Exit this survey

You have been invited to the Conference on the Contemporary Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora!

Please RSVP here for the Conference events below.

(Please be advised that the academic panel sessions on November 14 & 15 have a strictly limited capacity. Please let us know as soon as possible the names of anyone who may want to attend the panels. We will try our best to accommodate.)

Question Title

* 1. Please provide the information below, so that we may prepare for your attendance.

To RSVP, please check one of the boxes below each event description.

Question Title

* 2. Sunday, November 13: 2:45pm-5:00pm

Film Screening
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Alfond Auditorium)

The Boston Jewish Film Festival presents comedies, "Lenin in October," directed by Evgeny Ruman (2010), and "The Decision Maker" directed by Danny Yagil (2010).

Films introduced by Sasha Senderovich, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Humanities, Tufts University

Question Title

* 3. Sunday, November 13: 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Welcoming Remarks (Tsai Auditorium at CGIS-S-010)

Terry Martin, Professor of History and Director, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University

Roundtable Discussion: “The Russian-Speaking Jewish Immigrants - Impressions from the Field”

Moderator:
Zvi Gitelman, Conference Co-Chair and Professor, Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Michigan

Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow

Barry Shrage, President, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Boston

Sergey Lagodinsky, Fellow, Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin

Vladimir Khanin, Chief Scientist, Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption; Senior Lecturer, Bar-Ilan University

Question Title

* 4. Monday, November 14: 8:45am - 10:30am

Introductory Remarks
(Library at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Lisbeth Tarlow, Conference Co-Chair and Director, Project on the Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University

Panel I: “Dimensions of a Diaspora”

Panel Chair:
Zvi Gitelman, Conference Co-Chair and Professor, Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Michigan

Mark Tolts, Senior Research Associate, Hebrew University
“The Demography of the Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora”

Uzi Rebhun, Associate Professor, The Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University
“The Russian-Speaking Israeli Diaspora in the FSU, Europe, and North America: Jewish Identification and Attachment to Israel”

Marina Sapritsky, Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology, London School of Economics
“Home in the Diaspora? Jewish Returnees and Transmigrants in Ukraine”

Question Title

* 5. Monday, November 14: 10:45am – 12:30 pm

Panel II: “Transnationalism and Diasporas”
(Library at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Thomas W. Simons, Former U.S. Ambassador to Poland and Pakistan; Lecturer in Government, Harvard University

Gabriel Sheffer, Professor, Political Science, Hebrew University
“Conceptions of Diasporas and Post-Soviet Jews”

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, Senior Lecturer, History and Jewish History, Hebrew University
“Rethinking the ‘Ins’ and ‘Outs’ of East European Jewish Diaspora: A Report from the Front”

Alanna Cooper, Independent Scholar and Program Director, Jewish Federation of the North Shore, Boston
“A Global Community Far from Home: The Bukharan Jewish Diaspora”

Hannah Pollin-Galay, Ph.D. Candidate, History, Tel Aviv University
“From the Inside Looking Out: Lithuanian Jews’ Notions of Home and Diaspora”

Question Title

* 6. Monday, November 14: 12:30pm – 2:30pm

Lunch & Roundtable Discussion: “The New Jewish Diaspora”
(Dining Room 2, Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Ruth Wisse, Harvard College Professor, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University

Jerry Goodman, President, Phoenix Ventures and Founding Executive Director, National Conference on Soviet Jewry

Boris Gorbis, President, New Americans Foundation; Founder, America Israel Museum, Los Angeles, CA

Brian Horowitz, Sizeler Family Chair of Jewish Studies, Director of Jewish Studies Program and Chair, German and Slavic Studies, Tulane University

Question Title

* 7. Monday, November 14: 2:45pm - 4:00pm

Panel III: “Political Attitudes and Behaviors in Changed Environments”
(Library at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Sergey Lagodinsky, Fellow, Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin

Olena Bagno, Visiting Scholar, Political Science, Stanford University; Neubauer Fellow, Institute for National Security Studies, Tel Aviv University
“Political newborns: A journey from Ukraine to Israel and Germany”

Samuel Kliger, Director, Russian-Jewish Affairs, American Jewish Committee (AJC) Research Institute for New Americans (RINA)
“Russian-Jewish Immigrants in the United States: Identity, Politics, Religion, and the Future”

Question Title

* 8. Monday, November 14: 4:15pm - 5:45pm

Panel IV: “Resocialization - Objective and Subjective Evidence”
(Library at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Sergei Plokhii, Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History, Harvard University

Gur Ofer, Harvey M. and Lyn P. Meyerhoff Professor, Emeritus, of Economics, Hebrew University
“Assimilation and Integration of the Russian-Jewish Diaspora: Economic Dimensions”

Steven Gold, Professor, Sociology, Michigan State University
“Russian Speaking Jews and Israeli Emigrants in the US: A Comparison of Migrant Populations”

Vladislav Kurske, Coordinator, East-East Program, Carnegie Moscow Center
“Strategies of the Ethnic Identity of Russian-Speaking Jews and Germans”

Question Title

* 9. Monday, November 14: 6:30pm - 9:00pm

Dinner with Keynote Speaker: “Homelands, Diasporas and the Islands in Between”
(Main Dining Room at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Timothy Colton, Morris and Anna Feldberg Professor of Government and Russian Studies and Chair, Government Department, Harvard University

Keynote: Zvi Gitelman, Conference Co-Chair and Professor, Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Michigan

Question Title

* 10. Tuesday, November 15: 9:00am – 10:45am

Panel V: “Migration and the Malleability of Ethnicity”
(Library at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Anna Katsnelson, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton University

Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology, Tel-Aviv University
“Russian-Speaking Jews in Germany: The Contradictory Drives”

Sveta Roberman, Hebrew University/Fulbright Visiting Scholar, University of California, Berkeley, Institute of the Slavic , East European and Eurasian Studies
“Performing Jewishness and Questioning the Civic Subject among Russian-Jewish Migrants in Contemporary Germany”

Elena Nosenko-Stein, Senior Researcher, Department for Israeli Studies and Jewish Communities, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
“Inventing a ‘New Jew’: The Transformation of Jewish Identity in Post-Soviet Russia”

Lisa Vapné, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science, Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po)
“To Be a Jew or Not to Be: The In-between Jewishness of Russian-Speaking Patrilineal Jews in Germany”

Question Title

* 11. Tuesday, November 15: 11:00am - 12:30pm

Panel VI: “Secular Soviet Jews and Religion”
(Library at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Lenore Weitzman, Clarence J. Robinson Professor Emerita of Sociology and Law, George Mason University

Anna Katsnelson, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton University will present the paper of Nelly Elias, Chair, Department of Communication Studies, Ben Gurion University and Julia Lerner,Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben Gurion University.

“Between National Religion and Universal Faith: Post-Soviet Immigrant Religiosity in Israel”

Larissa Remennick, Professor, Sociology and Anthropology, Bar-Ilan University
“The Evolving Attitudes and Practices in the Religious Field Among Russian Israelis"

Anna Shternshis, Associate Professor, Yiddish Language and Literature, University of Toronto
“How Blog Writes a Life: Jewish Drama on the Russian Internet”

Question Title

* 12. Tuesday, November 15: 12:30- 2:30pm

Lunch & Roundtable Discussion: “Voices of the Russian-Jewish Diaspora: A Jewish Autobiography for the 21st Century” (Dining Room 2, Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Lisbeth Tarlow, Director, Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora Project, Davis Center, Harvard University

Rebecca Kobrin, Russell and Bettina Knapp Assistant Professor of American Jewish History, Columbia University

Natasha Geilman and Olga A. Goldberger, Winners, Harriman Institute Russian-Jewish Autobiography Contest

Question Title

* 13. Tuesday, November 15: 2:30 - 3:45pm

Panel VII: “Russian-Jewish Culture the World Over”
(Library at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Maxim D. Shrayer, Professor of Russian and Chair, Department of Slavic & Eastern Languages and Literatures, Boston College

Yaacov Ro’i, Professor Emeritus, History, Tel-Aviv University
“The Move from Russia / the Soviet Union to Israel: A Transformation of Jewish Culture and Identity?”

Alla Rosenfeld, Research Associate, Russian Art, European Evaluators
“National Identity versus Globalization in Contemporary Art: The Russian Dilemma”

Question Title

* 14. Tuesday, November 15: 4:00 – 5:45pm

Panel VIII: “A Transnational ‘Russian’ Literature”
(Library at the Harvard Faculty Club)

Panel Chair:
Svetlana Boym, Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Professor of Comparative Literature

Stephanie Sandler, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
“Poets and Poetry in Today’s Diaspora”

Adrian Wanner, Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University
“Triple Identities: Russian-Speaking Jews as German, American, and Israeli Writers”

Mikhail Krutikov, Assistant Professor in Slavic-Jewish Cultural Relations,
University of Michigan
“Four Voices from the Last Soviet Generation: Evgeny Steiner, Alexander Goldstein, Oleg Jurjew, and Alexander Ilichevskii”

Question Title

* 15. If you will be joining us for meals, please let us know if you have a meal preference.

T