EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2017/18

REPORT

25th Annual International Conference on Jewish Studies (Moscow)

Introduction

The 25th Annual International Conference on Jewish Studies was held In Moscow on February 4-6, 2018. 170 scientists from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Israel, Great Britain, USA, France, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Georgia, Italy, Japan, as well as numerous guests and students participated in it.

The conference was organized by the Sefer Center with the support of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, the Russian Jewish Congress, Genesis Philanthropy Group, the Washington Institute of Israel, the European Association for Jewish Studies, the “Joint” Distribution Committee and the Presidential Grants Fund.

The variety of problems discussed at the conference was reflected in the structure of its programme, which included 28 sections devoted to traditional areas of Jewish studies (biblical and Talmudic studies, Jewish thought, Jewish history of different periods, Judeo-Christian relations, the Holocaust, Israeli studies, languages and literature, art, ethnology, museum and archival sources, etc.).

The decision last year to combine this international conference with a youth conference received a positive evaluation and was considered a good experience. The decision was repeated this year, thanks to which young researchers could submit their reports to the discussion of the academic community.

At the opening of the conference, the Ambassador of the State of Israel in the Russian Federation, Mr. Harry Koren, and the Director General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, one of the sponsors of the conference, Haim Ben Yakov, delivered their welcoming speech.

The presentation of new editions of the Center “Sefer” and the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences was held as well. Several books were presented.

The Professor Eugene Wiener grant was awarded during the plenary session. The grantees of this year were Maria Kaspina (RSUH), Ilya Lensky (Museum of Jews of Latvia, Riga) and Andrei Shpirt (MSU). By tradition, the conference also included a presentation of the latest publications on Judaica, published in the last year by colleagues from different countries.

According to the feedback of all the participants the conference was well prepared and held at a high level, and was very interesting and useful in various ways. The topics of the presented speeches are getting more diverse. There are topical sections, and the conferences are year by year getting better and more informative, which was noted as a constant trend. Not only the high level of reports and their discussions were noted, but also the warm, friendly, soulful atmosphere that prevailed at the conference.

Event rationale

Since 1993, the Sefer Conference has become a major meeting place for the exchange of ideas between researches in the field of the Russian-speaking Jewish Studies. This is the 25th meeting of the conference. At the moment our conference is the largest of its kind and brings together a large number of researchers in the former Soviet space (approximately 200 people meet annually at the conference).

The Sefer Annual International Academic Conference in Jewish studies is the largest in the CIS and Baltic states forum for scholars who work in the field of Judaica. The conference brings together academics of different generations (including PhD students and early career researchers) and Jewish community members, and allows them to enrich their knowledge base, to share their views and experience, contribute to the development of Jewish university education and studies, as well as to coordinate research and teaching in the area of Jewish studies in the CIS and Baltic states. The main working language of the conference is Russian. There are several large conventions in the field of Jewish studies, but the working language is mostly English. For Russian researchers and researchers from a number of Eastern European countries the question of language is often a very important point. For us it is very important for our work that there be a large conference in Russian, as well as the publication of collections in Russian. English is the second working language.

The conference is not devoted to a single topic or period in the history of the Jews, but covers various aspects and periods of Jewish history and culture. It is open to both young researchers and for people with scientific status. Young and early career researchers will have special panels, where there are discussants (leading specialists in certain scientific fields) who read the abstracts of papers and prepare questions and advice. In the last two years (in particular thanks to money awarded by the EAJS to be used towards travel grants for PhD students and early career researchers), the number of participants from Europe has increased. The conference was a meeting place for the exchange of ideas by researchers from Eastern and Western Europe, USA and Israel.

EAJS-Funded Travel Grants

Due to the money awarded by the EAJS for travel grants, 18 PhD students and early career researchers from Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Israel, Switzerland, Hungary, Georgia, Latvia, Germany had the opportunity to participate in the Conference. The PhD students and early career researchers who received travel grants were as follows:

1. Raluca-Ioana Andrei (Bucharest, Romania) PhD student
2. Jagoda Budzik (Poznan/Wroclaw, Poland) PhD student
3. Magdalena Dziaczkowska (Lublin, Poland) PhD student
4. Chaja (Vera) Duerrschnabel (Bern, Switzerland) PhD student
5. Kirill Gavrilenko (Brest, Belarus) MA student
6. Julia Gnatowska (Kraków, Poland) PhD student
7. Konstantin Karpekin (Vitebsk, Belarus) PhD, Early Career Researchers
8. Borbala Klacsmann (Budapest, Hungary) PhD student
9. Anna Litovchenko (Kharkov, Ukraine) PhD student
10. Julia Oreshina (Tbilisi, Georgia) PhD student
11. Svetlana Pogodina (Riga, Latvia) PhD, Early Career Researchers
12. Nadia Skokova (Lviv, Ukraine) PhD student
13. Ekaterina Tolerenok (Polotsk, Belarus) PhD student
14. Tatiana Yakovleva (Regensburg, Germany) PhD student
15. Alexander Valdman (Jerusalem/Haifa, Israel) PhD, Early Career Researchers
16. Elizaveta Zabolotnykh (Ekaterinburg, Russia) PhD student
17. Zawada Przemyslaw (Wroclaw, Poland) PhD student
18. Esther Zyskina (Jerusalem, Israel) MA student

Event Programme (from the perspective of PhD students and early career researchers that received travel grants)

Raluca-Ioana Andrei

Panel and discussions:

I presented my paper in the panel “Eastern Europe after the Second World War” on Monday, 5^th of February, in the youth section. The chairs were Artur Markowski and Blanka Soukupova. There were two talks in the main section: first, Anke Kalkbrenner (Berlin) spoke in English about “Transnational adoption of Jewish child survivors in the immediate aftermath of Second World War”, a chapter of her PhD and upcoming book. The talk was insightful and offered information about an aspect which is rarely talked about, from an interesting perspective. She cited newspaper articles from the USA encouraging people to adopt child survivors of the Holocaust and she presented the case of Bella, a little girl adopted by an American soldier and she also presented the outcome of her adoption. Her talk prompted compelling questions about the legal aspects of adoption, as well as the challenges of her research.

Anke’s presentation was followed by Blanka Soukupova (Prague), who talked about “Self-consciousness of the Wounded Memory: The Jewish Minority in the Czech Republic after the Shoah”. Unfortunately, this talk was delivered in Russian and since I cannot speak Russian I could not participate in the discussions afterwards.

The youth section was comprised of mine and Borbala Klacsmann’s (Budapest) speech. I presented my paper first, and it was followed by questions and discussions about Romanian Jewry in early Communism and the structure of the Jewish community. I had fruitful conversations afterwards with Borbala Klacsmann, Katja Grosse-Sommer (Stockholm) and Magdalena Dziaczkowska (Lublin). Borbala and I also talked about the differences between the situation in Hungary and Romania after the Holocaust, discussion that was prompted by her speech “Neglected Restitution: The Relation of the Commissariat of Abandoned Properties and the Hungarian Jews (1945–1948)”.

As a result of the discussions during and following the panel, I realized that little is generally said about Romanian Jewry and that there are researchers interested in the topic. Furthermore, there is room to learn from more experienced researchers in Europe and Israel who have done important work on the period after the Second World War. Concerning my research, the conversations I have had with my peers and more experienced researchers led me to extend one of my research questions that I am currently working on for my PhD, as I intend to compare the rules imposed on Yiddish in Romania at the beginning of Communism with the rules imposed on Yiddish in the Soviet Union. I am now looking to research the situation in more former communist countries.

Jagoda Budzik

Panel and discussions:

The panel I had a pleasure to participate in was devoted to the topic of Jewish literature and Jews in literature. The panel was chaired by professor Elena Rimon and professor Victoria Mochalova. It included speeches presented in a chronological order, beginning from the nineteenth century, until two first decades of the twenty first century. The range of topics discussed in the section was impressively wide which proved how complex and ambiguous field Jewish literature is. In the first presentation Anna Weissman from Moscow discussed the nineteenth century’s Jewish memoires, paying particular attention both to the topics overrepresented in the abovementioned group of texts, and to those that did not appear at all. She also provided interesting analysis of the reasons why this happened. As the second speaker, her paper presented Tatiana Yakovleva, who spoke about various representations of Odessa and Potemkin in literature and cinema. Her presentations consisted of two parts: a theoretical framework where she presented some fundamental categories connected to the concept of semiosphere (and explained their particular meaning for the topic) and an analyses of the chosen examples. The third presentation, delivered by Victoria Mochalova, was an interesting combination of two texts: Paul Morand’s I Burn Moscow and Bruno Jasieński’s I Burn Paris. The author with a great competence explained the complex relation between the two texts, showing how the category of pastiche may serve as a useful tool of formulating ideological statements and conduct an intertextual discussion between authors of various cultural, ethnic and ideological background. The fourth speaker, Elena Rimon from Ariel College presented selected aspects of perception of Soviet literature in Israel, as well as its extensive influence on Hebrew literature in various periods of its development, paying particular attention on the Dor ha-Palmach literature. Maria Endel’s talk was focused on one of the greatest Holocaust poets, Paul Celan. She analyzed his widely described poetry in an unusual context of Kabbalah, pointing out various references and potential connections that have not been explored so far. The last speaker delivered her presentation concerning two Polish texts of the authors counted among the second post-Holocaust generation: Rodzinna historia lęku by Agata Tuszyńska and Fałszerze pieprzu by Monika Sznajderman. The paper focused on the issues characteristic for this group of authors such as generational transmission of trauma and attempts to reconstruct the ancestors’ experiences made by the children Holocaust survivors.

Chaja (Vera) Duerrschnabel

Panel and discussions:

My section was called “Biblical Studies ” and it was a complete youth section which was held on Monday afternoon. Although all papers apart from mine have been in Russian and I only started to learn the Russian language one year ago, I could follow the main ideas of the presentations because of the English Power Point presentations.

For me, it was really useful that my paper was read before by a reviewer (Alexey Lyavdansky (Russian State University)) who deals with the same material and could give me some helpful comments on my presentation. Following my presentation, we had an interesting and fruitful discussion on the performativity of magical texts and the question if the classical definition of performativity by Austin must be modified.

I am also especially grateful for the useful comments given to me by Shani Tzoref from University of Postdam.

Elizaveta Zabolotnykh

Panel and discussions:

Yanina Karpenkina from Moscow presented her work “About how the Jewish youth became Soviet. Eastern Poland 1939-1941.” She used the method of interviewing. The survey was conducted among people born in 1920-1934 (they were 5-19 years old in 1939). Soviet authorities put much attention to re-educate young people of Eastern Poland in 1939-1941, when its territories were under its power. Private schools became public and eventually free of charge; schools with education in Hebrew were closed; instead Yiddish language and Russian schools were established; Jews got the right to study in universities. They actively joined the Pioneers’ and Komsomol youth organizations. The poor Jews positively perceived the appearance of the Red Army. Under the new system, they got more rights and equality. Many parents enrolled their children in Russian schools. Shmuel Barnay (discussant) expressed his doubts that it is possible to use memories of five years old children as a reliable source of information. They still could not reflect the reality. In addition, he pointed out to the fact that all memories on the eve of Holocaust would be inevitably positive. However, Yanina was convinced that it was a positive experience for children. Nobody forced Jewish people to study Russian language. (We’ve already discussed it the day before with Evgenii Rozenblad.) Knowledge of Russian language presented a good opportunity for Jews to get university education and eventually get a good job. Anna Sorokina (Hillel) offered to look for Jewish periodicals of the 20th century, where one can find a lot of useful information on Jewish youth organizations.

Valeria Malik (Moscow) presented a paper “Formation of educational and professional trajectories in the face of discriminatory barriers: study on the basis of autobiographies (Jews in the USSR)”. She used memories from the website of Yevgenia Berkovich “Notes on Jewish History” She presented 3 of 35 autobiographies written by people born in 1920s and 1930s. These were the stories of how they got University education in USSR. Karina Barkan (Riga) presented a paper “Observance of Jewish “autumn” holidays in the Latvian SSR (1914-1989)”. Her research was based on archival documents and memoirs (polls). According to Karina’s research many Jews did not observe the Sabbath, but a lot of them tried not to work on Yom Kippur and Rosh-ha-Shana. In was easier for the Jews lived small towns to close their business on that days without asking the authorities. In Riga it was more difficult, but they tried to find the ways. For example, there was a man who regularly took sick leave during the autumn holidays. After 1953 half of Latvian Jews tried to visit synagogues, others just gathered at home with their families for a feast meal. They tried to express not their religiosity, but their identity. Shmuel Barnay commented that it was very dangerous to close the enterprise without the government’s permission, for the owner could be accused of sabotage. Likely, provincial authorities were more loyal to the Jews.

Maria Makarova (Warsaw) presented a paper “I deny Birobidzhan-not people, but the city” Personal correspondence, as a source for the study of immigrants from Birobidzhan to Israel. Maria studies the community in Israel who moved from Birobidzhan, useing biographical method. She was acquainted with a person, who shared memories of his wife Dora and showed some letters written by Emanuel Stein and newspaper articles about him. In his letters, Emanuel Stein expressed his opinion about Birabdzhan and Israel. Being an experienced immigrant he gave his advices to Dora. He was her first love.

Maria Shishigina (Moscow) presented a paper “Jewish community of Perm: external and internal communication in 1990-2000”. Maria told as about Perm’s Synagogue, which is more than 100 years old and a Hasidim (Chabad) community, which was recently appeared. On the attitude of people towards religion. She used the method of observation and interviews. According to her observations, elderly people are already gone, and young people who visit the synagogue are trying to immigrate. Many people visit the synagogue only for holidays. Some people come to pray, but do not feel religious. Sometimes, they do it out of habit. She was asked about rabbis and amount of Jews in Perm. Nowadays community consists of nearly 2000 people, but less than 30 attend synagogue for praying. They have rabbi in Perm, but not very good one. First it was a young man, but he left and now rabbi is older. Many young people do not like him.

Esther Zyskina

Panel and discussions:

Our section was dedicated to the history of Jewish subethnical groups and included eight presentations. The most active discussion, as it seemed to me, was caused by Ekaterina Belkina’s talk on newly revealed manuscripts from Afghanistan, which inspired many interesting questions. Another noticeable paper was Vyacheslav Zarubin’s “On the Census of the Eupatoria Karaites of 1918”, which included a reflection on sociological data, thus shedding light on the socio-economic position of Crimean Karaites at that time.

Four of the presentations were dedicated to the history of the Karaites, which proves that this topic is still relevant among the researchers. Another of them, Alexandra Fishel’s “The Methodology created in the Dispute” was a remarkable study of different methodologies, the aim of which is to help reveal an epigraphic forgery. The speaker claimed that these methodologies not only could be used in the previous century, but are also relevant in the modern research. This talk also resulted in a vivid discussion in the questions & answers section. Nevertheless, the presentation by Eyal Ginio “Military Service, Citizenship and Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Jewish Experience” was an excellent introduction to a less explored topic.

All in all, numerous questions were asked after every talk, proving the relevancy of the topics and the interest taken by the participants in the works by their fellow researchers.

Konstantin Karpekin

Panel and discussions:

At conference I took part in section work “History of Jews in the Russian empire” – both basically, and in the youth panel. In work of section as lecturers and listeners participated more than 20 persons.

D. Feldman’s report has been devoted Jews – to inhabitants of the German large village Moscow in 17 century the Basic attention has been given Jews – to Rech Pospolitaya who have appeared in the Moscow princedom as a result of capture the natives. The message has been based on documents of the Inozemsky order 1658 – 1659 which allow to track process of revealing of Jews in a large village, their interrogations, transition from a Judaism in other belief, resettlement in the remote provinces of a princedom. Documents have been analysed by the lecturer very thoroughly – taking into account all a dung and corrections. Starting with that D. Feldman’s reports of former years, it studies history of Jews of various large villages of Moscow and further separate messages can make uniform generalising research.

N. Nikitina and I. Gribanova prepared on the basis of documents from the State archive of the Smolensk region the report was not less substantial. It has been devoted daily occurrence of the Jewish population of Smolensk province in second half 19 – the beginning 20 century Judging by the report maintenance, the considerable share of sources of research was made by registers of births of the Jewish communities. Researchers had been noted some features of the specified period. In particular, that make wedding could not only rabbis or their assistants, but also petty bourgeoises, and also that only approximately about 1870th in registers of births the concrete cause of death (this or that illness) began to be specified.

M. Grobman’s message has been devoted an everyday life of Jews of the Russian empire, prepared on the basis of copies of the documents stored in archives of Jerusalem. The researcher has allocated such categories of documents, as materials of audits and population censuses, topographical descriptions of settlements, lists of tax bearers, registers of births, documents on resettlement of Jews and investigatory affairs.

The researcher from Kharkov A. Strahova has devoted the report of history to emigratory communities in the Russian empire in 1881 – 1917 In an opening address the lecturer has analysed opinion of various historians concerning, whether wanted to reduce the Russian government number of Jews in empire by resettlement. The basic part of the report has been devoted to the activity analysis “Jewish societies”. The researcher has paid attention that both the society, and the Russian government pursued the aims. The government resolved society activity as hoped for emigration of the poorest groups of the Jewish population. In turn the society fat to be engaged in due course, except other, delivery of credits to Jews.

Among the reports which have sounded in an operating time of youth section, the greatest attention, in our opinion, E. Tolerenok’s research deserves. It has been devoted the Jewish agricultural settlements of Belarus of second half 19 century and reconstruction of appearance of such settlements by means of computer graphics. Results of the given research can be applied in museum expositions.

Borbála Klacsmann

Panel and discussions:

My section, Eastern Europe after the Second World War, contained four presentations: Anke Kalkbrenner’s (Humboldt University) Desired Children – Transnational adoption of Jewish child survivors in the immediate aftermath of Second World War addressed the topic of orphaned Jewish children and their fate during and after the war, who had been adopted by members of the Allied armies. Anke described a case study, when a German Jewish girl was taken in by an American soldier, who, after arranging papers for her, sent him to the US. However, his spouse had left him in the meanwhile and she did not want to take care of the little girl, who was left in the grandparents’ care. Such cases were not unique, many times Jewish children faced hardships due to the war and the personal circumstances of the new stepparents.

In the youth section of the panel Raluca-Ioana Andrei (University of Bucharest) talked about the IKUF (The IKUF Association and Yiddish Culture in Romania 1944-1953), a Jewish association in post-war Romania, whose main purpose was reviving Jewish culture based on Yiddish language. Their activities covered theater performances, literature, the establishment of libraries, teaching and journalism. Through the description of the IKUF, Raluca also mapped the historical context of the era, the history of Romanian Jews and Yiddish language in post-war Romania.

Yulia Oreshina

Panel and discussions:

I presented my paper at the section called “Museums, collections and expositions” chaired by Alla Sokolova and Marina Shcherbakova. The session was opened by the paper of Marina Shcherbakova (Heidelberg) who gave the in-depth and detailed analysis of Pulner’s impact on the development of the Historical and Ethnographical Museum of the Jews in Soviet Georgia, based on her archival research. This presentation was followed by a pretty intense discussion, an especially interesting question was asked by E. Melamed about the link between the collections in the Jewish museum in Odessa and the Historical Jewish Museum in Soviet Georgia located in Tbilisi. The second paper presented at the section was a common work of Marina Shcherbakova and Evgenya Zakharova (St. Petersburg). This paper was focused on the M.S. Plisetskiy’s collection of field photographs of Georgian Jews from his expeditions in 1920s – 1930s, based mostly on the photo-materials preserved at the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (St. Petersburg). This paper was also followed by a lively discussion which made it difficult to finish the panel on time. The third paper presented at this section was the work of Alla Sokolova (St. Petersburg) which focused on the representations of Judaism in art works of the museums of Moscow and Leningrad in 1930s. This paper was especially of my interest due to the fact that it was in a way a continuation of the course in which I took part during the Winter School. the next session was the “Jewish cultural heritage and society: problems and breakthroughs”, chaired by Ilya Lensky and Irina Dushakova). This not only allowed me to present my paper, but also left enough time for questions and answers session. Among the most interesting questions, I would like to mention the inquire of Anastasia Felcher (St. Petersburg) about the presence or absence of the issue of collaboration in the museum of Sarajevo, the question of Marina Shcherbakova touching upon the political situation and public discussions which created the need and possibility of establishing Jewish museums in Belgrade and in Sarajevo (this was a question which I was able to answer only partially, as my research didn’t touch upon the early history of those museums), and the question of Alexander Ivanov (St. Petersburg).

Svetlana Pogodina

Panel and discussions:

After all presentations of the section, there was a meaningful discussion. The questions and different opinions reflected the interest to the topic of my paper, as well as other presentations also got their comments and useful remarks from the auditorium. Our folklore section included many questions on given presentations. Through the work of section, we discussed the popular music folklore (song folklore) on the material of Russian and Yiddish songs, recorded in the beginning of the XX Century in Russia (Hava Shmulevich from Hebron). Maria Kaspina from Moscow Museum of the Jewish History in Russia gave a presentation on the phenomenon of Rabbi from Rybnitsk, the folklore narratives about his miracles, recorded from local citizens in Russian and Yiddish. The material for the presentation was collected during the ethnographic expeditions to Transnistria in 2017. Olga Belova from Slavic Studies Institute (Russian Academy of Science) focused on the folklore narratives of ethnocultural neighborhood. The empiric material for the research was gathered in the frames of the expeditions to Mogilev and Vitebsk regions in 2014-2015. The speaker gave a broad picture of the different narratives and mythological aspects of ethnocultural co-living. Igor Semenov from Makhachkala presented to the auditorium his paper dedicated to the Jewish rite known in Dagestan as a “tersbin”. The speaker emphasize the local particularity of this ritual, comparing it to the Slavic traditional culture and international folklore practices.

Nadiia Skokova

Panel and discussions:

The discussion after my presentation was dedicated to methodological and ideas questions than factual ones. From the very beginning, Blanka Soukupova (Prague) suggested to look at the fact of the Lviv pogrom in 1918 as a part of bigger anti-Semitic appealing in East Central Europe. My answer was based on revealed facts that I found so I could not accept this suggestion because I did not see a glue for such events in such big geographical scale right after the Great war when communication was poor. Eugenii Rosenblat supported the Soukupova’s argumentation however I still could not figure out how to tie these events during one period of time according to the methodological approached. I stick on my guns and explained that comparison was possible however not absolute. Another Soukupova’s feedback was on the “legend” among gentiles that Jews were not serve in the army as a result of the anti-Semitic appeals. As for my I could not consider that notion as a critical because such a “legend” did not find any approval on sources database and methodological approvals. Moreover, I stated facts of the Jewish duty at the Austrian army. Further discussion focused with Artur Markowski on my methodological approaches. The reasonable feedback of Markowski was considering the instrumental, representative tools and its usage in the problem revealing. We had discussed my understanding of the discursive reality and how it should be implemented in determinations of being among the supporters of the Lviv Zionist ideology.

Tetyana Yakovleva

Panel and discussions:

Very interesting discussion of our section “Jewish Literature and Jews in Literature” was after the Asia Weissman’s (Moscow) first paper “Personal Stories in Jewish Memoirs: What Shouldn’t Be Mentioned”. The contributor spoke about the memoir strategies and about the difference between memoirs and autobiographic novels. Memoirs could be a (not) reliable source and are expected to be with private feelings without pure descriptiveness of the events. After my paper “Odessa and Potemkin Days in Literature and Film” Dr. Elena Rimon from Ariel, one of the Chairs of our section, told me about the book “Poetics of Samara city space” (2015) where the city is considered as a space combining real facts and fiction. Also Ekaterina Kuznetsova from Berlin asked about any Odessa texts of this period regarding poor districts of the city except of the port. These spaces, such as Peresyp, Slobodka-Romanovka and Moldovanka, appear in the texts about pogrom in October 1905. This topic is also an important chapter in my research but it was not mentioned on this conference. The paper of Dr. Galina Eliasberg from Moscow ““What Kind of Revolution Would You Like?”: Red Odessa in the Works of S. Yushkevich” showed Odessa by 1920 after the Soviet Red Army came to power in the city. Semen Yushkevich wrote in this period the sketches of the fate of Jewish businessmen Gresser “Episodes” (1923). I added that more about the life and works by Yushkevich wrote American researcher Ruth Rischin in her dissertation “Semën Iushkevich (1868-1927): the man and his art”. The second Chair of our section, Dr. Victoria Mochalova from Moscow, in her presentation “The Jewish Theme in Paul Morand’s “I Burn Moscow” (Je brûle Moscou,1925) and Bruno Jasienski’s “I Burn Paris” (Palę Paryż, 1928)” compared the style and relationship of French and Polish authors. The story by Bruno Jasienski “I Burn Paris” came out as an answer to “I burn Moscow” by Paul Morand and was mentioned in the article of Martina Stemberger “France-Russie 1925: stéréotypes croisés”. The presentation by Dr. Elena Rimon from Ariel “From the “Volokolamsk Highway” to the “People of Panfilov”: Paradoxes of the Perception of Soviet Literature in Israel” showed the differences in understanding of the Soviet Literature in Israel using the example of the novel “Volokolamsk Highway” by Aleksandr Bek (1944). Also the other papers of the section by Irina Adelgeim from Moscow and by Jagoda Budzik from Poland caused interesting and enriching discussions about Poland in Israeli travel literature of the third generation and in Polish prose of the second generation of the Holocaust. All the papers of the section were intertextual and interdisciplinary and will contribute to our further research.

Alex Valdman

Panel and discussions:

I took part in a session devoted to the history of Jewish education in Imperial Russia. The other speakers in this session were Alexander Lokshin and Dmitrii Bratkin. Prof. Lokhshin presented a historical account on the heder (the traditional Jewish educational institution), while Dr. Bratkin discussed the ideological and personal background of the scholarly activities of the prominent Russian (Jewish-born) orientalist Dani’il Chvolson. Dr. Bratkin’s presentation provoked a discussion on Chvolson’s connections with the Jewish Reform movement in Germany, and on his scholarly connections with the contemporary Jewish scholars in Western Europe. My presentation was preceded by introduction by Prof. Shaul Shtampfer (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). The Q&A included comments on the nature of Jewish acculturation in Late Imperial Russia, a remark by Dr. Arthur Markovsky (Warsaw University) on the integration of Jewish students in the University of Warsaw, and several other questions and comments.

Personal feedback from PhD students and early career researchers

I am grateful for the opportunity to participate to this conference and I have welcomed the chance to meet fellow researchers from Europe and Israel. I believe the exchanges I have had with those I have spoken to have been very fruitful and I hope to stay in touch and to collaborate with them in the future (Raluca-Ioana Andrey)

Thank you so much for the inspiring time in Moscow. Like last year, Sefer was the perfect place for me to find new impulses for my own work, to meet interesting people and share mutual research interests. Thanks to Sefer I have met not only other researchers from Russia and the Eastern part of Europe, but I have also made new friends. After the Sefer conference in 2017 I started to learn Russian. At the moment, I have around three lessons a week. It was one of the best things I ever decided to do. It is a great benefit for my scientific work because I will start to read Russian literature on my subject soon. I look forward to come back in 2019 or even before (Chaja (Vera) Duerrschnabel)

Despite the fact that papers presented at our session and generally at the conference were very different in times and locations they all were focused on the Jewish people. Everyone could find interesting and useful information. Those impressed me most were a presentation on folklore by Hava Shmulevich from Hebron; the whole session “Jews in the USSR”, where Demian Valuyev from Smolensk presented a paper on Soviet anti-religious campaigns of 1920-1930. This topic was a bit similar to the issues I study in Ekaterinburg. It was interesting to compare these processes in different cities. I was also very much impressed by Shaul Stempfer (Jerusalem) lecture. He presented on a new document on 1881 Galicia’s demography, that he discovered lately in archive and speculated about the reasons for the significant population underestimations in the country.

I really enjoyed this scholarly event. In addition to lectures, we got acquainted with new books on Jewish studies. Besides, it was a good opportunity to establish working contacts with scientists from other cities and countries. I am very thankful for the opportunity to take part in this wonderful scholarly event. (Elizaveta Zabolotnykh)

I am very thankful for the opportunity to participate in such a conference and to present my research in front of more experienced colleagues. I am sure it will have positive effect on my future scientific work. Although my paper was not particularly dedicated to the history of Jewish subethnical groups, I was eventually reassured that every talk in our section was in its place. The discussion that arose after my presentation will surely influence my research methods. I was glad to hear presentations on the topics that were new for me, as it is always interesting to get an insight in other researchers’ work. I hope to continue this great experience next year (Esther Zyskina)

In our opinion, Center “Sefer” develops the optimum form of carrying out of scientific conference: combination of the basic and youth sections, conference addition with educational actions, presentation of new editions and researches on Jewish studies. The last is especially important for the Belarus experts as not all books from the Russian and Israeli publishing houses get to bookshops of Belarus. All reports which have sounded in an operating time of section “History of Jews in the Russian empire” had high scientific level. From a positive side they are characterised by their authors used wide source study base. It is remarkable that researchers have taken part in section work from the different countries: Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Moldova that testifies to wide interest the Jewish history of the given period (Karpekin Konstantin)

It was my first participation at the international conference organized by “Sefer”, and I should admit that it exceeded my expectations. Many interesting people, extremely insightful, motivating and brainstorming discussions, plenty of useful contacts – I regret I wasn’t able to be present at more than 1 session at the time and to hear several presentations simultaneously – it happened many times that 2-3 very interesting for me panels were ongoing simultaneously, and the choice was hard. Huge thanks to the organizers! (Yulia Oreshina)

That was a very useful discussion, which gave me opportunity to continue my research on the image of the Wandering Jew in the Latvian folklore (Svetlana Pogodina)

I find the panel an extremely interesting, well-prepared and fruitful experience. I would like to thank a lot for providing me a wonderful translator Elina thanks to whom I was able (as the only non-Russian speaker in the panel) to understand all the talks. I would like to add that the conference was for me a priceless opportunity to share the results of my current research as well as to learn about many fascinating projects conducted by my colleagues for all over the world. Thank you! (Jagoda Budzik)

Conference in Moscow was unique experience for me and definitely I do not regret that I took part in it. Organizers did a great job, hotel and food was already good, so there was no problem with any additional services. All information were also provided before the conference, so no one should feel bad in Moscow during the conference. I just a bit regret the fact that all panels were dominated by Russian language. I would recommend to make next time panels only in English or somehow advice young researchers to present their works in English. It will make the conference even more interesting. However, just to sum up, conference was very good and I am looking forward to participate next year (Przemyslaw Zawada)

For me, the participation in the XXV Sefer Conference was an inspiring and enriching experience. It was an important opportunity to share the results of my research, to meet colleagues from Russia and elsewhere, to share ideas, and learn on new approaches and research projects (Alex Valdman)

EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2016/17

REPORT

Jews in Europe in Immediate Postwar Period

Location: Frankfurt

Hosts: Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt / Simon Dubnow Institut Leipzig / Seminar für Judaistik, Goethe Universität Frankfurt / Fritz Bauer Institut

Dates: 3.-5 December 2017

Original event rationale

The Jewish Museum in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is preparing a temporary exhibition on Jews in postwar Europe (1945-1950) that will open in spring 2019, inaugurating the museum’s new building. According to the museum’s plans, the exhibit will then travel to various European museums, including to POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews for example. One important rationale of our conference is to make this coming exhibit publicly known.

Our second rationale for the conference is to showcase recent academic research that has been done in this bourgeoning field in the past decade. This research has changed our understanding of these few, yet crucial years of European Jewish history.

In the postwar years, Europe was—as Keith Lowe termed it—a “savage continent,” trying to come to terms with perhaps the most lethal moment in modern human history. During WWII, more than 30 million people died, and scores of millions more were made homeless. What was to come after these few postwar years—namely the forty years of European division known as the Cold War—was not yet known.

In the midst of this European situation were Jews with very varied wartime experiences: those who survived ghettos and concentration camps, Jews who returned from exile in various countries or from a harsh refuge in the Soviet Union, Jews from different political and personal situations, and Jews who spent the war years in hiding in Germany and German-occupied Europe. But postwar Europe was also home to Jews—in Great Britain, Sweden, and Switzerland, for example—who had not experienced occupation or exile. Thus, the situation of Jews in Europe at the end of the war varied greatly, and their subsequent lives, identities and political choices mirror this diversity, which will be clearly showcased during the conference. Moreover, just as the postwar years in general tend to be viewed simply as the prelude to the Cold War and the establishment of the state of Israel, the same period in Jewish history is usually interpreted as confirming the steady decline of European Jewish life, inaugurated by National Socialism and the deadly sweep of the Final Solution. It resulted in a shift to the United States on the one hand and the newly established state of Israel on the other, as centres of Jewish life and culture. The conference aims to interrogate this dominant understanding of postwar European Jewish presence or absence by addressing the numerous ways Jewish life in Europe was sought to be rebuilt during the period in question. The conference will show that Jews in Europe in the postwar years were not just a demoralized, defeated and passive mass dependent on foreign aid; they also professed agency and rebuilt their communities, re-established their political representation and built up a rich and colourful cultural life even under very difficult circumstances. Instead of presenting these postwar years as simply a prelude to the Cold War, our conference considers it as a period in its own right: one characterized by uncertainty, extreme scarcity, violence and poverty, but also by possibilities and hopes for new beginnings.

Our third rationale for the conference is the timeliness of its topic. The end of the war meant displacement for most of the Jews who survived, and the continent struggled with the huge refugee wave. Similarly, today there are over one billion migrants worldwide, and the substantial refugee movements of people escaping political persecution pose new challenges to governments and aid organizations on a global scale. These often sudden migration waves can destabilize host societies and raise the prospect of racist discrimination. We are hoping that by addressing issues that postwar refugee movements have posed in Europe, our conference will be able to draw attention to persisting problems, as well as to showcase refugee aid policies that were successful in the past.

Introduction

In the immediate postwar years, Europe faced the aftermath of genocide, extreme violence, and mass displacement that had produced millions of refugees, poverty, and hunger. In the midst of this “savage continent” Jews found themselves in diverse situations, having endured varied wartime experiences. Some had survived the ghettos and concentration camps, some were refugees returning from emigration or a harsh shelter in the Soviet Union, or from hiding places or partisan encampments. Others entered Western and Central Europe as part of the Allied Military Forces. In the midst of ruins and destruction surviving Jews sought to find places that felt secure, whether in their former homelands or under Allied protection. Many became Displaced Persons who fought for survival and organized their emigration with the help of diverse military and social organizations. At the same time, Jews in postwar Europe were building new communities and attempting to sustain Jewish life and traditions in on the continent.

From December 3^rd to 5^th the Jewish Museum Frankfurt in cooperation with the Simon Dubnow Institute Leipzig, the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and the Fritz Bauer Institute invited international scholars to partake in the conference “Building from Ashes. Jews in Postwar Europe (1945-1950)”. During the conference the novel task was undertaken to broaden the view and put the complex situation of Jews in the years of 1945-50 in a comprehensive European context. Six central topics were chosen to structure the panels and introduce first questions and theses.

1) The collapse of Nazism and the End of World War II: Displacement and Dilemmas of Emigration and Return.

What were the most immediate dilemmas of survivors after the end of the war? What kind of answers did they give to the question: what to do next? Why did they decide to return to their countries or why did they opt for emigration? How did Jews who were part of Allied Military Forces view the immediate postwar situation?

2) Rebuilding and Reinforcing Economic Structures: Social Welfare versus Socio-Economic Autonomy.

In what form were Jewish communities rebuilt in postwar Europe? What roles did international and American Jewish aid organizations play in this revival process?

3) Rebuilding the Community: Different Forms of Cultural Revival.

How did survivors (re-)establish the basic social unit of the family? Which social, religious, political, and cultural traditions were revived, sustained, and re-invented?

4) Holocaust Memory: Jewish efforts to document and testify the crime of the century.

What kind of institutions and methodologies did postwar Jewish communities establish to document the recent catastrophe? How did they commemorate the Jewish victims of the war?

5) Seeking Justice: War-Crimes Trials, People’s Tribunals, Jewish Honor Courts and Actions for Restitution.

How did European countries in general and Jewish communities in particular deal with the question of wartime responsibility? What legal and extra-legal methods were employed and what results did they yield in bringing war-time criminals to justice? What measures were taken to provide restitutions for Jews?

6) Imagining and Building the future: Involvement in the Postwar Administration and the Formation of Different States.

In what ways — both concrete and theoretical — did Jews seek to shape the political contours of a post-fascist Europe? What kind of political and ideological movements did they join and why? How and in what contexts did they contribute to the formation of different postwar states throughout Europe?

Papers and discussion

The conference was opened with a roundtable discussion where participants concentrated on what research remains to be done in the field. G. DANIEL COHEN (Houston) asked the question why the postwar years have been treated as a mere sequel to the Holocaust when most of the literature repeatedly stated Europe‘s irrelevance during this time. TOBIAS FREIMÜLLER (Frankfurt) argued that even though we know more about the postwar years today than about the following decades, most of our knowledge concerns prominent figures and extraordinary events, while we know little about the everyday lives of Jews in the postwar years. Finally, ATINA GROSSMANN (New York) summarized four main questions of postwar Jewish history that require more academic reflection. How does Holocaust history affect our knowledge of postwar history? What do we really mean by “postwar”? What do we really mean by “Europe”? How much revival did actually take place?

The first panel mainly concerned the situation of Jews during the immediate postwar years in Central Europe. KATERINA CAPKOVA (Prague) presented new research showing that Jewish Life in the postwar CSSR was much more diverse than expected since new Jewish groups were established in new regions. Whereas NAAMA SERI-LEVI (Jerusalem) described the story of the Polish Jews fleeing from their homeland to the American Occupation Zone in Germany and Austria as “Gypsy nomads”, as they were called in contemporary sources. G. DANIEL COHEN on the other hand explored philosophical, theological and political facets of the West European “philosemitic” discourse after the Holocaust. By giving an outlook above and beyond the immediate postwar years he argued that these iterations of “philosemitism” in Western Europe from 1945 to 1989 functioned above all as a language and a cultural code allowing its different practitioners to engage with the postwar world.

During the second panel on the rebuilding of social life LAURA HOBSON-FAURE (Paris) provided a pan-European view of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s (JDC) reconstruction work in the postwar years. The relationship between the JDC as a donor and the local Jewish communities as receivers of aid was not a simple one-way affair. The communities themselves were important actors as well and both sides strongly affirmed the European branch of the Diaspora. KATHARINA FRIEDLA (Jerusalem) and KAMIL KIJEK (WROCLAW) both presented the vast efforts of Jewish survivors in the SU to settle and create a new life in lower Silesia after the war. For about three years they established a rich political and cultural life for about three years and tried to pursue a “third way” between communism and capitalism.

More directly the third panel focused on the rebuilding process of the communities. Whereas EWA KOZMINSKA FREJLAK (Warsaw) presented the main arguments concerning assimilation of the Polish Jewry and whether it actually offered people of Jewish origin some sort of guarantee, TAMAR LEWINSKY (Berlin) gave an overview on the multi-faceted cultural activities in the so called “Displaced Persons-Camps”. IRIT CHEN (Jerusalem) dealt in her lecture with the role of the Israeli consulate in Munich regarding the rebuilding of a Jewish community in Germany. She argued that the consulate was involved in the institutional revival of the community out of instrumental motives rather than for the purpose of reestablishing Jewish life in Germany. A story of survival was told by IZABELA DAHL (Örebro) who gave an overview of the Polish Jewish (dis)placement in Sweden and the role of the Swedish Jewish congregation within the process of integration of the Polish newcomers.

“Holocaust Memory” was the fourth panel’s main topic and MANUELA CONSONNI (Jerusalem) argued that the European postwar-democracies were built on the idea of “justice postponed” for their Jewish citizens. On an ethnically defined continent, Jews were perceived as ethnically distinct and reminders of the past. NATALIA ALEKSIUN (New York) focused more on the acts of remembrance by juxtaposing early testimonies with later accounts by the same survivors, such as Philip Friedman, and compared their narrations in the context of local interethnic relations. In a similar vein YECHIEL WEIZMAN (Haifa) presented different modes of remembrance and ensuing clashes between the Jewish and gentile population in Poland. FERENC LACZO (Maastricht) however introduced the most significant Hungarian survivor historians and how they were able to produce such an impressive amount of documentation and research immediately after the war.

The fifth panel concerned the aspects of jurisdiction and justice, for which reason KATARZYNA PERSON (Warsaw) gave insight into the inner Jewish system of the so called “honor courts” that dealt mainly with accusations of collaboration. PHILIPP GRAF (Leipzig) in contrast highlighted the struggles of the Jewish lawyer Leo Zuckermann for the restitution of “aryanized” property in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SZO). The panel was concluded by ANNETTE WEINKE (Jena) and her outlook on the direct and indirect contributions of Jewish legal think tanks to the human rights architecture of the postwar years.

The sixth panel again gave us a look-out beyond the immediate postwar years with ANNA KOCH (Southampton) looking at Jewish communists’ involvement in the creation of a socialist state in East Germany. And even though AVINOAM PATT (West Hartford) could not attend the conference in person he was able to join in via video conference and closed the final panel with his presentation on the role of the Holocaust survivors during the establishment of the State of Israel.

In their closing remarks ELISABETH GALLAS (Leipzig), ATINA GROSSMAN (New York) and MIRJAM WENZEL (Frankfurt) brought back the discussion to the original questions of: “What are we talking about when we talk about Jews in postwar Europe?” and: “Why is it important to investigate this subject?” It was agreed on that we can find active survivors with strong voices all over Europe but also that this group is much more diverse than often thought. Whereas topics like gender and memory need to be discussed further, the notion of migration and the view of Jews in postwar Europe as a chiefly transnational community seems to be the predominant aspect of most of the academic research. Many times during the conference a “third way” was mentioned when the efforts of Jews in eastern and western spheres were presented. Therefore the antagonisms and paradigms of the Cold War seem to blur at least in the first years after the war. Likewise the silencing of early Jewish initiatives for memory and justice cannot be sufficiently explained by Cold War politics and ideology.

Outcomes

Not since the immediate postwar-years have this many Jews been present in Europe at once. To commemorate and honor their efforts is a political statement today when the idea of our continent as a place of people of different languages, traditions and religions living side by side in mutual respect and understanding is at stake.

The arguments this conference has produced and the new questions that arose from it will hopefully stimulate discussions outside of the academic world as well. The Jewish Museum Frankfurt wishes to shed light on the postwar-years for the broader public by dedicating its first temporary exhibition after its reopening in 2019 to this subject. The exhibit will take museum visitors to a journey of search and discovery throughout a continent which was still completely in the shadow of war, destruction and mass murder, but which already had the contours of a new, postwar order. Also the Jewish Museum Frankfurt will publish a research catalogue based on selected papers presented at the conference.

The Programme of the Event

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

In the Aftermath of Auschwitz and the Second World War: New Perspectives on the Situation of Jews in Europe in the Years 1945-1950.

1. Daniel Cohen (Rice University)

Tobias Freimüller (Fritz Bauer Institute)

Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, New York)

Chair: Elisabeth Gallas (Simon Dubnow Institute)

PANEL 1

The Collapse of Nazism and the End of World War II: Displacement and Dilemmas of Emigration and Return.

Kateřina Čapková (Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic): Competing Jewish Narratives: Jewish Migrants in Postwar Czechoslovakia.

Naama Seri-Levi (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Refugees, Wanderers, Displaced Persons: The Experience of Jewish-Polish Repatriates during and after the War.

1967. Daniel Cohen (Department of History, Rice University, Houston, TX): “Philosemitic” Western Europe? The Jewish Question in the Aftermath of the War, 1945-1967.

Chair: Sybille Steinbacher (Fritz Bauer Institute)

PANEL 2

Rebuilding and Reinforcing Economic Structures: Social Welfare versus Socio-Economic Autonomy.

Laura Hobson-Faure (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3): Protecting the European Branch of the Jewish Diaspora: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Europe after the Shoah.

Katharina Friedla (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem): Socio-Economic Patterns and Reconfiguration of Jewish Life in Post-War Poland (1945–1949) – Lower Silesia as a Case Study.

Kamil Kijek (University of Wroclaw): The Jewish experience of Rychbach/Dzierżoniów in the years 1945-1950.

Chair: Fritz Backhaus (Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main)

PANEL 3

Rebuilding the Community: Different Forms of Cultural Revival.

Ewa Koźmińska-Frejlak (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw): The assimilation of Polish Jews to Polishness and the attitude of the Jewish community in Poland towards assimilation (1945-1950).

Tamar Lewinsky (Jüdisches Museum Berlin): Galut Germaniyah/Goles Daytshland. Cultural Activities among Jewish Displaced Persons in Occupied Germany.

Irit Chen (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): “Dear Child of Israel” or a “Cheap Partner”: The Relation of the Israeli Consulate in Munich to the Rebuilding of the Jewish Community in Germany 1948-1953.

Izabela Dahl (School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University): The complexity of displacement. Polish Jews in Sweden after World War II.

Chair: Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, New York)

PANEL 4

Holocaust Memory: Jewish efforts to document and testify the crime of the century.

Manuela Consonni (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Auschwitz and the Lesson of Srebrenica in the Post-Memory Age.

Natalia Aleksiun (Touro College, New York): Documentation (Self)Censorship and the Early Holocaust Testimonies in Poland.

Ferenc Laczó (University of Maastricht): Interpreting Responsibility. On the Incipient Historiography of the Holocaust in Hungary.

Yechiel Weizman (Haifa University): Breaching the Silence: Jewish Sites as Reminders of the Holocaust in Communist Poland.

Chair: Christian Wiese (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)

PANEL 5

Seeking Justice: War-Crimes Trials, People’s Tribunals, Jewish Honor Courts and Actions for Restitution.

Katarzyna Person (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw): Defense strategies in the postwar Jewish Honor Courts.

Philipp Graf (Simon Dubnow Institute Leipzig): “The Central Secretariat […] approves the draft bill” – Restitution in the Soviet Zone of Germany Reconsidered.

Annette Weinke (Friedrich Schiller University Jena):  At the Intersection of Law, History, and Legal Lobbying: Transatlantic Jewish Legal Think Tanks and Postwar Justice.

Chair: Mirjam Wenzel (Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main)

PANEL 6

Imagining and Building the future: Involvement in the Postwar Administration and the Formation of Different States.

Anna Koch (University of Southampton): “The foundation for a new and better Germany:” Communists of Jewish origin in the early German Democratic Republic.

Avinoam Patt (University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT): From Destruction to Rebirth: Jewish Displaced Persons and the Creation of the State of Israel.

Chair: Kata Bohus (Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main)

CLOSING REMARKS

Elisabeth Gallas (Simon Dubnow Institute)

Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, New York)

Mirjam Wenzel (Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main)

EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2017/18

REPORT

Ukrainian Jews: Revolution and Post-Revolutionary Modernization. Policy, Culture, Society

A two-day international conference organized and hosted by the Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies, in cooperation with the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, sponsored by the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) Conference Grant Programme in European Jewish Studies (Kyiv, October 15-16, 2017)

Organisers: Dr. Serhiy Hirik, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy; Dr. Brendan McGeever, Birkbeck, University of London.

Author of Report: Serhiy Hirik.

Event Rationale

This conference was of significant importance both for the scholarly community and wider society. Stereotypes about the activity of Jewish politicians during the revolutionary period continue to circulate in contemporary public discourse in Eastern and Central Europe. The so-called “decommunization policy” in Ukraine is frequently combined with antisemitic statements by certain Ukrainian journalists and public figures, particularly when concerning the alleged “role of the Jews” in the Russian revolution and early Soviet period. The continuation of these longstanding stereotypes has been further facilitated by a lack of thorough academic publications on this subject by contemporary Ukrainian historians. Most Ukrainian scholars tend to concentrate on the activity of Ukrainian or All-Russian political forces in Ukraine during 1917–1921, and in doing so they almost completely ignore the role of Jewish parties in the revolutionary period. Several works on these topics were written by émigré historians before 1990s, but they were not comprehensive owing to a lack of access to the documents preserved in Ukrainian archival collections. One area where the lack of research continues to facilitate public misconceptions is the topic of anti-Jewish pogroms in 1919. Still, to this day, many Ukrainian academics and influential journalists deny the participation of Ukrainian national forces in these events.

Another area requiring new scholarly attention is the history of Jewish indigenization (“yiddishization”) in the Jewish national districts created in the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic and in Crimea. Indeed, the general history of Jewish collective farms has yet to be satisfactorily addressed, as have the activity of Jewish Yiddish-language cultural and educational institutions in Soviet Ukraine. Ukrainian scholars, with a few exceptions, tend to research only those subjects closely-related to the history of ‘ethnic Ukrainians’.

More positive has been the attention devoted to the history of Jewish art and literature during the revolutionary and early-Soviet period. Several important publications on the activity of the Jewish Kultur-Lige, for example, have appeared in recent years, as have new translations of Yiddish-language works of Jewish writers in Soviet Ukraine.

Nevertheless, as is clear, the state of the literature in these broad areas is far from satisfactory. In contemporary Ukraine, these topics exist only for the scholars who work on them; they are absent in the history textbooks used in Ukrainian schools and universities. What is more, the research of those Ukrainian scholars who work outside of Kyiv, Lviv, or Kharkiv is almost unknown in these large cities. The lack of academic communication between the Ukrainian regions harms the development of the research on these topics. Although a renewed interest in the history of Jews in 20th century Ukraine has been evident in the Ukrainian mainstream media, the key areas outlined above have not been addressed or discussed.

The purpose of the conference was to organize a scholarly conversation among Ukrainian and foreign scholars on the history of Ukrainian Jews in 1917–1919 and the 1920s. In doing so, it promoted dialogue between Ukrainian historians from different regions as well as between Ukrainian historians on the one hand, and foreign researchers on the other. Additionally, this event was opened up to the Ukrainian media and broader public, thus facilitating a wider and much-needed discussion on the history of Ukrainian Jews within public discourse.

Event programme (Sections and Papers)

The conference was hosted at the National Academy of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Museum, which is located in a building constructed in early 17th century. The conference brought together a group of senior and junior academics from Austria, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the United Kingdom, the USA, and several regions of Ukraine. The participants and guests of the conference attended the presentation of the recently published Ukrainian translation of the book “A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainian and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920” by Henry Abramson, one of the key academic texts on this topic.

The conference began with opening words by Dr. Vitaly Chernoivanenko, president of the Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies, Prof. Serhiy Kvit, head of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s Academic Senate and former Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, and Dr. Ariel Borshchevsky, projects director of the Nadav foundation. Vitaly Chernoivanenko also read greetings from the EAJS president Prof. Edward Dąbrowa.

The first panel (moderated by Larysa Yakubova, Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) was devoted to Jewish Political Life in Ukraine in (Post)Revolutionary Epoch. It opened with a paper Jews in the Ukrainian People’s Republic’s bodies of power: Hopes, disillusions, and achievements presented by Olga Petrova (Budapest, Hungary), which focused on the participation of Jews in the state bodies of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1917–1920 and especially the Ministry of Jewish Affairs. The ensuing discussion focused on sources and the possibility of evaluating the Jewish Sections of the Bolshevik party in the 1920s as a kind of continuation of the Jewish national-personal autonomy which existed in the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

Next, Serhiy Hirik (Kyiv, Ukraine) gave a paper The Jewish Communist Party (Poale Zion): The “exterritorial nation’s” national communism, which focused on the ideological evolution of the Jewish Communist Party (Poale Zion) from the split in the left current of the Ukrainian and Belorusian organizations of Poale Zion in 1919 until the dissolution of the party in 1923. The following discussion focused on a comparison of this party’s ideology with ideological positions of other Ukrainian national communist groups and the participation of former Poale-Zionists in Jewish Sections of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet bodies of power.

The last paper in this session, The Zionist movement in Ukraine: Social base, political groups, activity in the 1920s (based on OGPU archives), was presented by Viktor Husiev (Kyiv). It analyzed newly found documents on the activities of the Zionist organizations in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s from the archives of the Service of Security of Ukraine (documents of the former Soviet secret service). The following discussion focused on the activity of some personalities mentioned by the participant.

The second panel (moderated by Maksym Hon, Rivne State University of Humanities, Rivne, Ukraine) was devoted to Anti-Jewish pogroms and Jewish self-defense detachments. It started with a paper entitled Self-Defense detachments and other Jewish armed groups in 1917–1921, presented by Viktor Dotsenko (Irpin, Ukraine), who discussed the history of creation of Jewish self-defense detachments in Ukraine in 1917–1921 and their role in the fight against pogroms. The discussion focused on the history of the creation of separate self-defense detachments and the social structure of their participants.

The second talk in this session, Tales and stories told by Jewish child victims of pogroms in Ukraine (on the base of the Fishel Shneerson’s records), was given by Elena Solominski (Düsseldorf, Germany). It examined the Fishel Shneerson’s psychiatric practice and, especially, records of tales composed by children who survived pogroms. The following discussion concerned the further fate of children treated by this psychiatrist.

The third paper, presented in by Nataliia Ryndiuk (Kyiv, Ukraine), was entitled Yaakov Leshchinsky: Between Life and Death. It dealt with the book “Between Life and Death: Ten Years in Soviet Russia” (1930, published in Yiddish) by Yaakov Leshchinsky and, especially, the statistical data presented by him as a source on the history of pogroms in Ukraine. The discussion after this talk concerned the relevance of this data to the broader field.

The fourth paper, presented by Dimitri Tolkatsch (Freiburg, Germany), was devoted to Jewish pogroms and the Ukrainian peasants’ national project, 1918–1920. The following discussion concerned the participation of Ukrainian peasant insurgents and regular troops of the Ukrainian Dyrektoriia in pogroms.

The third panel (moderated by Maksym Hon, because Vladyslavv Verstiuk could not attend the conference) was devoted to the phenomenon of Jewish national-personal autonomy in Ukraine in 1917–1920. It opened with a paper The making of Jewish national personal autonomy presented by Börries Kuzmany (Vienna, Austria) who analyzed the process of the creation of the national-personal autonomy in Ukraine after the Second Universal of the Central Rada.

The second talk in this session,  Jewish national personal autonomy in Ukraine: A legal analysis, was given by Anastasiia Ivanova (Kyiv, Ukraine), who investigated the legal aspect of the creation and existence of Jewish state bodies created in Ukrainian People’s Republic and their reforming after the law on national-personal autonomy was adopted in January 1918.

The discussion which followed this panel concerned both papers simultaneously because they were devoted to very similar topics. The participants discussed the history of the creation of the draft law on the national personal autonomy in Ukraine and the role of Moshe Zilberfarb as its main author, the practical implementation of this law, its cancellation in July 1918 by the Hetmanate regime and the comparison of the activity of Jewish, Polish, and Russian ministries in the Ukrainian government as bodies of national personal autonomy.

The first day of the conference closed with a presentation of the Ukrainian translation of A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917–1920 by Henry Abramson (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2017; the original text was published in 1999 by Harvard University Press). The participants of the presentation were Leonid Finberg, Tetyana Batanova, Olga Petrova, and Serhiy Hirik. Henry Abramson could not attend the event personally but he gave a speech and answered questions via video conference. The participants discussed the significance of the book for studies on the history of Ukrainian Jews during the revolution.

The fourth panel (moderated by Natalia Shlikhta, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy) was devoted to the Social history of Ukrainian Jews in the 1920s and 1930s. It opened with a paper on The “Crimean project” of Jews’ resettlement: Idea, dynamics, and results (the 1920s and 1930s), presented by Grigorii Kondratiuk (Simferopol, Ukraine) who focused his analysis on the history of the creation of Jewish agricultural colonies in Crimea in the 1920s and early 1930s, the construction of dwelling houses, the problems of water supply in Jewish kolkhozy and ethnic conflicts between Jewish kolkhozniks and Crimean Tatar peasants during the first years after the creation of first Jewish settlements in Crimea. The discussion which followed this talk concerned the preservation of buildings in former Jewish kolkhozy as historical monuments and the role of the Joint Distribution Committee in the supply of agricultural machinery to the Jewish settlements in Crimea.

The second talk in this panel was given by Sofia Grachova (Erfurt, Germany) who presented a paper entitled Farming healthy Jews: Eugenics and medicine in Jewish agricultural settlements in Southern Ukraine (the 1920s). It explored the medical aspect of creation of newly founded Jewish agricultural settlements in Southern Ukraine and the idea of making healthy and physically strong Jews by means of their resettlement from shtetles to kolkhozy. The following discussion focused on the reflection of this topic in Jewish medical and non-medical periodicals and representation of this problem in non-Jewish press in the 1920s and 1930s.

The fifth panel (moderated by Serhiy Hirik) was devoted to the Antisemitic propaganda and agitation against antisemitism during the revolutionary events in Ukraine. It begun with a paper Antisemitism in Kyiv in the spring of 1918 presented by Vitaliy Skalskiy (Kyiv, Ukraine) which dealt with manifestations of antisemitism in public discourse in Kyiv in 1918, especially during the period of the Skoropadsky’s Hetmanate. The following discussion concerned the attitude of German military administration toward antisemitic incidents in 1918.

The second talk given by Brendan McGeever (London, UK) was entitled Jewish communists and the Soviet response to antisemitism and dealt with the response of the Soviet government to antisemitism during the period of the Civil War, and in particular, the role of non-Bolshevik Jewish socialists in these campaigns.

The sixth panel (moderated by Artem Kharchenko, the National University of Kharkiv) was devoted to the Local history of Ukrainian Jews during the Revolution. The first paper in this session, Jewish judges and convicted in the activities of the Chernihiv province revolutionary court-martial, 1919–1921, was presented by Iryna Etkina (Chernihiv, Ukraine). It gave a comprehensive analysis of the activity of judges of Jewish origin in the revolutionary court-martial in Chernihiv in 1919-1921 and the social structure of the Jews who were convicted by this court during its existence. The following discussion concerned sources and behavioral strategies that allowed those who were convicted by court-martial to rescue themselves.

The second paper in this session, The Jewish population of Uman during the Ukrainian Revolution, 1917–1921 (on the base of Petro Kurinny’s diary), was given by Ihor Opatsky (Uman, Ukraine). It presented an analysis of the diary by the Ukrainian historian and politician Petro Kurinny as a source on the history of the Uman Jews in 1917–1921.

The third talk in this session, The Jews of Lubny during the Ukrainian Revolution and post-revolutionary epoch, was given by Ihor Koziura (Poltava, Ukraine). It discussed the fate of the Jewish population in Lubny (Poltava province) in 1917–the early 1920s.

The discussions followed Ihor Opatsky’s and Ihor Koziura’s talks especially concerned the pogroms in Uman and Lubny in 1919.

The seventh panel (moderated by Vitaly Chernoivanenko) was devoted to Jewish education from 1917 to the 1930s. It opened with a paper entitled Jewish education in the Ukrainian People’s Republic (1917–1921), presented by Victoria Khiterer (Millersville, USA), which discussed the creation of Jewish educational institutions in Ukraine during the existence of Central Rada and Dyrektoriia. The following discussion concerned the quantity of Jewish schools and higher educational institutions in the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the role of the Ministry of Jewish Affairs in their creation.

The second paper in this session, The social and political life of Jewish pedtekhnikums’ students (the 1920s and 1930s), was presented by Oleksandr Komarnitsky (Kamianets-Podilsky, Ukraine), who analyzed the official and unofficial political and social activities of students at Jewish pedtekhnikums (colleges of pedagogy) in Soviet Ukraine and the peculiarities of the curricula at these educational institutions. The following discussion concerned the main features of the social activities of students of the pedtekhnikums in comparison with students in other educational institutions. In addition, the discussion addressed the peculiarities of the Jewish pedtekhnikums’ curriculum in Jewish national districts, especially in Stalindorf, in comparison with curriculum of such institutions in areas that were not part of Jewish national districts.

The eighth panel (moderated by Valentyna Piskun, Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Source Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) was devoted to Sources on the history of Ukrainian Jews. The first paper in this session, Collecting Jewish archival documents: From the abolishment of the Pale of Settlement to Sovietization, was presented by Iryna Serhieieva (Kyiv, Ukraine). It was devoted to the process of collecting Jewish archival documents, books, and periodicals by Soviet Ukrainian academic institutions in the 1920s and 1930s. She paid particular attention to Iosif Liberberg’s activities as a director of the Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and the creation of the collection of this institution which became the base of the Jewish collection of the present-day Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. The discussion following this paper concerned the fate of the collections of the Jewish Academic Library in Odessa, dissolved in the 1930s, as well as collections of the Jewish Museum in Odessa that existed until 1941. The participants of the conference also discussed the process of collecting Jewish museum collections by similar academic institutions in Soviet Belarus.

The second paper in this session, entitled Sources on Jewish participation in the Ukrainian national movement in Odessa, 1917–1920 (on the base of the Odessa National Scientific Library’s collections), was presented by Tetyana Podkupko (Odessa, Ukraine). It dealt with  documents and periodicals from the Odessa National Scientific Library that may be used as a source for the history of the Jewish participation in Ukrainian political organizations during the revolutionary years. The following discussion concerned the possible fate of Jewish manuscripts and archival documents stolen from the Odessa libraries during the Second World War.

The last paper, presented by Tetyana Batanova (Kyiv, Ukraine), was entitled A revolutionary satire: The autobiographical novel Benyamin the Fourth’s Travels by Der Tunkeler (Yosef Tunkel) as a historical source. The following discussion concerned the possible influences of Russian satirists of the early 20th century on Yosef Tunkel.

The ninth panel (moderated by Taissa Sydorchuk, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy) was devoted to the history Jewish art during the revolution. It was opened by a paper Rejected by 1917: Mane-Katz and Isaac Frenel. The Ukrainian Jewish painters between France and Eretz Israel presented by Alek D. Epstein (Jerusalem, Israel). The author described the key works of these two artists and the influence of their experience, especially during the revolution, on the topics raised in their paintings. The discussion following the paper concerned the reflection of violence in their works, especially the topic of the 1919 pogroms as well as the Holocaust.

The second paper in this session was entitled The foreboding of the apocalypse: The images of synagogues and the theme of collapse of the Jewish world in the art of revolutionary time. It was presented by Eugeny Kotlyar (Kharkiv, Ukraine). The discussion followed this paper concerned the reflection of the topic of pogroms in paintings of the Jewish authors of the first half of the 20th century.

The last paper of this session was devoted to The Kultur-lige dramatic studio: The creation of modern Jewish theater. It was presented by Iryna Meleshkina (Kyiv, Ukraine). The following discussion concerned the venues where theatre companies mentioned by speaker gave performances.

The conference concluded with a roundtable discussion (moderated by Dimitri Tolkatsch, Freiburg, Germany) and concluding remarks, including the discussion of possible topics of further academic events on the history of Ukrainian Jews.

Outcomes

• The development of working relationships between Ukrainian and foreign researchers on the history of Ukrainian Jews during the revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods
• The event established academic contacts between the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and western academic institutions represented by foreign participants
• Antisemitic stereotypes in Ukrainian society were challenged through the publication of interviews with speakers in Ukrainian mainstream media as well as challenging of stereotypes on Ukrainians through the publication of information on the event in Jewish Ukrainian media
• Research on the fate of Ukrainian Jews during the Ukrainian revolution was developed in a broad perspective, with topics ranging from the history of Jewish culture to studies of Jewish political and social life

Outputs

A printed publication of conference proceedings will follow (edited by Serhiy Hirik) with shortened transcripts of the discussions following the papers in cases when questions and answers allow to understand the paper more deeply.

A series of interviews with conference speakers in the Ukrainian mainstream media will also be published.

Event Programme:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4UQ0ywiBkg_Q1VYOFJDTjJOVEJYNlBoT0sxenhiSjk0N1Jz/view (English version)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4UQ0ywiBkg_cnpqTVV3dlBTangwRC1HNS1TT0RXSXYzZGxR/view (Ukrainian version)

Changes to the Original Programme

There were several major changes to the original (printed) conference programme. Firstly, Aleksandr Lokshin (Moscow, Russia) and Vadym Stetsiuk (Kamianets-Podilsky, Ukraine) were unable to attend the event. Their talks were cancelled. One of the organizers of the conference, Brendan McGeever, was unable to visit Kyiv, and instead he presented his paper via Skype. Sofia Grachova has changed the language of her talk. She presented her paper in Ukrainian.

On October 17, a guided tour through old Jewish quarters of Podil was organized for the conference participants as an addition to the printed programme.

Publicity

1) UAJS website:

http://uajs.org.ua/en/node/131 (English, news)

http://uajs.org.ua/uk/node/131 (Ukrainian, news)

http://uajs.org.ua/en/node/128 (English, announcement)

http://uajs.org.ua/uk/node/128 (Ukrainian, announcement)

2) National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s website:

http://www.ukma.edu.ua/eng/index.php/news/703-uajs-and-naukma-organized-the-international-conference-ukrainian-jews-revolution-and-post-revolutionary-modernization (English, news)

http://www.ukma.edu.ua/index.php/news/3472-uayu-i-naukma-provely-mizhnarodnu-konferentsiiu-yevrei-ukrainy-revoliutsiia-i-pisliarevoliutsiina-modernizatsiia (Ukrainian, news)

http://www.ukma.edu.ua/index.php/news/3457-mizhnarodna-konferentsiia-yevrei-ukrainy-revoliutsiia-i-pisliarevoliutsiina-modernizatsiia-polityka-kultura-suspilstvo (Ukrainian, announcement)

3) Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/pg/ukrainianjewishstudies/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1578292518860760 (album with the photos from the event)

4) historians.in.ua website:

http://www.historians.in.ua/index.php/en/ogoloshennya/2303-mizhnarodna-konferentsiya-evreji-ukrajini-revolyutsiya-j-pislyarevolyutsijna-modernizatsiya-politika-kultura-suspilstvo-15-16-zhovtnya-2017-r-kijiv-reestartsiya

5) The Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities (Vaad) of Ukraine website:

http://www.vaadua.org/news/uayu-i-naukma-proveli-mizhnarodnu-konferenciyu-ievreyi-ukrayini-revolyuciya-y  (Ukrainian)

6) Euro-Asian Jewish Congress website:

http://eajc.org/page16/news58934.html (Russian)

7) Times of Israel:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/100-years-on-international-conferences-debate-jewish-role-in-russian-revolution/ (author did not visit the conference and presented information on it incorrectly; as for this article, the problem of Symon Petliura’s responsibility for the 1919 pogroms was one of the central topics of the event, but, in fact, it was discussed only during the second panel and was not the central topic even within it)

8) Hromadske radio, interview with Viktor Husiev, one of the conference speakers:

https://hromadskeradio.org/programs/zustrichi/yak-zhyly-sionisty-u-radyanskiy-ukrayini (text, in Ukrainian)

https://hromadskeradio.org/sites/default/files/hr-zustrichi-2017-10-29-gusev.mp3 (audio, in Ukrainian)

Interview with another conference speaker Vitaliy Skalskiy was also recorded and will be broadcasted soon.

9) The conference was mentioned in the interview with Vitaly Chernoivanenko on development of Jewish Studies in Ukraine published in bimonthly English-language journal The Odessa Review (Issue 11, October–November 2017).

http://odessareview.com/vitaly-chernoivanenko-jewish-studies-ukraine/

10) The mailing list of the MA in Jewish Studies Program at the National University of Kyiv–Mohyla Academy and the UAJS (663 email addresses).

11) The videos of the selected presentations were uploaded on the UAJS YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7t1SrNBqipVL1UObIPPbnV6dRO7PRpgx

Participants’ feedbacks:

Iryna Etkina: I am very delighted with the organization of the International conference “Ukrainian Jews: Revolution and Post-Revolutionary Modernization. Policy, Culture, and Society.” The organization committee managed to gather very good experts who not only gave their presentations but also shared opinions and asked challenging questions. The highly topical program, reasonably composed panels and competent moderators contributed much to the conference. The participants also had an opportunity to network during the breaks. Another advantage of the conference was the possibility to purchase professional literature at the very reasonable prices. The logistic support was excellent: comfortable hotel at the downtown and not far from the conference venue, tasteful lunches and “themed” kosher Jewish restaurant created perfect conditions for all non-resident conference participants. The fascinating guided tour around the Jewish Podil neighborhood became a pleasant supplement to the event. The conference of such a high level encourages further research on Jewish Studies.

Sofia Grachova: I took part as a presenter at a panel titled “The Social History of Ukrainian Jews in the 1920s and 1930s.” This proved to be an enriching intellectual experience, in a no small part thanks to the thoughtful panel organization. My presentation was about healthcare and eugenics in the Jewish agricultural settlements in Southern Ukraine in the 1920s, while the first presenter on my panel discussed the history of Jewish agricultural settlements in Crimea. Our two presentations complemented each other perfectly and generated a lively discussion, evidence of the care that the organizers put into the overall intellectual goals of the conference. Besides the informative panels, the conference enabled the participants to exchange ideas and establish contacts, which is especially valuable for the scattered community of Ukrainian scholars of Jewish Studies. I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this productive endeavor.

Olga Petrova: The conference “Ukrainian Jews: Revolution and Post-Revolutionary Modernization” was an excellent opportunity for me to both share what I had been working on with regard to my research topic and to learn about the findings from the colleagues who specialize in chronologically or thematically similar field. What was particularly of significant value is the scope of the conference and how broad and well-structured the discussion about the Ukrainian Jewry in the post-revolutionary years was, with topics ranging from politics and government to education and art. It often happens that the questions of politics and war dominate within the topic of the Revolution of 1917–1921, that is why it was especially beneficial to get to know and understand more about other aspects of Jewish life in this period. I personally feel that because of listening to the presentations, which did not seemingly have a direct correlation with my topic of interest, I was enlightened on some other aspects of my own topic or received information that now helps me understand my own topic better. Moreover, based on the informal conversations I had, I believe it is true for other conference participants as well. I also find it very helpful how organizers of the conference were able to combine topics that had a very general focus with those that were in fact examples of micro-history, looking at the very same events and problems, but almost like through a microscopic lens. In addition to all this, I would like to remark on the international character of the conference, with researchers from Austria, the UK, the United States, Israel, etc. joining in. Overall, it was a very enriching experience, inspiring to continue working in the direction of the maximally unbiased understanding of this complex period.

Dimitri Tolkatsch: In the international Jewish Studies community, Ukrainian scholars have traditionally played a minor role. A wonderful exemption from this rule has been the Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies that has set out to change this deficit. The conference “Ukrainian Jews: Revolution and Post-Revolutionary Modernization” is just another example of their impressive work in this direction. The organisers selected participants from very different countries and research fields and with various academic backgrounds. Therefore, the topics reached from literature and culture through party politics up to regional and local studies. While for Ukrainian scholars, it must have been refreshing to discuss their research with Western or Western based scholars, for me, as a scholar coming from the German academic tradition, it was an immense enrichment for my academic work to get in touch with Ukrainian scholars, particularly in the field of local history. A new set of source material that I could not have heard was presented at the conference. Particularly helpful was that the organisers took care of the participants’ travel and accommodation. Finally, the guided tour through the formerly Jewish neighbourhood of Podil they offered us after the conference made our stay in Kyiv perfect.

Börries Kuzmani: I decided to join the UAJS conference this year because parts of my larger research project on non-territorial autonomy relate to the Ukrainian People’s Republic and its national minorities. As the UNR was the first country to implement non-territorial legislation (it was actually the Jewish minister Moyshe Zilberfarb who drafted the text of the law), it was obvious that I should discuss this topic with colleagues in Kyiv. I was particularly pleased to see that there was entire conference section dedicated to the UNR’s national-personal autonomy law. Unfortunately, the speaker from Moscow could not join our panel. I think it was a very good idea to include the presentation of Henry Abramson’s book (Ukrainian translation) into the conference because it is a very important book in the field. Overall, the conference was well organised, the discussions were good and, as always, the common dinner was very important for me, in particular as a non-native speaker, in order to get in closer touch with the other participants. I also appreciated the guided tour through Jewish Podil that Oleksandra Uralova gave us on the last day.

EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2017/18

REPORT

Rabbinic Instruction in Context: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Transmission of Religious Knowledge and Praxis in Antiquity and Late Antiquity

Collaborative Research Centre 1136 “Education and Religion”, University of Göttingen, 18-19 September 2017

Organizer: Dr. Elisabetta Abate (formerly: University of Göttingen, CRC 1136 “Education and Religion”; since October 2017: Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Qumran-Lexikon / research associate in the CRC 1136)

The conference proved to be a congruent enterprise and a greatly enriching encounter between scholars from within and without Rabbinics, and at various career stages. The organizer wishes to express her gratitude to the people and institutions which enabled the event to come into existence and flourish: the EAJS for including it into its Conference Grant Programme in European Jewish Studies; the Collaborative Research Centre 1136 “Education and Religion” for entrusting her, in the first place, with the event’s conception; both institutions for the generous funding. A further acknowledgement is due to the administrative personnel for their kind and assiduous assistance and to the participants and guests for the collegial spirit with which they accompanied their intellectual contribution to the conference.

This report presents the original purpose and rationale for the event, a summary of the sessions, some thoughts on the main results, the plans for the conference volume, and the event’s program. The insights contributed by the participants and guests are so abundant and diverse, that the present report can only aspire to account for the main lines along which the event unfolded. A deeper and more comprehensive reflection on the results and implications of the papers presented, the responses, and the discussions is therefore to be differed to the introduction to the conference volume.

The Purpose of the Event

The following is the event’s abstract and rationale as proposed to the EAJS:

Event’s Abstract: The conference revolves around religious education in the (late) ancient Mediterranean from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, while focusing on the role of Judaism and on Jewish Studies. In doing so, it shall examine aspects of the intra- and intercultural transmission of religious knowledge and praxis, as they emerge from the Jewish, “pagan”, Christian, and Islamic literary evidence. Each of the main papers, followed by a response, shall offer a comparative analysis of selected relevant texts, drawn from classical rabbinic literature on the one hand, and from one of the other aforementioned traditions, on the other. Through the comparative/contrastive textual reading of the literary evidence, the event shall highlight some current ways of interdisciplinary inquiry into rabbinic Judaism and related traditions, and, at the same time, explore new paths of interdisciplinary research into religious education in the orbis mediterraneus and its environment in (late) antiquity.

Event’s Rationale: As an institutional framework, the Collaborative Research Centre 1136 “Education and Religion” (“Bildung und Religion in Kulturen des Mittelmeerraums und seiner Umwelt von der Antike bis zum Mittelalter und zum Klassischen Islam”, University of Göttingen)  provides the thematic focus for the conference. At the same time, the specific key categories of religious education through which the event intends to look at rabbinic instruction (actors, contents, methods, settings, goals, and the correlations and interplay between them) can help differentiate and clarify some central aspects of the phenomenon, which sometimes appear confused or hard to grasp in the sources. Thus, on the plane of rabbinics, the encounter between the invited experts is meant to enable the exploration of rabbinic (representations of) constellations of religious education from a variety of viewpoints and sources. Not only that. The conference’s institutional framework offers a solid forum for an interdisciplinary exchange of research findings, as well as of theoretical and methodological insights. Thus, the event is meant both to explore and contextualize rabbinic religious education in its broader environment, and to promote a rich reflection on, and praxis of, interdisciplinary inquiry between Jewish Studies/rabbinics and a number of related scholarly fields (classical philology, Syriac studies, Patristics, the study of liturgical poetry, Arabic studies).

The sessions

After an informal reception of the participants and guests, the conference was opened by a welcome-address held by the hosting institution’s Director, the Church-historian Prof. Dr. Peter Gemeinhardt, followed by a round of presentations.

The conference’s opening lecture took then the form of a keynote address held by Prof. Dr. emeritus Günter Stemberger (University of Vienna), who had kindly accepted my invitation to present an overview of interdisciplinary research on rabbinic literature. Whereas his presentation was planned with an ensuing discussion but without a response, the structure of the subsequent sessions was three-fold: a comparative paper by a scholar well versed in both rabbinic literature and at least one of the fields of study investigated by the hosting institution (40 minutes); a briefer response by a member of the latter, meant to enhance the interdisciplinary conversation within the hosting institution itself, as well as to emphasize the possibility and the necessity of such an exchange in general (10 minutes); a relatively long discussion, as free from time pressure as possible (30 minutes). A certain degree of fluidity between one time slot and the next, as well as between the breaks and the sessions, certainly played a key role in encouraging a pleasant and fruitful exchange between the participants.

The presented papers, the responses, and the discussion

a) Keynote Address

“Rabbinic Literature in Interdisciplinary Perspective”, Prof. Dr. emeritus Günter Stemberger (University of Vienna)

Günter Stemberger’s keynote address emphasized the permanent contact and continuous interaction between the Rabbis and the surrounding cultures in both Palestine and Babylonia. In concentrating his attention mainly on the former, he identified four main areas which an interdisciplinary approach to rabbinic literature has to take into account.

(1) Concerning the linguistic context of this literature and Palestinian Judaism in general, he argued that a prohibition of the study of the Greek language (stated in mSotah 9:14 and including to some extent the Greek culture) would have never worked in daily life for a Palestinian Jew, with the possible exception of purely Jewish villages in the eastern part of Upper Galilee, as becomes evident through the archaeological discoveries of the past century (see, e.g., the recent Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaea-Palaestinae). He raised questions about what sort of education a young Jew would enjoy in the context of deeply Hellenised Palestine, and to what extent he would have understood the Graeco-Roman culture to which he was so intensively exposed. Fascinating examples are the representations of Greek mythology, e.g., David depicted in the synagogue of Gaza as Orpheus enchanting animals, or the artistic decorations and some of the inscriptions found in the Jewish Catacombs of Beth Shearim,  e.g., the epitaph of the Jew Justus, son of Leontius and of Sappho, with its poetic inscription in Homeric style. (For instances of the permeation of Hellenistic educational devices and literary forms into rabbinic texts see below the reports on Lorena Miralles Maciá’s and Ilaria Briata’s papers).

(2) Discussing the literary and religious context within the world of Palestinian Judaism beyond the world of the Rabbis (mainly the literature of Second Temple Judaism including,  inter alia, Philo, Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and also Babatha’s archive and the letters of Bar Kokhba), he mentioned some areas in which our understanding has enormously profited from a study of the evidence alongside rabbinic texts. For the DSS, for example, the development of religious law and the origins of midrash. (For an examination of the DSS and rabbinic texts from the conference perspective, see below the reports on Lutz Doering’s paper).

(3) He further illustrated the gain of the archaeological excavations in Roman and Byzantine Palestine and touched upon (4) the relationship between Rabbinic Judaism and the surrounding Hellenistic “pagan” and then Christian world (especially the Church Fathers, e.g., Epiphanius of Salamis, who was mentioned by Ophir Münz-Manor in his paper, and the Apophthegmata Patrum, an object of Ilaria Briata’s presentation. On both contributions, see more below).

Lastly, he mentioned the main areas of interdisciplinary study of rabbinic Judaism in its Babylonian context (linguistic influences of Persian Babylonian Aramaic, traces of the Persian administration and jurisdiction, of Persian religion and Persian magic in rabbinic texts).

Discussion: Plenty of topics were touched upon in the discussion. The emphasis on the linguistic context of the Rabbis prompted a reflection on the generally scanty attention paid to Syriac in the interdisciplinary study of rabbinic Judaism (but see below the report on Ophir Münz-Manor’s paper). It also led to ask to what extent we can deal with the mighty width of the spectrum of fields which an informed study of rabbinic literature should take into account: how to build all of them into our curriculum? The relevance of collaborative workshops such as the present event was, then, explicitly brought to the fore.

b) Rabbinic Literature and its Hellenistic Background

“Aggadic Fables. Exemplary Tales in Rabbinic Vestments”, Dr. Lorena Miralles Maciá (University of Granada)

In examining the permeability of rabbinic instruction to Hellenistic models of behavior, Lorena Miralles Maciá explored the relationship between the late ancient corpora of Aesopian fables and rabbinic literature. The latter employs, she argued, elements drawn from the former in various literary forms, either by adopting a well-known Aesopian fable more or less in its entirety, to such extent that it can be read synoptically with a given rabbinic passage, or by substantially reworking an Aesopian fable motif, which nonetheless remains recognizable even in its new rabbinic garb. For each type (“fable” and “fable motif”), she presented a case-study: bBQ 60b for a version of the fable about “the middle-aged man with two wives” (R. Ammi and R. Assi prompted their teacher, R. Isaac Nappaha, to instruct them, but one was interested exclusively in legal traditions, the other only in traditions of lore) and Lev. Rabbah 22:4 (with elements from nature and animal life which evoke fable motifs). Against the tendency to classify such Rabbinic passages as parables (meshalim), she further argued for the need of a new theoretical frame and proposed the umbrella term of “aggadic fables”, which well fits a wide definition of fable such as that proposed by Haim Schwarzbaum (cf. idem, Mishle Shu‘alim (Fox Fables) of Rabbi Berechiah Ha-Nakdan: A Study in Comparative Folklore and Fable Lore, Institute for Jewish and Arab Folklore Research, Kiron 1979, p. I).

Response: Dr. Elisabetta Abate (University of Göttingen)

I observed that Lorena Miralles Maciá’s adoption of Schwarzbaum’s definition of fable (a fictitious tale whose purpose is to communicate ideas, teach lessons, enforce precepts, or illustrate principles of conduct) is particularly apt to shed light on the transmission of knowledge and praxis through texts, be they rabbinic or not, and makes the investigation of fables fruitful for the conference and transferable to the research pursued by the hosting institution. Furthermore, I stressed how the “Aggadic fable” found at bBQ 60b seems to offer a reflection on the dynamics of rabbinic instruction (in a sort of meta-educational piece), but I challenged LMM’s thesis that it can be read entirely synoptically alongside the fable of the middle-aged man with two wives. To the contrary, I suggested that its ending reverses the moral of the Aesopian fable and stresses the unity of rabbinic tradition.

Discussion: One thread of thought regarded the dynamics, settings, audience and languages of the transmission of the “Aesopian fables” and “Aesopian fable motifs” into the rabbinic collections. A second topic was the purpose and function of the employment of “pagan” materials in the rabbinic ones (moral and educational, or rather ironic or parodic?). A third set of questions engaged the literary genres of the material, also in relation to the introductive formulae, and the notion of “Aggadic fables”.

c) Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls

“Pedagogy and ‘Curriculum’ according to the ‘Sectarian’ Texts from Qumran and Rabbinic Literature”, Prof. Dr. Lutz Doering (University of Münster)

Lutz Doering’s contribution explicitly addressed the interpretive categories laid down in the conference rationale (see above), by shedding light on aspects such as the recipients of instruction (with special attention paid to issues of age and gender); the objects, modes, and functions of study (e.g., the much debated “book of Hagi”); its stages, also in relation to the learners’ intelligence and maturity; the institutional settings (community, family, school?, study-house, synagogue, the house of a master). He did so by examining, comparing, and historically contextualizing relevant passages from the DSS (1QSa / Rule of the Congregation, 1QS / Rule of the Community, and the lines about the instruction of divorce children by the overseer in 4Q269) and rabbinic literature (a great amount of sources, from both Tannaitic and Amoraic layers). He stressed the similarities in the evidence provided by the two corpora, e.g., the stages and objects of group instruction and a missing focus on reading and writing. Among the main differences, he highlighted the mode of study, and the fact that all Qumran community members are purported as being involved in a continuous process of studying, whereas the rabbinic texts point to “higher education” as a specialization process for those who wished to become rabbis.

Response: Dr. Peter Porzig (University of Göttingen)

Peter Porzig illustrated the novelty of Lutz Doering’s reading of the selected Qumran texts (especially 1QSa). However, he challenged some points: a) the paper raises, to his mind, the impression of a neat separation between the group or groups behind the DSS and the groups that later led to rabbinic Judaism – but were there perhaps more areas of overlap between them which an interdisciplinary approach to the sources should take into account? b) Can the selected section from 1QSa truly be understood as a “sectarian” text? With this regard, he suggested that the term “book of Hagi” seems to comprise more than a sectarian way of studying and to require divine intervention rather than only discussion about Torah. In connection with that, he further asked what role the “teacher of righteousness” would play in the process described.

Discussion: In reply to one of Peter Porzig’s observations, Lutz Doering emphasized that there was certainly more than a connection between Qumran and “general Judaism”, as well as between the DSS and rabbinic literature, but both the Yaḥad and the Rabbis were elites, therefore the phenomena emerging from the evidence cannot be described as general education, but rather as distinct educational constellations. In addition to that and inter alia, a debate arose around the development of elementary teaching in Judaism, especially with regard to the significance of the Theodotos Inscription, which LD had discussed in his paper.

d) Rabbinic Literature and Liturgical Poetry – Hebrew Piyyut and Syriac Madrasha

“From the House of Study to the House of Worship: Hebrew and Syriac Liturgical Poems on the Dispute between Body and Soul”, Prof. Dr. Ophir Münz-Manor (Open University of Israel)

Ophir Münz-Manor argued that late ancient liturgical poetry did not amount to a mere versification of rabbinic and patristic discourses, but rather played a central and distinct role in the formation and dissemination of religious knowledge, especially for lay and illiterate segments of the population, both Jewish and Christian. In virtue of that, he advocated first of all an integration of the study of rabbinic texts and piyyutim. Secondly, he called attention to the relationship between Jewish and Christian, especially Syriac, discourses and texts. To illustrate the gain of this approach, he presented Jewish and Christian texts in prose and verse dealing with the mutual responsibility of the body and the soul in committing sins. The presence of the topic in both midrash and piyyut demonstrate the coexistence of both literary media in Jewish society. The striking similarities between the Jewish and the Christian texts, both in content and in the formal and stylistic traits, point to interactions between their composers.

Response: PD Dr. Dmitrij Bumazhnov (University of Göttingen)

Dmitrij Bumazhnov engaged in envisioning possible lines of development of the comparative study proposed by OMM. Here are some of the questions he drafted: a) one of the functions of Byzantine liturgy was to preserve and transmit religious dogma, which presupposes that liturgical poetry adequately expresses the faith of the Church and remains unchanged over a long period of time. Does it hold true for Jewish liturgy?  b) Given the structural similarities between piyyut and the Syriac madrashe, what can be asked about the didactic elements of both genres? What is the role of choir, poet, soloist and audience with regard to their didactic character? c) Do some strata in both the Hebrew and Syriac material imply a polemic against conflicting views of the relationship between body and soul?

Discussion: The following is a sample of the many threads of thought which unfolded in the discussion: it was stressed that a distinction between the teacher’s or theologian’s role and the poet’s role is not relevant to the Christian tradition, but is clear-cut in the Jewish one, in that there is no piyyut in Rabbinic Literature. The comprehensibility of the language of the piyyut was dealt with and compared to the intelligibility of the Mishnah. The educational function of the refrain in the piyyut was highlighted. It was asked on which evidence our knowledge about the relationship between the liturgical poets and the synagogue relies. Attention was called to the ritualization of both Jewish and Christian religiosities in the 5^th and 6^th centuries.

e) Rabbinic and Eastern Christian Monastic and Apologetic Literatures

“It is Hard to Teach Orally What Has Not Been Practiced Physically: Ethics, Etiquette, and Education in Rabbinic and Monastic Literature”, Dr. Ilaria Briata (University of Verona)

Ilaria Briata addressed the interplay of religious education and practical instruction in rabbinic Judaism and eremitic monasticism, as they are articulated in a set of instructions for a polished social conduct in Derek Ereṣ Rabbah and the Apophthegmata Patrum. She demonstrated that, despite remarkable differences in origin and worldview, both corpora employ an adjusted form of the Hellenistic chreia in order to convey practical wisdom and the norms regulating the community, and are therefore comparable. In her reading, she organized the texts under three rubrics: “Fasting guests and feasting hosts”, “The spoiled meal”, and “Disgust, taste, and tact”. She defined them as instances of how two religious micro-societies narratively represented their habitus and argued that the monastic texts tend towards an ascetic conception of conduct and education, whereas the rabbinic discourse on manners promotes the individual’s full integration into the broader society.

Response: Prof. Dr. Peter Gemeinhardt (University of Göttingen)

Peter Gemeinhardt endorsed IB’s resorting to the notion of habitus and stressed a common methodological presupposition between her study and the approach adopted by the hosting institution in investigating religious education in late antiquity, that is, that contemporary methods and notions are applicable to pre-modern times. Further, he agreed on the assertion that early monasticism, as well as rabbinic Judaism, broadly and actively adapted the chreia as a pedagogic and literary device meant to promote the lifestyle of a cultural or religious elite, but challenged the claim that both corpora aim at providing instruction about sociality in everyday life and asked whom they really meant to instruct.

Discussion: The question of the audience (or readership) for which both corpora were conceived, or which made use of them, was the main topic in the discussion. It was observed that, whereas the readership of monastic literature is relatively easy to identify and goes beyond the eremitic circles, it is hard to say who the intended and actual audiences of DER were. In this regard, it was asked whether DER constitutes in itself a form of popularization of rabbinic culture, or it collects materials meant for the learned ones in the communities, who would employ them in their public homilies and teaching sessions for a broader public.

The main results

Reflecting back on the planned outcomes of the event and my own expectations, in this report I wish to characterize the process as an achievement per se, in that it succeeded in practicing the complex kind of scholarly conversation needed for making our grasp of Judaism in the ancient world more and more comprehensive and nuanced.  The main result lies therefore in the fact that our exchange contributed to integrating distinct cultural traditions and cultural streams (the latter within Judaism), and their respective literary corpora and material remains, into a wider framework. Furthermore, by indicating points of comparison, we highlighted areas of overlap between the traditions under scrutiny. This is not to deny the importance of identifying their respective specific features and the dissimilarities between them. It amounts rather to an integration, as opposed to a fragmentation, of knowledge and of questions within our frames of mind and relates to the way in which we arrange our knowledge about the ancient and late ancient world. It is my hope that this process may be continued, which will be certainly one of the tasks of the planned conference volume. A further task of the latter will be to document the concrete conclusions which were drawn by the participants from the comparative investigation of the materials, both in terms of specific educational constellations in the orbis mediterraneus in (late) antiquity, and as far as the interdisciplinary transferability of our research questions and methods is concerned.

The conference volume

The main written output of the event will consist in a volume collecting and connecting the papers presented and a series of additional papers, to be published under my editorship by the publishing house Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht in Göttingen. The areas to be further covered by the volume and the authors to invite were initially identified by way of brainstorming by the participants in the last session of the conference. Currently, I am defining the book’s final plan and details. A last remark about the responses offered by Peter Porzig, Dmitrij Bumazhnov, and Peter Gemeinhardt is due at this point. Although they are not planned to develop into full-fledged papers, as integral components of the conference they provided an invaluable tool to enhance our understanding of the papers and their relevance from an interdisciplinary perspective. I will be glad to rely on them as sources of knowledge and further inspiration while writing the introduction to the volume.

The Programme of the Event

18 September

14:00-14.30	Reception and Introduction	Dr. Elisabetta Abate and Prof. Dr. Peter Gemeinhardt (Göttingen)
14:30-ca. 15:15	Keynote Address	Prof. Dr. Günter Stemberger (Vienna):  “Rabbinic Literature in Interdisciplinary Perspective”
ca. 15:15-15:30	Discussion
15:30-16:20	Rabbinic Literature and Hellenistic Background	Dr. Lorena Miralles Maciá (Granada) “Aggadic Fables. Exemplary Tales in Rabbinic Vestments” / Respondent: Dr. Elisabetta Abate (Göttingen)
16:20-16:50	Discussion
16:50-17:20	Break
17:20-18:10	Rabbinic Literature and Dead Sea Scrolls	Prof. Dr. Lutz Doering (Münster): “Pedagogy and ‘Curriculum’ according to the ‘Sectarian’ Texts from Qumran and Rabbinic Literature” / Respondent: Dr. Peter Porzig (Göttingen)
18:10-18:40	Discussion
ca. 19:00	Dinner

19 September

9:00-9:50	Rabbinic Literature and Liturgical Poetry – Hebrew Piyyut and Syriac Madrasha	Prof. Dr. Ophir Münz-Manor (Jerusalem) “From the House of Study to the House of Worship: Hebrew and Syriac Liturgical Poems on the Dispute between Body and Soul” / Respondent: PD Dr. Dmitrij Bumazhnov (Göttingen)
9:50-10:20	Discussion
10:20-10:40	Break
10:40-11:30	Rabbinic and Eastern Christian Monastic and Apologetic Literatures	Dr. Ilaria Briata (Verona):  “It is Hard to Teach Orally What Has Not Been Practiced Physically: Ethics, Etiquette, and Education in Rabbinic and Monastic Literature”/ Respondent: Prof. Dr. Peter Gemeinhardt (Göttingen)
11:30-12:00*	Brainstorming about the potential further contributors to the conference volume	Plenary session
12:00-13:30	Lunch and farewell

 * A further session was planned about Rabbinic and Islamic Literature, with Prof. Dr. emeritus Stefan Schreiner (University of Tübingen) as the main speaker, and Dr. Yassir El Jamouhi (University of Göttingen) as his respondent. Unfortunately Prof. Schreiner had to withdraw on grounds of ill health.

Link (flyer, poster, and event’s description): https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/568747.html

Report’s Author: Dr. Elisabetta Abate (with further thanks to Ilaria Briata, Lorena Miralles Maciá, Peter Porzig, Irene Salvo and James Tucker for their Mitdenken about the content of the present report)

EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2016/17

REPORT

Report on the Summer School “Jews and Christians between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean: Co-existence and Conflict”, 10-21 July 2017, Central European University (CEU), Budapest

Organisers: István Perczel (CEU), Alexandra Cuffel (Ruhr University Bochum [RUB])

Report prepared by István Perczel

Introduction

The course was organised as the first popularising event for the ERC project “Jews and Christians in the East: Strategies of Interaction between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean”; a European Research Council project based at the Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and carried out in cooperation with the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at CEU. The principal investigator of the project is Alexandra Cuffel, Professor of Jewish Studies at Ruhr University Bochum. During the five-year duration of the project, we plan four such summer schools, which we deem to be one of the most powerful means for distributing the new knowledge gained through our research. Thanks to the generous grant received from the EAJS, we could offer fellowships and support to students coming from all over the world (India, the Caucasus, Israel, Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia and throughout Europe), who might not have been able to participate otherwise. These students were exposed to the results of the latest research into the history and the culture of the Jewish populations of the East and into their contacts and interaction with their Christian neighbours. In exchange, the students contributed to our subjects with their own, often ground-breaking, research. Our experience is that this construction is a powerful means not only for disseminating new knowledge in this field but also for gaining it.

The original mission statement (event rationale)

Here I provide an abridged version of the original proposal for the summer school as it was submitted to Central European University:

a) Statement of purpose:

Aim and subject of the summer school: This course will introduce students to the ways in which Jews and Christians interacted in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Caucasus and the Indian Ocean in the period 600-1800; that is, from the beginning of Islam to the defeat and death of Tippu Sultan, marking the takeover of the colonial power of the Medieval trade routes. Thus, the course will examine and present Jewish-Christian relations in the East, in diverse regions and cultures within the period of the rise and expansion of Islam, from Arabia and via Persia before and during the expansion of the colonial European powers.

Importance of the SUN course: The course will highlight and disseminate at all levels research performed in a European network, and will contribute to the enhancement of CEU’s mission of being a bridge-institution between East and West. It contributes to the research and teaching programs of two dynamic research centres at CEU, namely the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies and the Center for Religious Studies. Moreover, the course is expected to contribute to the social, political and cultural analysis of areas that are currently acute conflict zones. The methods will employ a critical evaluation of the underlying historical trends of interreligious, multi-ethnic and inter-communal relations. Therefore, the course targets both historians and students of contemporary issues in the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia. The course is aimed at providing basic tools for cultural competence that is indispensable in both the academia and the political and state-management job markets. In this way, this SUN program is also linked to the university-wide intellectual theme of the “Social Mind”; the course seeks to bridge the gap between the social sciences, anthropology and political science on the one hand, and the typical humanities oriented towards textual studies, art-history, archaeology, history and linguistics on the other hand.

b) Targeted audience and required skills

The targeted audience is advanced PhD and MA students, young researchers, advanced BA students (requires special approval). The call for applications will address students of history and culture as well as of contemporary studies in both the humanities and the social sciences, who would benefit from a deeper understanding and the reconceptualization of contemporary zones of conflict and religious tension in the regions under investigation.

Required skills: (1. historians) background in the history of at least one of the regions being covered. Familiarity with at least one “classical” language such as Arabic, Syriac/Aramaic, Hebrew, Persian, or in a medieval vernacular language such as: Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopian, Malayalam, or, alternately, training in art history, material culture or archaeology of one of the regions specified above. (2. social sciences students) enhanced acquaintance – linguistic, political or cultural – with at least one nation-state included in the region under scrutiny.

How to bridge between the disciplinary fields: The course will provide an interdisciplinary teaching method built into its structure: introductory lectures before a diverse audience of students followed by discussions will form the fundamental teaching, while the – often elective – tutorials will address smaller groups and give in-depth disciplinary training in textual analysis (source-language training) or fieldwork (anthropological/archeological methods).

c) Brief overview of the course

On the subject: Whereas the social and inter-religious encounters of Jews and Christians have been thoroughly studied in Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, Central Asia, East Africa and Southeast Asia remain under-researched in this respect. This topic is the focus of a research group at the Ruhr-University-Bochum and CEU, entitled “Jews and Christians between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean”, funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant, which intends to organise a series of summer schools based alternately at CEU Budapest and at RUB in Bochum. The present course will be the first in a series, inaugurating its aims and methods.

On the research group/teaching body: The group consists of Alexandra Cuffel (Principal Investigator, RUB), Barbara Roggema, Zara Pogossian, Sophia Dege-Müller and Ophira Gamliel (RUB), Verena Krebs, Bar Kribus (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), István Perczel and Radu Mustaţă (CEU).

On the ERC project: Until this project, the study of Jewish-Christian interactions during the Middle Ages and the early modern period had focused on the asymmetrical power relationship in which Jews were a minority group living within a dominant Christian or Muslim culture. Such research had been extensive especially in the context of medieval Western Europe and, more recently, the Byzantine Empire and the Caliphates. This historiographic bias necessarily implies that previous studies had focussed on majority-minority relations. The project explores Jewish-Christian relations in the Muslim world, in Eastern Christian kingdoms and in polytheist South India, examining the relevant sources written in Coptic, Arabic, Syriac, Ge’ez, Armenian, Georgian and Malayalam after the late antique period. The underlying postulation is that inter-relational paradigms of conflicts and collaborations evolve in diverse ways depending on changing balances of power and regional factors beyond the dogmas and belief systems at the ‘universal’ core of the three Abrahamic religions.

On the course: The instructors will introduce participants to the complex dynamics of Jewish-Christian interaction as outlined above in three major patterns:

1) Jews and Christians under Christian monarchies in the ‘buffer states’ between the Christian and the Islamicate world: Ethiopia, Armenia, Georgia;

2) Jews and Christians under Islam: Eastern Mediterranean and Persia;

3) Jews, Christians and Muslims as minorities in South Asia. in Southeast Asia and India.

Knowledge and skills to be acquired in the course:

The course is about imparting knowledge but, even more so, about imparting skills. These will be theoretical and methodological/linguistic skills.

1) Theoretical skills

• Participating students will deconstruct various stereotypes, including the “civilizational model”, which postulates and essentializes independent “cultures” or “civilizations” that allegedly developed on their own and were united into a global economic and cultural system only through the colonial conquests and the subsequent opening of free trade across the oceans. Instead, our research shows a global world avant la lettre.
• Participating students will be encouraged to examine how religions and related cultural phenomena developed in interaction – both through co-existence and through conflict alike. Such an approach to analysing the pre-modern past will encourage students to realize that religious identities and the forces that influence religious interactions are as complex in the modern world as they were in the past. The course aims at alerting the participants to the problems facing modern decision-makers in approaching contemporary conflicts through the concepts of “civilizations” determined by religions, and through their eventual “clash”, deemed inevitable according to the presently accepted theories.

The format for learning these skills will be lectures/discussions.

2) Methodological/linguistic skills:

• Participating students will be introduced to little known linguistic and philological phenomena, such as the role of religiolects and minority community-based scriptures, such as the use of the Judaeo-Arabic, Christian Arabic, Judaeo-Persian, Christian Persian, Jewish Malayalam and Syro-Malayalam dialects, the use of the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic alphabets for writing foreign languages etc. These will be taught at the advanced and the basic levels according to the needs of the students.
• Participating students will be introduced to the monuments and the methodological tools to deal with elements of the communities’ material culture: artworks, architecture, manuscripts.

The main format for learning these skills will be tutorials in smaller groups.

A note on the application procedure: As students will be invited to present their particular research topic and discuss it with their peers and the instructors, a description of the students’ research topic and a proposal for the questions to be discussed will be part of the application material.

Narrative Report on the Summer Course

General issues

The course was planned as a two-week programme. Nobody could foresee that the summer school would fall within a troubled period of the life of Central European University, when its survival in Hungary became questioned because of the political upheaval around the university and its founder, Mr George Soros. Yet, there were only very few cancellations, so that we were able to hold the summer school with 20 students, who earnestly participated in the programs. The level of those selected was very high, as testified to by the research proposals and definitively proven by the student presentations at the end. The required readings were uploaded before the beginning of the course to the course’s e-learning website (http://sunlearning.ceu.hu/course/view.php?id=460), so that the students may study them before coming to Budapest. During the course, additional material, such as the power-point presentations used at the lectures, additional readings, material requested by the students and student presentations, were added to the website.

The general concept was to apply a uniform schedule throughout the course: in the first morning session, a general introduction to a general or area-specific subject; in the second morning session, discussion of the readings; in the first afternoon section, introduction to a source language permitting to study Jewish-Christian relations in the East: Judeo-Arabic, Syriac, Ge’ez, Georgian, Classical Armenian and Malayalam, as well as to the handling of objects belonging to material culture; in the fourth afternoon session, reading texts in the original, or in translation, or reading objects of material culture. We scheduled the student presentations for the last two days.

Somewhat beyond our own expectations, there were enough students capable of reading texts in some of the source languages, namely Syriac, Malayalam and Ge’ez. However, there was general interest in all the source languages, so that we were presenting texts in a mixed manner: while the Judeo-Arabic, Syriac, Armenian and Malayalam texts were given to the students, we discussed the texts in English translation, either from accepted translations, or prepared by us for the sake of the summer course. These language classes were particularly engaging: Barbara Roggema, while discussing the Syriac version of the Christian Bahira legend – a text of crucial importance for Jewish-Christian relations under early Muslim rule – engaged those in the audience knowing Syriac to translate the text orally into English, so that the whole group, consisting mainly of people not knowing Syriac, were able to follow and enjoy the readings as well as entering the discussion. In a similar way, Ophira Gamliel could give a part of the Malayalam text of the Keralolpatti (“The Origins of Kerala”), on the conversion of the Cheraman Perumal to Islam, as there were students from Kerala and members of the faculty, who were able to read Malayalam. Sophia Dege-Müller gave two well-constructed classes on Ge’ez; one was an introduction to the script and phonology, and the second was reading the source language with three capable students, while the others remained seated to enjoy an unmediated contact with the language, regardless of their ignorance, as was also the case with the other language classes. The rest of the language classes first introduced the respective languages, and, then, turned to reading texts in English translations. Importantly, all the primary source material dealt with interreligious subjects and topics.

Thanks to the generous funding received from diverse sources – the EAJS, the ERC and CEU – the long programme of the summer school was interspersed with social events. There was a reception in the evening of the first day for all the students and faculty, an excursion to the picturesque city of Szentendre in the week-end, where the museum tickets and the lunch of the entire group was covered, a faculty dinner organised, as well as other outdoor events, such as a musical concert by two students, Hugo Maat, who played the piano, and Mark Aranha, who was playing the guitar and singing his own compositions. Arnab Dutta sang a chant by Rabindranath Tagore.

Detailed Report on the Summer Course

Here we provide an updated version of the course syllabus, including corrections for how the courses actually ran:

Week I

Day 1, morning sessions

Introduction

First, István Perczel presented the aims and prospects of the summer school. This was followed by all the teaching team members, the students and the course coordinator introducing themselves to the community. Then, Alexandra Cuffel presented the motivation and scope of research into Eastern Jewish and Christian relations. She used a colourful Powerpoint presentation, Jews and Christians in the East: Strategies of Interaction between the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, 500-1800, which illustrated the framework of the ERC-funded research project, which is the basis both for the research of the team and for the summer course.

Subject no. 1: Concepts and Theories of Otherness

Alexandra Cuffel and Barbara Roggema

The introductory lecture into the subject of ‘otherness’ was given by Alexandra Cuffel, who examined broadly various theories of othering, particularly as they had been applied to religious and ethnic minorities in medieval Europe and Byzantium. Then, we discussed the degree and ways in which these models may apply to medieval and early modern Jewish-Christian groups in Caucasus, West and Central Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, Ethiopia and South India.

The discussion of the readings was led by Barbara Roggema. She patiently guided the students through a philosophical-logical text on Otherness, demonstrating an important aspect of our project, namely interdisciplinarity, bridging the gap between specific issues in medieval studies and frontline post-colonial contemporary studies.

Afternoon session: Source Languages – Introduction

Every language teacher introduced the respective language and sources in 15 minutes, with a few words about the programme for the coming two weeks.

Evening: reception for all the participants

Day 2, morning sessions

Inter-religious Relations: Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean

Ophira Gamliel and István Perczel

The Eastern Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean constituted a vast area of long-distance trade routes of transfer of goods and cultural exchange. The political powers in the respective regions kept on shifting through the centuries, as from the Roman Empire to the Byzantine and, later on, the Umayyads, Abbasids, Seljuqs, Mamluks etc. in the Eastern Mediterranean. In Central Asia, the Sassanian Empire gave way to the Abbasids, Ghaznavids and Safavids. In South India, there were also rising and vanishing states and dominant dynasties such as the Chola, Pandya and Chera. Opposed to this, the structure of the trade networks remained more or less the same in the longue durée. Religious minorities, such as Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, Muslims in the South, Jews, Christians, Manicheans and others in the North formed interreligious trade guilds and were the main actors of this transmission.

On this background, two presentations were made, one by István Perczel on Arabian Sea trade and the pre-modern Oikumene – this treated the subject from the 1^st to the 9^th century, with a little outlook to later development – and one by Ophira Gamliel on Interreligious Relations between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean 900s-1500s, treating the continuation.

As the two presentations occupied much time and there was intense debate, there remained little time for discussing the readings.

Afternoon sessions: Introduction to Arabic and Judeo-Arabic

Alexandra Cuffel and Barbara Roggema

What are the sources in Arabic and Judeo-Arabic relevant for the study of the history of inter-religious relations between Eastern Jews and Christians? This class was a general introduction to the language family of Hebrew and Arabic and on issues concerning palaeography and codicology.

Source Readings in Arabic and Judeo-Arabic

Guided readings in Christian Arabic and Judeo-Arabic (supplemented with translations)

Day 3, morning sessions

Conversion, conquest and cultural transfer in the Caucasus and Anatolia

Zara Pogossian and Stephen Rapp

This lecture had two foci. On the one hand, conversion to Christianity in Southern Caucasus and narratives about conversion were discussed. In this part of the lecture, the role of the Jews and Judaism as well as of Jerusalem was compared and set against the backdrop of each other in the Caucasian conversion narratives. Then, the kind of attitudes (or changes of attitudes) towards Jews that seem to take place after Islamic conquests were discussed, as they are traced in the sources. These attitudes were placed in a larger Persian context and its integration with and into early Christian and Jewish sources.

Discussion of Readings

Afternoon session: Introduction to Material Culture

Verena Krebs

How to read something that does not necessarily contain writing? And what role can non-written, material sources play in our study of medieval history? This class presented a case study to demonstrate the possibilities involved in the emerging field of medieval art-historiography, where material sources are not used to merely illustrate or supplement information gathered from written sources but are ‘read’ as independent, complementary historical sources in their own right.

Source Readings of Material Culture Objects

The aim of this class was to look at a number of material culture sources – from murals and icons to objects of everyday life – to tease out what this category of historical sources may reveal about Jewish-Christian interaction in pre-modern times. After a brief discussion of the readings, the class was continued outside CEU, in a more informal context.

Day 4, morning sessions

Identity and community as factual fiction or fictitious fact

Alexandra Cuffel and Sophia Dege-Müller

The idea or understanding of a “Jewish” identity was perceived in very different ways according to context. An “Israelite” background might have had a very positive connotation, while a “Jewish” one was often equated with being a heretic. Yet it was clearly understood from the Christian perspective that Jews and Christians shared the same communal origin, while the origin of Muslims was taken as something else. This class was focusing on such modes of referring to communities and how these modes changed or adapted according to purpose and needs at a given time.

Discussion of Readings

Afternoon sessions: Introduction to Georgian

Stephen Rapp

This class presented the history of the script and of literary evolution from a comparative perspective with Armenian language and literature. Also, it introduced the students to the sources on the history of the Georgian language, especially those relevant for the study of Jewish-Christian relations in ancient and medieval Georgia.

Georgian Source Reading

Selected portions of medieval Georgian literature were read, namely from the Moktsevai Kartlisai (“Conversion of Kartli”) and the Kartlis Tskhovreba (“History of Kartli”). As there was nobody in the audience knowing Georgian, all the texts were read in English.

Day 5, morning sessions

Deciphering Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Apocalyptic Traditions

Barbara H Roggema and Zara Pogossian

Apocalyptic sources, especially those that fall into the category of “political apocalypses”, often become vectors of inter-religious polemic. This lecture provided a brief theoretical background to the genre of apocalyptic sources. Then, some of the topoi that appear in this type of texts with regard to Jews were discussed, for example in relation to the Antichrist or the “Life of the Antichrist”, but also theological reflections about Jews and the End of the World, giving rise to different responses and different configurations. The lecture stressed the difficulty of simple classifications of “positive” or “negative” attitudes towards the religious “Others” as emerges in these texts.

Discussion on Readings

Afternoon sessions: Introduction to Syriac

Radu Mustaƫă

The class introduced the Aramaic language family and the place of Classical Syriac and of Modern Aramaic dialects within it. The three traditions of writing and pronouncing Classical Syriac were presented, namely Eastern/Nestorian, Western/Jacobite and Melkite, with a detour to Syriac in India. The class briefly dealt with writing systems, the use of the dots, the introduction of vowel signs in the 8th-9th centuries, Garshuni scripts (Syriac alphabet used to write Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Malayalam), the range and scope of Syriac literature, and also with Classical Syriac in the Middle Ages and in Modernity.

Syriac Source Reading

Barbara H. Roggema and István Perczel

Sources on Jews from the Middle East and India were confronted. Barbara Roggema presented the Christian Bahira Legend, while Radu Mustaƫă and István Perczel presented Kadavil Chandy Kattanar’s newly found poems on the Hebrew and Syriac languages. The aim of the confrontation was to show that while the image of the Jews in the Middle East is negative and polemical, in India it is rather friendly.

Day 6, Excursion to the city of Szentendre, visiting museums, lunch covered by the summer course in a Serbian restaurant

Week II

Day 1, morning sessions

Shared Religious Practices and Cultural Diversity

Ophira Gamliel and Alexandra Cuffel

Jews and Christians in the Islamic world and beyond have shared many religious practices with Muslims and with each other. The most prominent example is of shared festivals and pilgrimage sites. The presentation discussed the relation between sharing sacred spaces and times, the formation of trade networks and the impact of the two on cultural diversity.

Discussion on Readings

Afternoon sessions: Introduction to Ge’ez

Sophia Dege-Müller

The class gave the students an introduction to the written heritage of Christians and Jews in Ethiopia. It introduced the relevant sources and how to access and work with them. Here the specificity is that there is no such thing as Ethiopian Jewish literature proper as the tradition of the Beta Israel is purely oral. Yet, Jews were using Christian manuscripts for their own purposes and corrected them. The class also provided a brief outline of sources available in Ge’ez and discussed literary Ethiopian Christian topoi about Jews from collections of Marian miracles as well as anti-Judaic excerpts from the writings coming from Zar’a Ya’qob (15th century).

Ge’ez Source Reading

Selected passages from collections of Marian miracles as well as anti-Judaic excerpts from the writings coming from Zar’a Ya’qob were read.

Day 2, morning sessions

Jews and Christians in Contact: The Archaeological Evidence

Bar Kribus

What premodern archaeological sources exist for the study of Jewish-Christian contact and interactions? Do such sources simply demonstrate literal co-existence of both groups in the same locations? In Armenia, the discovery of a Jewish graveyard upended assumptions about Jewish life based on written sources over the last few years and, in Ethiopia, both Jews and Christians formed monastic groups and maintained monasteries, whose archaeological remains have recently garnered scholarly attention. The session presented examples of archaeological source material and showed how archaeological studies and historical research can reveal hitherto unexplored – and unexpected – facets of Jewish-Christian history.

Jewish customs in Ethiopian Christianity and the Beta Israel: Archaeological and Anthropological Evidence

Instead of the originally planned discussion on readings, Bar Kribus presented the Jewish traits in Ethiopian Christianity, as well as the evidence on the history, the customs and the archaeological remains of the Beta Israel, treating also the theories about their origins.

Afternoon sessions: Introduction to Malayalam

Ophira Gamliel

The class presented the linguistic and literary history of Malayalam as inherently related to the advent of the Arabs along the Indian Ocean maritime trade routes. Issues such as script, dialects, language documentation and regional literature were treated, and a brief survey was given on the sources relevant for the study of the sociocultural history of Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Malayalam-speaking region.

Source Readings in Malayalam

Selected sections from Christian and Hindu sources were read in comparative view and in relation to the history of inter-religious relations.

Day 3, morning sessions

Oral Sources for the History of Jewish-Christian Relations

Ophira Gamliel and Bar Kribus

The study of the history of minorities in certain regions – and especially in South India and in Ethiopia – is often obstructed by the lack of written sources and archaeological evidence. For this reason, scholars tend to relate to oral narratives and linguistic practices and infer from them about the past. While this is problematic, it can nevertheless serve as a tool in a critical construction of the history of such minority groups and their inter-religious relations. Some results of fieldwork in interviews and language documentation and their implications on the broader field of the history of inter-minorities relations were presented.

Discussion on Readings

Afternoon sessions: Introduction to Classical Armenian

Zara Pogossian

The lecture provided a basic introduction to Armenian (classical Armenian, later developments and basic notions on the dialects). Then, students were introduced into the kind of sources preserved in this language. Thus, Agathangelos, Movses Khorenatsi, Paustos Buzant, Sebeos were briefly presented, with their relevant information on Jewish-Christian relations, be those real or imagined.

This was followed by Classical Armenian Source Reading, which turned out a slow and focused reading under Pogossian’s guidance, who inspired the students to engage in textual hermeneutic practices.

Excerpts from the aforementioned sources in English translation were read and analysed.

Day 4, morning sessions

World History beyond the Civilisational Model

István Perczel and Verena Krebs

The purpose of this class was to summarise the classes taken during the summer course with conclusive remarks on related theoretical concerns. The claim was made that the unfolding history of Eastern Jewish-Christian relations as presented during the summer school is seriously challenging the “civilisational model” until recently dominating the historical sciences, public discourse and, even political decision making. István Perczel gave a brief history of the civilizational model. During the discussion we questioned the claim of authorities such as Weber, Jaspers, Spengler, Toynbee and, more recently, Eisenstein and Huntington, that postulates separate homogenous “civilisational units” more or less corresponding to empires and based on religion. It was proposed that, rather, we find an interconnected network with durable structures, resisting ephemeral political change and creating a world economy and world culture with smaller economic and cultural units organically living within the whole. An alternative model is needed to address the role of religious and other minorities as mediators between socioeconomic sub-units within larger political and cultural complexes.

Instead of a discussion on readings, Verena Krebs gave a presentation on recent changes in the conception of Medieval Studies as also witnessed by the last International Congress of Medieval Studies in Leeds, which testifies to a post-colonial, subaltern and gendered turn in the field.

The afternoon sessions were dedicated to student presentations.

In the evening, students were giving a concert: Hugo Maat was playing the piano, Mark Aranha was playing the guitar and singing his own compositions, while Arnab Dutta sang a poem by Rabindranath Tagore.

Day 5 was dedicated to student presentations and to a concluding discussion.

What we have learned and the tasks ahead

The original idea was to distribute to a wider audience the results of innovative research into the everyday contacts and relations of Jews and Christians in the East, in a context that, before our project, had received hardly any attention in the research on Jewish-Christian relations. The summer school, perhaps not entirely anticipated as such, turned out as an opportunity for us to engage in each other’s research. The challenge to translate new results for a wider, non-specialist audience coincides with the challenge to understand our own results at a deeper level and to be able to set our own specific research, restricted to certain areas and languages, into the larger picture. Thus, perhaps, we have learned from each other as much as the students. Also, we have received very high-level student contributions; Some students presented ground-breaking research, not necessarily in our specific field of medieval inter-religious encounters, though all of them were about some sort of inter-religious and cross-cultural exchanges. Thus, we have decided to maintain the scholarly network created by the summer course, to remain in contact with our younger colleagues, and to involve them, as far as possible, in the JewsEast research.

Hopefully these trends will be consolidated through the summer schools of the next years. We have received abundant student feed-back, which we will incorporate in our future endeavours aimed at public outreach and the dissemination of the research results.

Planned outcomes

The most important continuation is the next summer school, which will take place in Bochum, at the Ruhr University, in the summer of 2018. The publications are those of the ERC project, which are in the pipeline. Because our intention is to maintain the network created for the course, the e-learning website will be live at least for one more year after the end of the course. During this year, all the participants, instructors and students alike, will have access to the website and will be able to download material directly, or to upload material via the coordinator of the summer course. The students were encouraged to approach us for further tuition, information on activities and contributions for publishing or presenting in the framework of the ERC-funded project.

The actual programme of the event, including the necessary changes

Link for the programme of the event, as it was advertised on the course website. For the necessary changes, please see the narrative report above.

For more information, please visit the course website at: https://summeruniversity.ceu.edu/jewschristians-2017