
The conference will highlight issues related to the peculiarities of the organization of field research and work in modern Jewish communities of the post-Soviet space.
Organizers: Jewish Museum and tolerance center, Center of Slavic -Jewish Studies Of the Institute of Slavic studies RAS, Center “Sefer”
Venue: Jewish Museum and tolerance center; Institute of Slavic studies, 32 A Leninsky Prospekt, building B, auditorium 901
The specificity of the “Jewish” field will be discussed, and a review of new research in the field of Jewish archaeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, sociology and epigraphy will be held.
We will talk about the results of the summer season 2019, prospects and plans for new research.
At the end of the conference, participants will present new collections of articles and monographs based on field materials of recent years.
Entrance to the conference is strictly by registration.
If you have questions, contact sefer@sefer.ru

The opening of a photo exhibition by Rudolf Klein that presents a brief survey of synagogues converted into museums and galleries in Hungary, Austria, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. The exhibit runs until January 16, 2020.
The opening includes talks (in English) by Klein, Polish researcher Natalia Romik, and Professor Thomas Gergely.
Prior registration is required. Click here
The event is organized in collaboration with the Great Synagogue of Europe, the Balassi Institute, the Polish Institute and the Austrian Cultural Forum.
Experts from Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Great Britain will meet for a Herrenhausen Symposium at Herrenhausen Palace in Hanover to discuss the issue of reusing church buildings for the first time from a European comparative view. The intention is to develop new perspectives.
The target audience are persons responsible in church, monument preservation and politics, academics, members of educational institutions and all those interested in the topic. The symposium addresses an expanded public, convinced that churches are public buildings that ultimately belong to the public. An important aspect of the symposium is the involvement of young scientists and young professionals as well as society stakeholders or volunteers that are active in this field.
The discussions have relevance also for the adaptive reuse of synagogue buildings.
Click here to see details and program
Experts from Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Great Britain will meet for a Herrenhausen Symposium at Herrenhausen Palace in Hanover to discuss the issue of reusing church buildings from a European comparative view. The intention is to develop new perspectives.
See details and program at web site

Center “Sefer” in cooperation with the Center for Slavic-Jewish studies the Institute of Slavic studies organizes the Twenty-seventh international conference on Jewish studies to be held in Moscow, 31 January – 2 February 2021
The conference program is expected to include sections reflecting traditional areas of Judaism (biblical and Talmudic studies, Jewish thought, Jewish history of different periods, Judeo-Christian relations, the Holocaust, Israeli studies, languages and literature, art, Ethnology, demography, genealogy, museums and archives, etc.). Topics that allow for an interdisciplinary approach to research are welcome. Reports of graduate students and young researchers, as shown by the positive experience of the past few years, are included in the youth panels of the conference with the participation of specially invited debaters.
If you wish to propose a panel, please send its description in English and Russian to sefer@sefer.ru.
Graduate students and young researchers are invited to take part in the youth panels of the conference, moderated by the leading specialists in their fields of study.
Presentation of last year publications on Jewish studies will also take place.
Please complete the online application form not later than October 1, 2020

The Symposium on Swedish Synagogue Architecture (1795–1870) and the Cultural Milieu of the Early Jewish Immigrants to Sweden will take place on Zoom, on April 19, 2021.
It is organized by the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University, the University of Potsdam, and the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, with the support of the Stockholm Jewish Museum.
To attend, click this link to register: http://bit.ly/2021-04-19
The opening presentation will be of particular interest, an overview by Daniel Leviathan of his PhD dissertation project, “Jewish Sacred Architecture in the Nordic Countries 1684-1939.”
Besides Leviathan, speakers will include Vladimir Levin and Sergey Kravtsov, of the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem; Ilia Rodov of Bar Ilan University; Maja Hultman, of the Centre for European Research and Department of Historical Studies at University of Gothenburg Centre for Business History in Stockholm; Mirko Przystawik, of Bet Tfila – Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe, Technische Universität Braunschweig; Yael Fried, of The Jewish Museum of Stockholm; and Carl Henrik Carlsson, of The Hugo Valentin Centre, Department of History, Uppsala University.

A one-day international online conference called “Jewish Crossroads: Between Italy and Eastern Europe” organized by the Foundation for Jewish Cultural Heritage in Italy and the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The close contacts between Italy and eastern Europe have evolved over the centuries and Jews have been an integral part of this relationship.
The most known examples of Italian influences on eastern European Jews are the construction of synagogues in Poland and Lithuania by Italian architects; Jewish medics from Italy practicing in noble east European courts; or the selling of Hebrew books printed in Italy.
The interaction obviously was in the opposite direction: many Polish and Lithuanian rabbis moved to Italy or transferred their texts to be published there; the Council of the Four Lands sent emissaries to Rome; and many eastern European Jewish artists spent years in Italy.
The conference is planned to concentrate on those contacts and interactions, during the Early Modern and Modern periods.
The conference will be conducted in English. The keynote lecture will be given by Prof. Ilia Rodov of Bar-Ilan University.

An international conference to officially launch the massive website and digital database of Jewish cemeteries in Turkey, A World Beyond: Jewish Cemeteries in Turkey 1583-1990.
The database and web site are a project of the The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center of Tel Aviv University. We wrote about it when it first went online last year as a beta version — though the site still says it’s in beta, the kinks that some users experienced appear to have been worked out, and we find it easy to search and use.
Dedicated to the memory of the oriental studies scholar Bernard Lewis, who died in 2018, the database is the culmination of decades of research by Prof. Minna Rozen (and others) and comprises digital images and detailed textual content of more than 61,000 Jewish gravestones from a variety of communities in Turkey from 1583 until 1990. Rozen’s onsite documentation of the cemeteries was carried out in 1988-1990. The material was digitized in the 1990s but until the web site was uploaded, it had not been publicly accessible.

The Conference will focus on Sephardic Jews, between Messianism and Modernity
The conference gathers some 70 international researchers of Sephardic social, cultural, and art history, languages, and literature from before and after the Expulsion of 1492.
There will be papers on Jewish, Christian, and Muslim attitudes toward Jewish messianism as reflected in the scholars’ particular areas of interest. In addition, the Conference will focus on the overlooked Sephardic embracement of modernity and Virtual Sepharad’s gradual yet unwavering secularization, whether in the expanse’s south—the ex-Ottoman realms—or its northern extremities – Holland, England, and the Americas.

The 4th International Conference Architectures of the Soul aims at promoting the scientific study and discussion around the architecture and landscape connected to religious and spiritual practices, grounded on the experience of seclusion and solitude.
It’s not focussed on Jewish heritage, but many preservation and other issues are common to religious built heritage as a whole, and we hope that the program includes Jewish heritage, too.
The conference is structured around two main topics, in order to understand the historical and current values of these places and how they can shape the future, through a renewed knowledge and new ways of turning them culturally meaningful:
1. History of religious experience;
2. Future of Religious Heritage.
The conference aims to establish the platform for a multidisciplinary approach on the subject, gathering and crossing history, architecture, landscape architecture, cultural heritage, art history, computing science, among others.
The conference will be hosted by the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória, in the municipality of Batalha. This is a former dominican monastery, on the initiative of the Avis dinasty at the end of the 14th century. The complex is recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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