On the 30th of May, the RAS Oriental Studies Institute began its conference “Jews in Modern Russia: Crisis or Rebirth” (organized by the Department of Israel and Jewish Communities, Department Head – Dr. Tatyana Karasova) with the lecture of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) Secretary General, Professor Michael Chlenov.

The lecture, titled “The Modern Russian Jewish Community: A Social Portrait,” was dedicated to a comparative analysis of population censuses and different sociological studies of Jews in the USSR and Russia, starting with a historic study done by the activists of the Independent Jewish Movement in 1976. According to the lecturer, many characteristics of the Jewish population have paradoxically remained unchanged, despite the global changes in the world.

Dr. Semen Charny, the executive editor of the Euro-Asian Jewish Yearbook, the EAJC informational and analytical publication, gave a summarizing lecture on the appearance and activities of the “umbrella” Jewish organizations of the Russian Federation. His lecture was made somewhat more difficult by the presence of both scholars and community leaders at the conference. Besides the EAJC Secretary General, Vaad Russia President, Vice President of the National Cultural Jewish Autonomy Michael Chlenov, the participants also included the former President of the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC) and Director of the Institute for the Study of Israel Evgeniy Satanovsky, who gave a lecture titled “From Soviet Underground to Organized Jewish Community: Result of 30 Years of Development,” and current RJC President Yuri Kanner.

The first day of the conference also saw such famous scholars as the leading scholar of the Ministry of Absorption of the State of Israel , Dr. Zeev (Vladimir) Hanin, Dr. Alek Epstein, representing the Open University of Israel, Dr. Michael Shternshis (American Institute of Jewish Education), Councillor to the President of the World Congress of Russian Jewry Matvei Chlenov, and Dr. Elena Nosenko-Shtein (RAS Oriental Studies Instute), and others.

On the 31 of May, the conference work began with the report of EAJC General Council member Vyacheslav Likhachev, dedicated to current problems of Jewish education in post-Soviet territory. The fierce debate that followed showed just how strongly the problems of scholarship, education, and community building are interconnected. It should be noted that the lively atmosphere of creative and constructive communication of colleagues, scholars, and community professionals made the conference's atmosphere very productive as a whole.

The second day of the conference held lectures dedicated to different regional aspects of history and the modern state of Jewish community life, as well as the sociology, demography, and ethnography of different territorial and Jewish ethnic groups who live in the former Soviet Union. Among others, the following scholars presented their reports: the Executive Director of the Russian American Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH), senior lecturer of the RSUH Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies (CBJ) Mark Kupovetsky, senior lecturer of RSUH CBJ Dr. Maria Kaspina, and an ethnographer of the State Republican Center of Russian Folklore Svetlana Amosova.