Euroasian Jewish News

EAJC Events to Take Place in Moscow

A number of events organized by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) and organizations connected to it are due to take place on the 2nd of December in Moscow. In the morning of the 2nd of December, the Russian capitol will host the opening of the convention of one of the EAJC founding organizations – the Federation of Jewish Organizations and Communities (VAAD Russia), the president of which is the EAJC Secretary General Professor Michael Chlenov. The convention is timed to coincide to the 20th anniversary of the Founding Congress of VAAD USSR – the turning point from which the rebirth of Jewish community life on one-sixth of dry land that was the Soviet Union can be counted off. EAJC leaders like Michael Chlenov and the chairman of VAAD Ukraine, EAJC General Council Chairman Josef Zisels – were at the roots of the recreation of independent Jewish community structures in the USSR.

It is very important for the EAJC to reflect on the distance it has covered in twenty years and to establish the main lines of work for the future. This is the reason that the Congress will hold the round table “Twenty years after. Jewish communities of the post-Soviet territory: problems and challenges of the future” on that same day. Among the participants of the round table will be the delegates of the VAAD USSR Founding Congress, experts, leaders of Jewish organizations of Russia, foreign guests. The round table has been conceived as a follow-up to the dialogue which has been begun in Riga in May 2009. Half a year ago, the Latvian capitol hosted the commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the pan-USSR round table “Problems and Perspectives of Soviet Jewry,” where the idea to create the VAAD USSR was born in 1989. Twenty years after, this event did not become merely an occasion to be nostalgic for the participants of these historic processes, but an impulse to thought about the achievements and problems of the renewed Jewish community. On the 21—22 of May 2009 in Riga, the EAJC held the international conference “Jews in post-Soviet territory: experience, problems, achievements,” which was mostly an analysis of the past twenty years. The Moscow round table that will take place on the 2nd of December will be a follow up, an attempt to look into the future and to analyze the current challenges to the community.

On the evening of the 2nd of December, the EAJC will organize the traditional end-of-the-year reception, which will be dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the rebirth of Jewish community life, and the recreation of the Rabbi Court in the former USSR. The last event is especially important in the context of the discussion of the rebirth of Jewish community life in the Soviet Union and on the post-Soviet territories: not only “national-cultural” community structures have appeared and developed, but also religious Jewish community structures. This allows for a natural and complete integration of post-Soviet Jewry into world Jewry. This integration will be illustrated in the first days of December by the fact that a meeting of the Conference of European Rabbis will be held in Moscow.
 
President of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress Alexander Mashkevich in his article “Twenty Years After” noted on this account, "The EAJC welcomes the twentieth anniversary of the Independent Jewish movement with a head held high: we were – and are! - not only a part of this long journey, but remain among its leaders. This means that the mission we took upon ourselves at the very beginning is a success.”