Emanuelis Zingeris

His elder brother Markas Zingeris (1947–2023) was a poet and novelist and served as the long-time director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum (Vilnius) from 2005 until 2019.

He is a signatory of the 1990 Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania.

Emanuelis Zingeris was born on 16 July 1957 in Kaunas, Lithuania.

He is married to Virginija Zingerienė, who, like him, studied Lithuanian language and literature (philology) at Vilnius University’s Kaunas faculty.

From 1982 to 1986, he was a postgraduate aspirant (doctoral candidate) at Vilnius University’s Department of Lithuanian Literature.

He studied Lithuanian language and literature at Vilnius State University from 1975 to 1981, graduating with honors.

He served as Director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum in Vilnius from 2000 to 2004.

He edited “Atminties dienos” (“Days of Memory”), a 548-page volume published in 1995 containing papers from an international conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Vilnius Ghetto’s liquidation.

By 2025, he had served 35 years in the Lithuanian parliament, making him one of the longest-serving Seimas politicians since independence.

In 1989–1990, he was the Director of the Lithuanian State Jewish Museum.

From 1988 to 1989 he headed the Judaica sector at the Lithuanian Book Chamber.

He was a lecturer at Vilnius University’s Kaunas Evening Faculty from 1986 to 1988.

Early in his career, from 1979 to 1981, he worked as a research associate at the Kaunas City History Museum (now the Vytautas the Great War Museum).

He was one of the co-founders of the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives) in 1993 and served as a member of its Council.

Except for a hiatus from 2000 to 2004, Emanuelis Zingeris has been a continuous member of the Seimas since 1992 (in addition to serving in the 1990–1992 Reconstituent Parliament).

He was a member of the Supreme Council–Reconstituent Seimas (Lithuania’s parliament) from 1990 until 1992.

From March 17, 1990, he served as Chairman of the Supreme Council’s Foreign Affairs Commission during the struggle for re-independence.

In September 2024, Emanuelis Zingeris was elected as the new Chairman of the Seimas Foreign Affairs Committee.

He also chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Transatlantic Relations and Democratic Development in 2019–2020.

From 2014 to 2016, he was Deputy Chair of the Seimas European Affairs Committee.

He later served as Chairman of the Seimas Foreign Affairs Committee from 2010 until 2012.

He was Chairman of the Seimas Human Rights Committee during the 1996–2000 parliamentary term.

In the 2024 Seimas elections, Zingeris was the TS-LKD candidate in the Sūduvos pietinė single-member constituency (Marijampolė region). He did not win that district race, but secured a parliamentary seat via the national party list, where he was listed as candidate No. 35.

He also contested the 2024 European Parliament elections on the Homeland Union (TS-LKD) list, though he did not succeed in winning a seat in Brussels.

Most recently, he was elected to the 2024–2028 Seimas on the Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats’ national party list.

In the 2020 elections, Zingeris was ranked 26th on the TS-LKD party list and moved up to 24th place after preferential votes, but the party won only 23 seats in the multi-member constituency – leaving him just below the cutoff on election night. He entered the Seimas a short time later as a substitute MP when several list-elected colleagues vacated their mandates to serve in the government.

He was re-elected to the Seventh Seimas (1996–2000) on the Homeland Union’s party list.

He was elected to the Sixth Seimas (1992–1996) on the Sąjūdis Coalition’s electoral list.

Altogether, Emanuelis Zingeris has been elected to the Seimas (or its predecessor) eight times since 1990.

In the historic 1990 elections, he was elected to the Supreme Council in the Lazdynai constituency (Vilnius).

In his 2024 election asset declaration (for the year 2023), Zingeris reported an annual income of €58,911 and accumulated assets valued at approximately €241,000 (family combined).

His declared net worth is relatively modest for a long-time politician – about €241k in assets – which is well below the millionaire tier (in 2023, over 120 Lithuanian public figures declared at least €1 million in assets, a group in which Zingeris was not included).

As of the 2023 asset declarations (filed ahead of the 2024 elections), Zingeris and his family declared total assets of about €241,000 and an annual income of €58,911, figures which are modest by Lithuanian political standards. By comparison, the average newly elected MP in 2024 declared around €280,000 worth of assets (wealth, securities, and cash).

As a long-serving MP, Emanuelis Zingeris’s official salary has increased over time – around 2021 an ordinary Seimas member earned about €2,077 net per month, while by late 2024 the base MP salary had nearly doubled to roughly €4,000 net (with committee chairs like Zingeris receiving additional pay on top of that).

Zingeris’s parliamentary salary saw a sharp increase during the 2020–2024 term due to a nationwide public-sector pay reform. An ordinary Seimas member’s take-home pay roughly doubled (from about €2,100 to €4,000 net monthly), and committee chairpersons like Zingeris receive an additional stipend of around 15% on top of the base salary – putting his net monthly pay in the approximate range of €4,600 (estimated) in 2024.

On 10 October 2017, he ran for President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, but lost the election to Cyprus’s Stella Kyriakides (receiving 84 votes to her 132).

He is a founder and board member of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, established to honor the slain Russian opposition figure.

He was Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from 2011 to 2012.

Since 2010, he has served as President of the Community of Democracies Parliamentary Forum, a global inter-parliamentary initiative.

He has chaired the International Commission for the Evaluation of Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regime Crimes in Lithuania since 1998.

In 1989–1990, he was a member of the Lithuanian Sąjūdis Reform Movement’s Council, which led the push for independence.

In 2025, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conferred on Emanuelis Zingeris the Order of Merit (Second Class) for his contributions to supporting Ukraine.

On 29 April 2021, the Government of Japan announced it would confer on Emanuelis Zingeris the Order of the Rising Sun (Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon) for strengthening bilateral ties and inter-parliamentary cooperation.

In 2013, he received a commemorative token for his personal contribution to Lithuania’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

In 2012, he was awarded the medal “For Merits to Vilnius and the Nation”.

He received the Lithuanian Diplomacy Star (Honorary Sign of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) in 2012.

He was also honored in 2012 with the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s “For Merit” honorary sign.

In 2011, he was honored with the Petras Vileišis Gold Medal for his merits in restoring Lithuania’s independence and strengthening its international position.

Also in 2011, he received the Lithuanian Armed Forces Founders Volunteer Medal for contributions to Lithuania’s national defense.

He received the Truman-Reagan Freedom Medal in 2010.

He was recognized for providing extraordinary support to the democratic opposition in Belarus following the country’s disputed 2010 presidential election.

In 2009, Poland awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

In 2007, he was awarded the 3rd Class Order of Merit of Ukraine for his personal efforts in fostering friendly relations between Lithuania and Ukraine.

He received the Lithuanian Independence Medal on July 1, 2000.

On February 1, 2000, he was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas of Lithuania.

In 2000 he was also decorated with Germany’s Federal Cross of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz).

In April 2025, the Seimas Ethics and Procedures Commission concluded that Zingeris violated parliamentary protocol by taking a private trip outside the EU/Schengen area without informing the Seimas Board. Zingeris acknowledged the lapse and explained that the invitation came on short notice, leaving him little time to seek the Board’s approval before traveling.

In September 2023, he announced a change to the name of Lithuania’s annual Holocaust commemoration on September 23 — from “Vilnius Ghetto Liquidation Day” to “Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews and of their Resistance to the Nazis.”

In 2020, which was officially designated as Chiune Sugihara Year in Lithuania, he organized a photo exhibition in the Seimas featuring Chiune Sugihara and his family, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Sugihara’s “Visas for Life.”

During the 2008–2012 parliamentary term, Zingeris was noted as the most well-traveled MP. Serving as Foreign Affairs Committee chair, he went on dozens of official trips abroad – about 29 to France (primarily Strasbourg), 12 to Belgium (Brussels), 8 to the USA, 5 to Israel and 5 to Poland, among others – totaling roughly 14 months spent abroad over the four-year term.

As a member of the Reconstituent Seimas in 1990, he played a key role in securing international recognition of Lithuania’s restored independence by reaching out to Western nations.

He is regarded as a founder of the State Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum in Vilnius.

He is fluent in multiple languages, including Lithuanian, Yiddish, English, Russian, Polish, and German.