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, honorary chairman of Lithuania's Jewish community, and is Chairman of the

International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania is a commission appointed by the President of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, by presidential decree on 7 September 1998. The Commissio ...

. He is a founding signatory of the

Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism was a declaration which was initiated by the Czech government and signed on 3 June 2008 by prominent European politicians, former political prisoners and historians, among them former ...

, that proposed the establishment of the

European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism The Black Ribbon Day, officially known in the European Union as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism and also referred to as the Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian ...

Early life and education

Zingeris graduated from

Vilnius University Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow an ...

in 1981 with a degree in philology. Himself being Jewish, he wrote his post-graduate dissertation on the Jewish cultural heritage of Lithuania, a difficult subject at the time.

Political career

Zingeris was a member of the pro-independence

Sąjūdis Sąjūdis (, "Movement"), initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Persitvarkymo Sąjūdis), is the political organisation which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was e ...

movement and was elected to the

(parliament) in 1990, where he served as chair of both the foreign affairs committee and the human rights committee, and as a member of several interparliamentary relations groups. Zingeris failed to be reelected in 2000, and served as director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, which he helped found, from 2000 to 2004. In 2004, he returned to parliament. Having formerly been a member of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

, he is now representing the

Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats The Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats ( lt, Tėvynės sąjunga Lietuvos krikščionys demokratai, TS–LKD), also known colloquially simply as the Conservatives, is a centre-right political party in Lithuania. It has 18,000 mem ...

and the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian-democratic, conservative, and liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Fo ...

at the European level. He was honorary chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, but resigned from this position in 1997 after he was elected chairman of the Lithuanian Parliamentary Committee on Human and Civic Rights and National Minorities, stating that he was "thus bound to have concern for all national minorities". In 1998, he was appointed chairman of the

by President

Valdas Adamkus Valdas Adamkus (; born Voldemaras Adamkavičius; 3 November 1926) is a Lithuanian-American politician, diplomat and civil engineer. He served as the 5th and 7th President of Lithuania from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2004 to 2009. Adamkus ...

. In addition to his role in parliament, Zingeris has chaired the Lithuanian delegation to the

(PACE) in 2009 and is one of the Vice Presidents of PACE. In this capacity, he has been serving as the Assembly's

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

on the case of

Boris Nemtsov Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov ( rus, Бори́с Ефи́мович Немцо́в, p=bɐˈrʲis jɪˈfʲiməvʲɪtɕ nʲɪmˈtsof; 9 October 195927 February 2015) was a Russian physicist and liberal politician. He was involved in the introduction ...

since 2020. Zingeris has also chaired both the Lithuanian and Israeli inter-parliamentary group, and the Lithuanian and American inter-parliamentary group. In 2010, he was also elected President of the Parliamentary Forum of the

. He is a founding signatory of the

Recognitions

Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas The Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas is the Lithuanian Presidential Award which was re-instituted to honour the citizens of Lithuania for outstanding performance in civil and public offices. Foreign nationals may also be awarded this ...

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...

Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland The Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Order Zasługi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) is a Polish order of merit created in 1974, awarded to persons who have rendered great service to Poland. It is granted to foreigners or Poles resident a ...

* Order of Merit of Ukraine

Family

Zingeris is married and has a son and a daughter. His brother Markas Zingeris is the director of the Jewish Museum in Vilnius and the adviser on genocide to the Prime Minister. Emanuelis Zingeris speaks Lithuanian, Yiddish, Polish, German, English and Russian.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zingeris, Emanuelis 1957 births Living people Writers from Kaunas Members of the Seimas Vilnius University alumni Lithuanian Jews Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland Directors of museums in Lithuania 21st-century Lithuanian politicians Politicians from Kaunas