On July 9, the Sepher Center for the University Teaching of Jewish Studies (Director - EAJC General Council Chairman Dr. Victoria Mochalova, Chariman of the Academic Board - EAJC Secretary General, Professor Michael Chlenov) as well as the Research Center of the Jewish Museum and the Tolerance Center presented collections of papers based on the materials of Sefer Jewish Studies Field Schools that were held in 2012 in Latgalia and Belarus. The presentation was held at the XVIII International Youth Conference and Summer School in Jewish Studies.

Over the last five years, some 20 field schools and expeditions in Jewish Studies were organized in Russia and other former FSU countries with the support of such charity foundations as AVI CHAI, Genesis Philanthropy Group (as part of the charity program Charities Aid Foundation “Jewish Communities”). In these programs, the Sefer Center directs the majority of its attention to practical work: anthropological field research, catalogizations of Jewish cemeteries, archaeological digs, and archive research. The lectures and seminars are very specialized. The participants of the expeditions are students with experients in epigraphic, anthropologic, and archaeological work, young scholars and researchers. Leading scholars from Russia and the FSU lead the work.

Authors and editors of the collections of papers spoke on the work they’ve completed and the contents of the books.

The collected volume of the Belarus school is titled: “Zheludok: Memory of a Jewish Town” (M., 2013, edited by I. Kopchenova). This is the first Russian publication that unites data about one Jewish town gathered from archives, memoirs, anthropological and epigraphic research. The collected volume is divided into four parts: the first includes historic and anthropological research; the second is an illustrated catalogue of the Jewish cemetery of Zheludok with a rich reference aide (the catalogue includes 333 matsevas, including photos, the text of the Hebrew epitaph if it is preserved on the stone, its translation, as well as the size and type of the gravestone); the third part is the memoirs of Miron Vladimirovich Mordukhovich, former resident of Zheludok, with his short tales of the pre-war life of the town; the fourth part includes important data on Zheludok’s history: the handwritten lists of those Jewish residents of Zheludok and Orlya village who killed in shootings on May 9, 1942, which were collected by our students at the town hall, materials from the Litovsky State Historic Archive, and the National Historic Archive of Belarus in Grodno.

The collected volume “A Lost Neighborliness: Jews in the Cultural Memory of Latgalia’s Residents. Materials of 2011-2012 Expeditions” (M., 2013; Edited by S. Amosov) is made up of three parts: commented materials collected during the expeditions, articles, and reference aides (interviews cited, list of informants, information about the authors and editors). This collection of papers is the first attempt to gather in one place and interpret the results of a number of expeditions organized in 2011-2012 by the Sefer center to Latgalia (Eastern Latvia) and dedicated to the view of neighboring ethnicities on Jews.

The electronic versions of the books are available on the Sefer website.