On the 18th of August, the first organizational meeting of the College on Self-Identification and Interaction with Society, a part of the EAJC Congress College. The aim of this College is to give its participants opportunities to realize their non-commercial interests within the community.

When opening the meeting, the Congress College Chairman, EAJC Vice President Yuri Raskin noted that the activity of this college needs to be principally different both in form and in content. He stressed that the task of the first working meeting was first and foremost to learn the interests of the College participants in different non-business spheres.

The working group that prepared the meeting gave its own vision of the goals, tasks, and directions of activity for the college. The working group included Dmitry Maryasis, Alla Oleynik, and Maya Epstein, the last of which leads the College.

Presumably, the main formats of the College events will be “round tables” on non-commercial topics, informal meetings with public figures, important artists, scientists, scholars, members of the political establishment, members of the clergy, and others, as well as informal meetings and cocktail parties at which Congress College members can present their non-commercial hobbies.

The following topics were proposed for round table discussion: models of identification in the modern world; religion, morality, society; the state and the individual in the modern world; the non-material basis of human existence – spirituality; charity; Russia in the world; problems of civil society; revolution and evolution; science and “pseudoscience”; culture as a reflection of the state of modern society.

Then the participants of the meeting began their discussion. Among the active participants of the discussion were, among others, Larisa Ryabchenko, Bronislav Bashkin, Harry Maizel, and Yuri Aleekseev. The colleagues gave their suggestions for the closest upcoming College events and directions of activity, as well as came to a joint understanding of the College working order and possible ways to organize its events.

Yuri Raskin brought the socially important activities of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, as well as its charity activities, to the attention of the gathering, and expressed confidence in the fact that the members of the College will take an interest in this activity.