Scientific life. Congresses, conferences, and symposia

The World Congress on Judaism gathers researchers from all over the world in Jerusalem every four years.

The 14th regular meeting was held from July 31 to August 4, 2005. The Congress gathered 1,300 participants from 34 countries. The Scientific Forum was held under the auspices and with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel, leading higher educational institutions in Israel - the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan Universities, other research centers, as well as charitable institutions.

An important event in the scientific life coincided with an equally important event in the political life of Israel: the congress was held on the eve of the beginning of the disengagement - the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip.

The first thing that caught the eye of the congress participants in Jerusalem was the abundance of orange symbols. Those who supported the government's disengagement plan wore blue or white and blue ribbons. Ukrainian colleagues even noted similarities with the events in Kiev in 2004.

However, the policy has not changed the work program of the scientific community in any way. The topics discussed were divided into five parts: A - biblical studies; B - history of the Jewish people; C-Rabbinic literature, Jewish law, Jewish thought; D - Jewish languages and literatures, art; E-modern Jewish society. The meetings were held mainly at the University of Jerusalem on Mount Scopus.

The congress participants were welcomed by the President of Israel M. Katsav. The President of the World Union for Jewish Studies, Professor M. M., also spoke at the opening ceremony. Elon, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem M. Megidor, and President of the European Association for Jewish Studies R. Kaplanov.

The number and representation of guests at the event give an idea of the state of Judaism in the world. To date, there are two centers of such research - Israel and the United States. Over time, researchers from the post-Soviet region, as well as from Spain and Latin America can apply for such positions.

Five post-Soviet states were represented at the congress: Russia - 29 participants, Lithuania - 13, Belarus-4, Ukraine-4, Latvia-1.

Russian participants spoke at various sections, although the interest of Russian Judaism in medieval Jewry, Jewish thought, and the history of Jews in Russia was noticeable.

The presence of a fairly large delegation from Lithuania is also noteworthy; the latter will probably eventually be able to take its rightful place among the leading centers of Jewish studies. The coordination of Lithuanian researchers ' efforts became noticeable with the establishment of the Center for the Study of the Culture and History of Eastern European Jewry in Vilnius in 2004. Lithuanian researchers were mostly interested in the history of Jews in Lithuania.

The forum's sessions were dedicated to Eastern European Jewry, which were held in cooperation with the L. Nevzlin Center for the Study of Russian and Eastern European Jewry at the University of Jerusalem: sections " Before the Fall? Poles, Jews and Others at the beginning of the New Age", "Eastern European Jewry in the Age of Empires: a New Approach to the Development of the Jewish State.

The author is grateful to the Chase Center for the Development of Jewish Studies in Russian at the University of Jerusalem for the opportunity to participate in the congress.

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Lyaks, Jews and Others in the Russian Empire and the Habsburg Empire", "Great Expectations: Polish Jewry and the Shortened Twentieth Century", "Time of Politics: Jews in the Last Years of the Russian Empire and Soviet Jewry", etc.

Tender issues can be called the leading one among those discussed. Participants were invited to discuss the following topics: women's power in the ancient world, women's education and creativity in Italy in the Middle Ages and early Modern times, women in modern times, women's education and leadership, the educated woman and the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala), women's biographies and autobiographies. Several sessions of the sections were devoted to women in the Bible: "The Status of women in the Bible" and "Femininity and Motherhood in the Bible". The "women's" theme was also used when discussing the problems of modern and contemporary times: the organizers of the conference singled out the topic "Women and the labor movement"in a separate section.

Many meetings were dominated by art and culture issues. Researchers from post-Soviet countries seemed to play a significant role in the study of this topic. Ye's report aroused great interest. Kotlyara (Ukraine) "Yakov Gervits: vision and practice of "Jewish architecture" in Russia at the beginning of the XX century". V. Gradinskaite (Lithuania) spoke about the first exhibitions of Jewish artists in Kaunas in the 1920 - 1940s, L. Anglitskene (Lithuania) drew the image of Jews in Lithuanian folklore, N. Stepanskaya (Belarus) focused on the genre typology of Yiddish songs in Belarus.

Sections devoted to Jewish mysticism received a great response in Israel itself, although this topic was by no means central to the work of the congress. This peculiarity may be due, firstly, to a long-standing interest in the subject, primarily in Europe, and, secondly, to an irresistible desire for mysticism in difficult times for society: after all, Israel is now divided.

Problems of source studies, historiography, and philosophy of history were not discussed much at the Congress meetings.

The speakers of the section "Orientalists, Orientalism and Oriental Culture" moved away from theoretical questions of the course of the historical process in the East and in Israel and considered only trends in modern culture: for example, D. Markovich (Israel) described the identification of Eastern Jewry in contemporary art, K. Alon (Israel) - the father-daughter conflict in poetry eastern Jewry.

The section "Current Trends in Historical Research" focused only on three issues: the beginning of the study of the popular culture of the Jews of Palestine in the Roman era (K. Hasher, Ireland), modern studies of the Jewish Enlightenment (Sh. Finer, Israel) and new trends in American Jewish historiography (D. D. Sarna, USA).

Only one report delivered at the meeting of the section "Historiography and Documentation of the Zionist movement" concerned source studies - filming of military operations in 1948 (A. Feldstein, Israel).

Separate sections were specially formed to summarize research problems in various fields of Judaism, for example, the sections "Modern Biblical Criticism", "Targums", "Problems of Hasidic Research", "Research of Modern Jewish Political Thought", etc.

The scientists ' undoubted merit is the study of the heritage in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazi Jewry, and Ladino, the language of Spanish Jewry. Yiddish was the subject of both separate sections and reports outside of these sections; Yiddish was the subject of reports. Thus, S. Pinsker (USA) examined the functioning of Yiddish in Israeli literature and culture, E. Timm (Germany) focused on early road prayers in Yiddish, A. Stark-Adler (France) - on books for women, A. Bar-El (Israel) - on children's literature. Some problems of Yiddish language research and literature were discussed in the sections "Literary Interlanguage contacts", "Yiddish in the Netherlands"," Yiddish and folklore","Yiddish Culture in the XX century".

The discussion of Ladino studies and research began with a plenary session entitled "Ladino Culture and its Spanish and Jewish content" and a screening of a film about the life of the Sephardic community in Cuba.

At the meeting of the section "Lexicography and Bibliography", which, among other things, gave an overview of textbooks of the Hebrew-Spanish language in Thessaloniki in 1823-1935 (I. Gomel, Israel), as well as the principles of compiling the Hebrew-Ladino / Ladino-Hebrew dictionary (Moscow). Cohen-Sarano, Israel). The Ladino Literature section discussed both oral tradition and written language.-

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such works as poetry during the Holocaust (Sh. Raphael, Israel). Interest was also aroused by the reports of A. Amor (Germany), who presented the "forgotten literary genres" of Sephardic Jewry, and M. Nezirovits (Bosnia), who spoke about the compilation of a collection of proverbs in the Jewish-Spanish language in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A separate session was devoted to contacts between Jewish communities in the West and East, where D. Florentin (Israel) focused on the emigration of Ladino-speaking Jews from the Ottoman Empire to New York in the early 20th century, and K. Gerson-Sarhon (Turkey) analyzed the interest of Turkish Jewry in Ladino.

Part of the reports on Sephardic Jewry was devoted to the communities of Yugoslavia. I. Burdelez (Croatia) spoke about the Dubrovin documents in Ladino, reports by A. Stulits-Echevers (France) and I. Vucina (Bosnia) examined various aspects of the life of the Sephardic community in Belgrade, and J. Namicheva (Macedonia) - the origin of the Jewish community in Macedonia.

Cataloging and bibliography issues were discussed at separate sessions of the Congress. These issues were also discussed in sections that studied the heritage of the Cairo geniza and the Karaite heritage. At the plenary session dedicated to the activities of the Friedberg Project for the Study of the Cairo Geniza, created with the participation of the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) and the I. Ben-Zvi Institute (Israel), A. Maman (Israel) spoke about the achievements of the Project. H. Ben-Shammai (Israel) reported on attempts to create a Karaite library in Jerusalem in the X-XI centuries and the work of the Friedberg Project in this direction at the beginning of the XXI century. At the sessions of the sections, H. Seymour (Israel) reviewed the samizdat of Israeli ultra-Orthodox, E. Adler (Israel) considered the possibilities of digitizing sources and using them in research work.

A special session of the congress was dedicated to the Jewish manuscript heritage, which was also presented at the exhibition "Jewish Manuscripts and rare books from the collections of the Jewish Theological Seminary and the National Library of Israel".

An important part of the congress was devoted to discussing the problems of modern society. The academic council for the preparation of meetings of this part of the congress included well-known scientists: D. Cohen, H. Lavsky, A. Leiblich, S. della Pergola, S. Ratzby.

Several sessions of the congress were dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Brit Shalom (Union of Peace) organization. This organization was founded by Jewish intellectuals in 1925 in Jerusalem with the aim of establishing ties between Jews and Arabs and achieving political harmony. Among the founders of the organization was a major figure of the Zionist movement - Artur Ruppin. Presentations were made by Israeli researchers: A. Kedar, A. Sigmund, D. Shumsky, A. Gordon, H. Tamar, S. Strassburg-Dayan, Z. Maor.

Problems of Jewish law were also discussed: H. Berkowitz (USA) based on the records of the Metz court attempted to describe civil law and the process in rabbinic courts in the XVIII century, D. Bleich (USA) gave an interpretation of medical errors from the point of view of Jewish law; in addition, separate sections considered the status of women in Jewish law and problems of family law M. Drori (Israel) and Y. Sinai (Israel) identified ways to implement Jewish law in the courts of Israel.

The discussion was summed up by the special plenary session "Jewish Law: Past and Future", which was chaired by a prominent lawyer, theorist and practitioner, author of the fundamental work "Jewish Law" M. Elon. He made a presentation on " Jewish Law and the establishment of the legal system of Israel as a democratic Jewish State."

Part of the congress's sessions focused on contemporary society were held with the participation of the Jerusalem Center for Society and State Issues: in particular, the sessions discussed the situation in the US Jewish community, Jewish politics and Israeli foreign policy, and the state of Jewish political thought. Thus, S. Sandler (Israel) formulated the problem of the special approach of Jews to world politics; I. Mualem (Israel) focused on the place and role of such factors in Israeli foreign policy as assistance with weapons and assistance to the diaspora.

In the section dealing with the historical foundations of Israeli democracy, one can highlight the report of I. Goldstein (Israel) on the development of the democratic process in the Zionist movement from 1897 to 1948."

Three meetings were held with the participation of the Jewish Agency of Israel-meetings dedicated to the problems of Aliyah and absorption. It makes sense to mark the most interesting reports-

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Examples: M. M. Laskira (Israel) on the young Moroccan immigrants of 1956-1967, C. Zohara (USA) on the "Orientalism" and "anti-Orientalism" of the early Zionists in Palestine and Israel and the absorption of Eastern Jews based on these positions, R. Cohen-Friedheim (Israel) on the absorption of Arab immigrants in Kibbutzim in Israel. 1948-1954

One of the most significant trends in modern Israeli historiography is Palestine during the British mandate. The study of this period allows us to understand both the problems of relations between Arabs and Jews, and some modern problems of Israeli society. The congress presented a CD prepared by specialists from Israeli archival institutions: "Documents from the period of the British mandate in the archives of Israel". The section "The period of the British Mandate and the first years of the State of Israel"featured only Israeli scholars. Thus, J. N. Hagiladi described the functioning of the black market and the attitude of Israeli society towards it after the Second World War and in the first years of the state's existence, I. Friedman focused on the creation of Transjordan, and T. Goren's report described the Judaization of Haifa during the period of British rule in Palestine.

Sections on the history of the Zionist movement and the history of the Yishuv after 1882 were held with the participation of the H. Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel at Tel Aviv University. Some of the sections on the history of Zionism were presented exclusively by Israeli scholars, which emphasized their primacy in the study of these subjects.

The section "Jerusalem Syndrome: fantasies and reality" covered important topics of the Holy City's influence on the consciousness of the individual and the masses. M. Kalyan (Israel) and E. Vitztum (Israel) presented a historical overview of this phenomenon. S. Han devoted a report to the evolution of the concept of "climbing the Temple Mount", and M. Inbari (Israel) considered the attitude of religious leaders to the world. M. Leppekari (Finland) described apocalyptic feelings in the "Jerusalem syndrome".

It makes sense to pay attention to the section dedicated to the Jewish community of Quebec. Thus, I. Robinson (Canada) focused on the development of Jewish studies in Quebec, and P. Anktil (Canada) considered the image of French Canada in the works of Yiddish writers.

Spain and Latin American countries were widely represented at the congress. Even before the official opening of the congress, Latin American researchers held a seminar on "Spaniards in America".

Separate sections were devoted to Latin American Jewry. At the meeting" Latin America, Israel and the Catholic Church " absolutely all the reports were worth paying attention to. Thus, G. Ben-Dror (Israel) described the relations between the Catholic Church and Jewry in 1962-2000. The other sections dealing with the history of Latin American Jewry were also very interesting and rich. We will focus only on some reports: H. Avni (Israel) on the prostitution of Jewish women in Buenos Aires, M. Bejarano (Israel) on the Israeli diplomatic presence in Havana, E. Kupernam (Brazil) on Jewish communists in Rio de Janeiro. The working languages of this part of the congress are Spanish, Portuguese and English.

At the congress, new books were presented, and presentations of projects of the Hebrew Language Academy were held: "Ma'agarim" -an on-line version of the Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (http://hebrew-treasures.huji.ac.il), the new edition of the Jerusalem Talmud (2005), etc.

A number of scientific events were also held within the framework of the congress: XII Conference of the Society for the Study of Medieval Jewish-Arabic Culture "Maimonides and his World"; XIX Congress of the International Organization of Researchers of Massora-traditions of reading and pronunciation of Biblical texts; symposium "Introduction to Modern Jewish theology of World Religions"; special meeting of the Friedberg Project on the study of the Cairo geniza, etc.

Naturally, it is impossible to describe everything that the five days of the congress ' work have contained. It is only necessary to add that the guests were also offered cultural events-concerts and excursions.

The XIV World Congress on Judaica reflected the specifics of the development of Jewish studies at the beginning of the XXI century and set certain directions for further work of researchers.

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