On January 30-February 1, 2007, Moscow hosted the Fourteenth Annual International Conference on Judaica 1 - a significant event in the Jewish scientific life of the CIS and Baltic countries. The conference was attended by more than 200 scientists from 55 cities of different countries-CIS, Europe, Israel, USA.

The conference was organized by the Moscow Sefer Center for Scholars and Teachers of Jewish Studies at Universities; the International Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization - the Chase Center for the Development of Judaism in Russian (Hebrew University of Jerusalem); the Open University of Israel (OUI); the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee "Joint"; the Jewish Agency; Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC); Center for the Study of the History and Culture of Eastern European Jewry (Vilnius).

Welcoming remarks were made by: First Secretary of the Embassy of the State of Israel in the Russian Federation Ya. Ariav; Director of academic programs "Joint" (Jerusalem) T. Manusova; Director of the Moscow branch of "Joint" A. Nadan; head of the project "Limmud" H. Chesler; head of the Moscow branch of the Jewish Agency X. Ben Yaakov.

At the first plenary session, A. B. Kovelman (Moscow) presented a report "Bakhtin and Heinemann against the background of Kassirer: on the Fate of Neo-Kantianism in Jewish and Russian humanitarian Knowledge", dedicated to the memory of Professor Nehemiah Levzion. M. A. Chlenov (Moscow) "Archival sources on the history of post-Soviet Jewry (raising the question)" and L. Finberg (Kiev) "Collecting archives of Jewish history and culture of the XX century" were devoted to the problems of archives. Experience of the Institute of Judaica".

This year's candidates for the annual Jewish Identity and Sociology Research Fellowship were also presented here. Eugene Wiener - L. Landa (St. Petersburg) and E. Cibulskaya (Kiev).

The second plenary session was entirely devoted to the presentation of educational and publishing programs.

Since 2007 marks the 110th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress, the 125th anniversary of the First Aliyah (1882-1904), special attention was paid to the history of the Jewish national movement, the past and present of Zionism, and the State of Israel.

In fact, the five special sessions "From the National Movement to the National State" themselves made up an entire conference: they presented more than twenty reports covering practically the main topics of the history of Zionism and the State of Israel, as well as modern Israeli domestic and foreign policy and Russian-Israeli relations.

The first session - "125 years of Zionism: from L. Pinsker's" Auto-Emancipation " to the present day "(moderated by A. Lokshin, A. Epstein, Jerusalem) attracted increased attention of the conference participants. Four presentations were made by Israeli scientists from the Open University of Israel, Bar-Ilan University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In these speeches, the entire palette of Zionist ideologies was presented - from the ideas of T. Herzl (1860-1904), which were presented by S. Aslanov (Jerusalem), to the foundations of the worldview of Rabbi A.-I. Kook (1865-1935), one of the central figures of religious Zionism, described in the report of P. Polonsky (Jerusalem). Two reports were devoted to a comparative analysis of the concepts of Jewish national revival in the late XIX-early XX centuries and at the present time: A. Epstein ("National movement without a common language and territory") spoke about the uniqueness of the social reformist ideology of restoring Jewish culture-

1 This review reflects the main areas of work of the conference. The full conference program (in Russian and English) is available on the website www.sefer.ru. Information about the conference is published, in particular, on the following websites: http://www.aen.ru/education/story-ids450 (Jewish News Agency); http://www.jewish.ru/news/cis/2007/02/news994245815.php.

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E. Shargorodsky (Jerusalem) - "Paradigm Shift: Zionism, Post-Zionism and Beyond" - critically analyzed the post-Zionist challenge.

At the second session - "Zionism and its development in the political context of the late XIX - first half of the XX century" - five reports were presented, among which the most interesting were the speeches of the Ukrainian historian I. Nabitovich, who is currently working in Poland, and the Minsk resident D. Shevelev.

In his report "Perception of Theodor Herzl's concept of the creation of a Jewish state by Ivan Franko (1856-1916)", I. Nabitovich analyzed the little - known but extremely interesting response of the classic of Ukrainian literature to the ideas put forward in the late 19th century by a Viennese journalist, who later historians called the founder of political Zionism. Ivan Franko knew Herzl personally, and wrote about the latter's idea of creating an independent Jewish state (which at that time seemed completely utopian).: "The plan has an indubitable future ahead of it. Even if the current generation is not yet ripe for this, then it is necessary to wait for the young people who will be able to fulfill it."

D. L. Shevelev's report " The Struggle for Palestine. McMahon's agreement with Hussein and its interpretation as an instrument of diplomatic play in the Middle East in 1915-1939 " provoked a heated discussion among the participants of the session (in which the Jerusalem historian D. Romanovsky took a particularly active part) about how the history of the entire region could have developed if the Zionist movement from the very beginning it was able to reach an agreement with the Hashemite dynasty. McMahon's correspondence with Hussein (1915) was analyzed by the participants of the meeting in comparison with the agreement (1919) between Hussein's son, the Emir (future King of Syria and later Iraq) Faisal and the head of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), the future first President of the State of Israel, H. Weizmann, as well as in the context of secret negotiations that were held between the X. Weizmann and many other leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine/Eretz Israel was led by another son of Sherif Hussein, the first Emir of Transjordan Abdullah (great-grandfather of the current King of Jordan Abdullah II). History, of course, does not have a subjunctive mood, but in particular, scientific conferences are good because they allow you to discuss not only what happened, but also what could have happened in a different development of events.

Although the founder of political Zionism is generally considered to be T. Herzl , a native of Budapest, who lived most of his life in Paris and Vienna and visited Russia only once (in 1903), it is not an exaggeration to say that without Russian Jewry, the Zionist idea had no chance of being realized.

First, almost all the founders of the main trends of Zionist thought were born on the territory of the Russian Empire: the founder of the so-called spiritual Zionism Ahad Ha'am (A. Ginsberg); the leader of the "Zionists of Zion", who thwarted the "plan of Uganda", M. Usyshkin; the actual creator of the doctrine of religious Zionism Avraham Yitzhak Ha'coen Kook; a leading ideologist and leader the so-called revisionist movement V. (Zev) Zhabotinsky; the leading ideologist of the workers ' movement B. Katsnelson.

Secondly, almost all the leaders of social democratic Zionism who played a leading role in the creation of the infrastructure of the independent State of Israel were born on the territory of the Russian Empire: the first head of the Jewish Agency, Prime Minister and Defense Minister D. Ben-Gurion, the long-term head of the Armed Forces, the first President of Israel, H. E. Weizmann, all other prime ministers and presidents of the country until the mid-1970s: M. Sharet, L. Eshkol, G. Meir, I. Ben-Zvi, Z. Shazar, E. Katzir, etc.

It seems quite logical that the topic of the third meeting was formulated as "Zionist organizations in Russia and Ukraine". Based on the theses submitted by the participants, the thematic tilt of the discussion of this topic shifted towards Siberia, which is probably difficult to consider fully justified, taking into account the history of the development of Russian Zionism as a whole. At the same time, this particular session was characterized by a consistently high level of reports: L. V. Kalmina (Ulan-Ude), V. Y. Rabinovich (Irkutsk), author of the book "Essays on the History of the Jews of Bashkortostan" E. Shkurko (Ufa), manager of the Russian branch of the Jewish National Fund R. Feinberg, post-graduate student of the Department of International Relations and History of the Nikolaev State Humanitarian University Well-founded presentations were made by A. Kopyl and P. Mogila University, and three of the five speakers accompanied their presentation with a demonstration of archival documents they found that had not been published before.

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L. V. Kalmina presented her monograph " Jewish Communities of Eastern Siberia (mid-XIX - February 1917)", written on the basis of her doctoral dissertation defended in 2003 - one of the very few in Russia on the history of the Jewish people.

The program of the fourth session- "The State of Israel-Domestic and foreign policy" (moderated by S. Wolfson and A. Epstein) - was dedicated to the memory of Knesset member and economist Yu. The book was written by J. J. Stern (1949-2007), one of the most respected public figures in "Russian" Israel, and included three reports, two of which dealt with truly fateful issues. E. Y. Satanovsky, President of the Moscow Institute for the Middle East, analyzed the economic reasons that make it virtually impossible to proclaim an independent Palestinian statehood in the foreseeable future. "The Arab and Islamic world as a whole is interested not in solving, but in preserving the Palestinian problem as the only unifying factor. A Palestinian state, especially one led by Islamists, and the Palestinians themselves are more dangerous to Egypt and Jordan than to Israel. At the same time, the Arabs are not ready to return to direct control of the Palestinian territories. Nor does Israel need to control them. Palestine is economically untenable and, as a State with no close ties to Israel, has no chance of survival. The question of the future of Palestine remains open. It will be decided by clan leaders who will be able to establish control "on the ground". Not only the internal situation will depend on them, but also the mode of interaction with neighbors, including Israel," E. Y. Satanovsky stressed.

Israeli researcher Ya. Feitelson, formerly the first mayor of the city of Ariel, impressed the participants with a thorough analysis of demographic trends in the growth of the Jewish and Arab population in Israel and the controlled territories. Despite the widespread predictions about the impending "dissolution" of Jews in the Arab environment caused by the high birth rate among Arabs, J. Feitelson showed that since the 70s of the XX century, the proportions between the Jewish and Arab populations of Israel have actually been established. Considering how important a role demographic processes play in determining the political line in modern Israel (in March 2006, A. Epstein described the position of the current leadership of the country as "territories in exchange for demographics"), the conclusion of Ya. Feitelson cannot but be considered extremely important. In recent years, other authors have been working on this topic as well (in particular, I. V. Yushchenko). Ettinger, B. Zimmerman, etc.), and their works have a significant resonance. Ya. Feitelson was almost a pioneer in rethinking demographic statistics in Palestine/Eretz Yisrael.

The fifth and final session was devoted to relations between Russia and Israel. I. V. Masyukova, Senior Researcher at the Department of Israel and Jewish Diasporas of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, drew the audience's attention to the role played by the problems of Jewish immigration in relations between Israel and the USSR in the 1960s and 1980s; S. V. Wolfson (Tomsk) emphasized the need for a significant expansion of trade, economic, scientific and technological Professor of the Department of International Relations of the I. I. Mechnikov Odessa National University A. Zakharchenko presented her vision of Russian-Israeli relations in the context of Russia's current policy in the Middle East. Is it any wonder that the discussion of the session participants on this report lasted almost longer than the report itself!

At the section" Semitology and Biblical Studies " (moderator - A. Militarev), six reports were read. Two of them were devoted to biblical issues.

A. Desnitsky (Moscow) commented on two traditions of interpretation of the famous mysterious passage from Genesis 6: 2 ("...The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and took them to be their wives..."). D. Kopeliovich (Jerusalem) argued in favor of the hidden intertextuality of the Book of Esther, arguing that it is a polemical reaction to the biblical stories about the sojourn of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt, about the exodus of the Jews from Egypt and about the war Saul and Amalek - stories, according to the author of the Book of Esther, do not paint the people of Israel in the best light. The Book of Esther is presented to the author of the report as a correction of the "image", the earliest apology of the Jews, anticipating Josephus in this sense, and not a "chauvinistic manifesto". A purely linguistic topic was stated in the report of A. Hamrai (Kiev) "Traces of the category of inalienable belonging in biblical Hebrew", stating:-

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A. Lifshits (Moscow) gave examples of the phenomenon that he calls "sound repetitions" in the history of the beginning of the reign of Solomon, referring to a common technique of biblical poetics. It consists in a conscious author's comparison of words with a similar composition of the root - complete or more often partial homonyms-or reflections of biblical authors on such similarity, leading to the creation of fragments of the text explaining it.

This little-studied phenomenon was also discussed in the report of A. Militarev (Moscow), who called it " etymopoetics "("creating true meaning") and found traces of it in the New Testament texts; etymopoetic techniques in them are based on the consonance of words not in Greek, but in the West Semitic language (cf. full root homonymy of words with the meanings "good news" and "flesh" in Semitic languages), and while some of the examples can be explained from both Hebrew and Aramaic, several examples clearly point to Hebrew as the language of a hypothetical "proto-text" behind the Greek gospels. under his leadership, a group of students (M. Beketov, M. Vasiliev, E. Grigorenko, A. Kirillova, Ya. Kiryushina, Ya. Topunova, I. Chernegova, O. Shipulo, O. Elshanskaya) of the Department of Judaics of the ISAA at Moscow State University in the report "Genetic classification and chronology of the division of Aramaic languages", where for the first time a sufficiently detailed Aramaic genetic classification based on lexical criteria, and obtained quite plausible from a historical point of view dates of the division of the Proto-Aramaic language (IX century BC), its separation from the Proto-Canaanite (XVIII century BC) and branching within the Aramaic group.
It is gratifying that the number of participants in this section significantly exceeded the number of speakers, which indicates an interest in research in this area. The participants also noted an interesting topic that came up in the course of discussions - about folk etymology in Biblical texts.

Section " Jewish Religious Thought. Comparative Religious Studies" (hosted by L. Matsikh, Moscow) was by no means the most numerous in terms of the number of declared participants. However, such a small number did not affect the quality in any way - all reports were distinguished by a high academic level.

V. Apinis (Riga) presented an indisputable but interesting report "Journeys to the other world on the example of texts of Judaism and Zoroastrianism" on the links between Talmudic Judaism and Zoroastrianism in their views on the afterlife and posthumous retribution. To clarify the problem of the possible influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism (including its pseudo-epigraphy and apocalypticism), which is discussed in the scientific literature, expressed in the idea of the afterlife, a structural analysis of eschatological systems in Judaism and Zoroastrianism is necessary, based on religious texts of both traditions. Common in their so-called apocalyptic genres is the description of the otherworldly journey of the hero chosen by God, accompanied by a divine guide. The pseudepigraphs contain a rich demonology that reveals traces of Babylonian and Persian influence; the concept of history presented in them, according to some researchers, indicates the influence of Iranian thought.

The report of S. Golovashchenko (Kiev) "The image of the historical mission of the Jewish people in the Proceedings of the Imperial Kiev Theological Academy" contained many little-known and therefore especially interesting facts about the study of Jewish subjects in the Kiev Theological Academy (KDA) in the 60-90 years of the XIX century. An analysis of the array of scientific and theological works of Kiev Orthodox authors, mostly graduates and professors of the KDA, who were regularly published in this body, made it possible to speak about the emergence of studies in the field of Judaism in Kiev at that time. Thematically, these studies were based on the analysis of various aspects of Hebrew culture and religion, on an apologetic and comparative analysis of Talmudic Judaism in its relation to Christianity, which allows us to speak about the first attempts of comparative religious studies. In disciplinary terms, these works were associated with a number of scientific and theological and apologetic-theological disciplines (Biblical studies, Old Testament history, civil history of the Ancient East, the history of the Christian Church in its relations with non-Christian traditions, etc.). In addition to scientific-historical or scientific-theological studies based on academic interest, the speaker identified the following features:
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mythologization of the historical image of Jewry, predetermined by apologetic and missionary tasks designed to ensure the ideological dominance of official Orthodoxy.

S. Fishbein (New York) in the report "Voodooism or Judaism? The Kapporot Ritual " considered this ritual performed on the eve of Doomsday, in the context of pagan rites with which it could have a genetic connection. The researcher used historical, anthropological, and Rabbinic sources to take into account the views of various Jewish scholars on this ritual and its practice. I. Leitane (Riga) in her report "The Madness of the Rabbis: towards the Interpretation of Bava Metziya 84a" suggested an interpretation of this Talmudic fragment, drawing on parallel passages and commentaries.

I. Turov (Kiev) made a substantial report on the differences in the approaches of Hasidic Tzaddiks to the fundamental questions of being and the basic provisions of Kabbalah. P. Polonsky (Israel) spoke about the two main schools of Kabbalah in the twentieth century: the concepts of Rabbis Ashlag and Kook. In his presentation, the differences between these concepts were highlighted vividly and clearly. The report, written in a polemical, interactive manner, caused a lively discussion, which was a worthy conclusion to the work of the section.

Within the framework of this section, a round table was also held on the topic "Processes of development of Judaism and changing the general paradigm of religion in our time". The central figure here was Rabbi Kook, to whom X's speeches were dedicated. Ben Yaakov (Jerusalem/Moscow) "Zionism in the philosophical concept of Rabbi Kook" and P. Polonsky, who developed the provisions of his recently published book " Rav Kook. Kabbalah and a new stage in the development of Judaism". Rabbi Kook, according to X's findings. Ben Yaakov became a pioneer in the monistic dialectical way of Jewish thinking in modern times and laid the foundations for a philosophically tolerant attitude to phenomena that at first glance contradict the foundations of the religious Jewish tradition. His support for secular Zionism was philosophically determined by the mystical foundations of his teachings. In a political sense, Rebbe Kook's ideas (before the establishment of the state) allowed various groups to co-exist in order to achieve the most important goals, in many ways being a lesson for today, and laid the foundations for a subtle and far from unambiguous relationship between secular public institutions and the concepts of traditional Judaism.

At the section "Jewish Literature and the history of the Hellenistic and Roman periods in a general cultural context" (moderator - Moscow). Tuval, Jerusalem) delivered five lectures on various aspects of Jewish history, religion, and literature during the Second Temple period. The reports aroused great interest among the audience, which was clear from their questions and comments. The range of topics was very wide-from the ancient Greco-Roman novel and Hellenistic Judaism of the Diaspora to the Qumran manuscripts. We also note the gratifying fact that the reports of young researchers testified to the serious historical and philological work done by them, and to a competent methodological approach.

M. Tuval's report "From the religion of the Temple to the religion of the Community" was devoted to the religious aspects of Diaspora Judaism during the Second Temple period. As part of the report, Diaspora Judaism was presented as a pioneer of religious transformation in the ancient world. In the report of S. Babkina (Moscow) " The image of God - the prison of the spirit? (the human body in the texts of Qumran)" the texts of the Qumran community devoted to physiognomy were discussed and represented three forms of describing the human body (the body as a form, an object of ritual purity and impurity, described in Halakhic texts; the body as a factor influencing the fate of a person, described in horoscopes; the body as the crown of glory of a person, described in apocryphal texts). The views of the Qumranites were considered in the context of biblical and Greek literature.

N. Braginskaya (Moscow) in her report "Once again about the Eastern homeland of the ancient novel" suggested considering the Judeo-Hellenistic work "Joseph and Asenath" as the first ancient novel. Parallels were drawn with other (non-Jewish) ancient novels, the authors of which may have been inspired by this pseudepigraph. T. Mikhailova (Moscow) in her report "Jewish apocrypha "Joseph and Asenef" and "Judith": problems of dating" compared the pseudepigraph "Joseph and Asenef" with another ancient Jewish work-the book "Judith". On the basis of a detailed philological and literary analysis, she proposed to consider the first work as a source used by the author of the second. Yu. Matushanskaya (Kazan) presented the report "The problem of lacunarity in the text of Josephus 'Jewish Antiquities". As you know, when retelling the biblical narrative, Joseph

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omitted some details and even entire episodes. This report was devoted to the analysis of several of these "gaps" in the context of relations between Jews and non-Jews during the Second Temple period.

Work of the section " Jews and Khazars. Archeology" (hosted by V. Ya. Petrukhin, Moscow) was devoted to the problems of the history of the Khazars and the Jewish diaspora in Eastern Europe in antiquity and the early Middle Ages. The problem of the spread of Judaism not only among the Khazars, but also among other peoples of the Eurasian steppes and the North Caucasus, in particular among the Alans, caused intense discussion.

The reports presented at the section " History of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe "(moderated by R. Kaplanov and L. Milyakova, both from Moscow) covered various periods. A lively exchange of views was caused by the topic of the situation of Jews in the Ukrainian lands in the Middle Ages and Modern times. The discussion about the peculiarities of collecting materials of Jewish public organizations of Ukraine during the Civil War period also developed based on the complementary reports of L. Milyakova and E. Melamed (Klev). Special attention was drawn to the report of I. Krivoshei (Uman), who demonstrated a deep knowledge of archival materials of Ukraine, which advantageously complemented the similar Polish material. V. Lyubchenko's report "Paper payment means of Jewish communities, credit and consumer societies of Ukraine 1917-1920" was devoted to an extremely rare topic affecting the economic situation of Jewish communities in Ukraine during the Civil War period.

The reports presented at the section " History of Jews in the Russian Empire and the USSR "(moderated by A. Stepansky, Moscow; D. Elyashevich, St. Petersburg) were devoted to various time periods, various problems-both global and private, for example, the history of individual communities (S. Zvyagin, Kemerovo, - "Jews in Mariinsk" or even separate genera (A. Vorobyov, Moscow, "The family and offspring of the Tea King").

Researchers of the pre-revolutionary period have significantly squeezed out researchers of the Soviet period within this joint section (in this regard, following the results of the section's work, it was suggested that it should be divided into two parts in the future - Russian and Soviet). At the same time, some participants found the "Soviet" panel to be the strongest. The report of M. Goldenberg (Feodosia)was interesting "Peculiarities of the processes of korenization of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1920s-1930s (Crimean Tatars and Jews)". Presentations were also made by: A. Zeltser (Jerusalem) "Jews of Soviet Belarus between tradition and modernization, 1920-1930s", A. Ivanov (St. Petersburg) "Strategies and practices of representation of Jewish agricultural colonization in Soviet documentary and journalistic photography of the 1920s-1930s", E. Genina (Kemerovo) "Prosecution of the Jewish scientific and pedagogical intelligentsia of Tomsk during the struggle against cosmopolitanism" , etc.

Within the framework of this section, a "round table" was held (moderator-A. Kovelman), dedicated to the discussion of O. V. Budnitsky's book " Russian Jews between Reds and Whites (1917-1920)".

Section " Ethnology. Non-Ashkenazi Jewish ethnic groups " (moderator - M. A. Chlenov).

The report of the well-known authors in Karaite studies E. G. Baikal and O. B. Bely (Sevastopol) "Scientific and public correspondence of the Karaite enlightener David Markovich Gumush (1899 - 1980), based on the materials of the personal archive" was of undoubted interest and introduced into scientific circulation materials unknown until then from the personal archive of this Karaite activist of the Soviet period, one of the leaders of the the last among the experts of the Karaite religious tradition and the Hebrew language. The report of the researcher of the history of the Crimean Karaites O. B. Bely "Eastern European Karaites in the Dnieper uyezd of the Tauride province in the XIX-early XX century" should be considered innovative, since it was devoted to a completely unknown group of Karaites.

The joint report of M. K. Musayeva and M. M. Magomedkhanov (Makhachkala)" Maternity rites of mountain Jews of Dagestan (based on the materials of a field ethnographic study) " contained material that complements the information available in the literature on maternity rites among mountain Jews. The report of I. Semenov and G. Sosunov (Makhachkala) "On some features of the anthroponymy of Mountain Jews" was of a linguistic nature. Despite the somewhat controversial nature of some of the authors ' statements, their report is valuable for those who are engaged in anthroponymy, but are not familiar with the Tat language and its phonetic patterns.

H. Magomedsalikhov (Makhachkala) in his report "Tolerance as a factor of stability in traditional communities of mountain Jews" described the character of mountain Jews as peaceful and peaceful.-

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lerantny, based on the alleged lack of their custom of blood feuds, which he attributed to employment in the trade. His hypothesis contradicts not only the existing ethnographic descriptions of the mountain Jews from a hundred years ago, but, it seems, also with the modern life of this people. The" politically correct " nature of the hypothesis is understandable, but that doesn't make it any more convincing. At the same time, the report touched upon the rarely discussed topic of blood feuds.

V. Viktorin's report (Astrakhan) " Jukhurs "("Mountain Jews "or" Tats-Judaists") in ethnostatistics and social development of Russia: to the results of discussions and the general census of 2002" for the first time analyzed the results of the last Russian census using little-known materials by region (Astrakhan region, Stavropol and Krasnodar edges, etc.).

M. A. Chlenov presented a handwritten book written by an Uzbek party and Soviet figure, prosecutor A. M. Abdurakhmanov. The manuscript contains detailed genealogical data of the Abdurakhmanov family, dating back to the forced conversion in the second half of the XIX century. a Bokharian Jewish shoemaker converted to Islam. These manuscripts largely complement our knowledge of the Central Asian Chala cryptoideas.

Some of the reports included in the conference program were presented in the form of texts. These include the report of the famous Dagestani ethnographer, author of a number of works on the ethnography of mountain Jews M.-R. Ibragimov (Makhachkala) "Mountain Jews in the ethno-cultural space of the Eastern Caucasus", as well as the report of G. A. Osinova (Norilsk) "Socio-economic and political situation of the Jews of Dagestan after the civil war and in the first years of Soviet power" M.-R. Ibragimov presented his hypothesis about the formation of Mountain Jewry as a separate ethnic community in the XVI-XVII centuries, and not in the V-VI centuries, as it is often stated in popular or near-historical literature. G. A. Osipova reported new information about the outflow of mountain Jews from agriculture to trade after the civil war.

The section " Field Studies of Jewish Communities "(hosted by V. Dymshits and A. Lvov, both from St. Petersburg) was included for the first time in the program of the annual Sefera conference. Most of the reports focused on the problems of cultural anthropology and folklore of the Jews of Southwestern Ukraine. Against this background, the report of N. V. Yushchenko stood out. Evseenko (St. Petersburg), who spoke about her research in the Jewish communities of Greece.

Most of the reports presented at the section were the result of field schools organized by the Sefer Center in cooperation with the St. Petersburg Judaica Center in 2005-2006.

In three sessions of the extensive section " The Holocaust: Teaching Issues. New studies on the history of the Holocaust" (moderator - I. Altman) was attended by scientists from Belarus, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia. 12 reports were presented, and the number of listeners was twice the number of speakers 2.

During the session of the section "Jewish Philosophy of Modern and Contemporary times" (moderator - R. Ferber), four reports were heard and discussed: E. Rashkovsky (Moscow) " Jews philosophize... (Towards the study of the historical and philosophical process of the XIX-XX centuries)"; R. Ferber (Riga) "1920s in the Jewish culture". philosophy: evidence of axial time?"; E. Fedotova (Moscow) "The Jewish theme in the philosophy of N. Berdyaev: connection with church anti-Judaism"; R. Bilyashevich (Ternopil / Kiev) " The experience of I. R. Gudinaf: a scientific study of the religions of antiquity and the possibility of a mystical experience of the XX century."

E. Rashkovsky's constructions, in particular about the perception of the "other" as an "epiphany" (according to Levinas), proved to be extremely fruitful. A particularly intense exchange of views arose after E. Fedotova's report on N. Berdyaev's ambiguous views on the Jewish problem. An original introduction to the context of Jewish philosophy was made by one of the greatest American researchers of ancient Judaism in the XX century - I. Gudinaf (R. Bilyashevich).

S. Madievsky (Aachen) and P. Polonsky (Jerusalem) took part in a lively discussion, whose presentation on the definition of "postmodern man" in the context of Rabbi Kook's philosophical system was stimulated by R. Ferber's report on the "axial time" of the 1920s.

Sessions of the section "Jewish Literature. Literary and cultural contacts" (hosted by L. Katsis and V. Chernin) were very dynamic.

2 Information about the meetings of this section is published in the Scientific Information Bulletin "Holocaust", 2007, No. 1 (35).

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L. Lempertene (Vilnius), in her report on educational periodicals in Russia, considered it as the first stage of the emergence of Russian-Jewish journalism (the magazines "Pirkhey Tzafon" for 1841-1844 and "Ha-karmel" for 1860-1880), which became a forum for the Jews of Russia, helping to develop a new layer of Jewish public opinion. consciousness related to the values of enlightenment and modernization. V. Chernin's report "Yehuda Leib Gordon and Semyon Frug: the poetry of Gaskala and the poetry of the National Renaissance"was also devoted to the literature of the Jewish Enlightenment era (Jerusalem).

Yiddish literature was considered in the reports of G. Eliasberg (Moscow) "Dramaturgy by M. Nordau"; A. Polyan (Moscow) "Dialect and literary rhymes in the poetry of American inzihists: on the problem of the formation of the Yiddish literary language in America and its poetic register"; I. Logvinova (Donetsk) "The problem of language as a universal manifestation of creativity (based on the material of the author). Hasidic stories by I.-L. Peretz)".

Yu. Peleshenko (Kiev) focused on the literature of "Judaizers" in the discourse of Ukrainian culture of the late Middle Ages (the second half of the XV century), i.e. on translations from the Hebrew series of monuments (the Old Testament, The Psalter of Theodore the Jew, The Logic of Maimonides, the Logic of Aviasaph, etc.) into the language used in office work The Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The literary and translation activity of the rationalist movement known as the "Judaizers" was part of a pan-European spiritual movement that manifested itself in different ways in different countries and cultural areas, but had typologically similar features.

Literary and cultural connections were considered in the reports of E. Smorgunova (Moscow) "The Book of the Prophet Habakkuk and the "Violent" Protopop Avvakum"; G. Umanovskaya (Riga) "Jews in Latvian fairy Tales"; D. Feldman (Moscow) and O. Minkina (St. Petersburg) "The Beautiful Jewess" and other mythologems of Russian public discourse. in literature and documentary sources"; G. Sinilo (Minsk) "The motif of Akedat Yitzhak in the lyrics of N. Zaks".

Russian-Jewish literary issues were the focus of the following speakers: E. Vasilyeva (Daugavpils) "Body language in V. Jabotinsky's novel "Samson of Nazareth"; L. Gorodetsky (Moscow) " Teshuva ("return to Jewry") Russian poet Osip Mandelstam: an attempt to clarify the dating"; L. Katsis (Moscow) "Jewish sources of Jewish chapters" of the Second book "N. Y. Mandelstam"; V. Kellner (St. Petersburg) "The Decline of Jewish Petersburg (1906-1953) through the eyes of Aron Perelman"; Yu. Danilkova (Moscow) "Kafka and the World of Jewish Culture in Eastern Europe"; T. Levitskaya (Ivano-Frankivsk) "The Fatherland-foreign land dichotomy". The fate of the "Habsburg myth" and the Jewish macrocosm in the works of Josef Roth. Unfortunately, there is only one report (by the Ukrainian researcher S. Koloda "Specifics of the main text characteristics in works of modern Hebrew prose and their translations") It was devoted to Hebrew literature, or rather, to the theory of translation.

During the "Jewish Art" section (moderated by I. Dukhan and D. Slepovich), all performances were accompanied by a demonstration of visual material using both an LCD projector and a computer, as well as photos and albums themselves. Despite the small number of sections on Jewish visual art, the main problems of Eastern European Jewish art were discussed in general, from traditional forms to modern art. These reports are: V. Gradinskaite (Kaunas) "Political aspects of Jewish identity in Eastern Europe in the Jewish visual arts"; E. Kotlyar (Kharkiv) " Creation of national art: Boris Schatz in Bulgaria. On the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts in Jerusalem (1906)" and " Shtetl versus Eretz Israel: images of Galut and Geula in the graphics of Jewish artists (on the example of M. Fradkin, I. Maykov and E. Liljen)", which revealed the political and cultural significance of Palestinian and Zionist ideas in different ways which had a fundamental impact on the world of images, the plot repertoire and concepts of Jewish art of the XX century.

The reports of I. Dukhan (Minsk) "Chaim Soutin and the poetics of the "ugly""; O. Koval (Kharkiv) "The Hidden Word as a principle of shaping in the art of the Jewish avant-garde"; K. Boyko (Lviv)" The art of stone carving of ancient matzevs in Eastern Galicia: symbolism, features of compositional techniques and specifics of plastic arts" were also interesting. images"; M. Zavorokhina (Moscow) "Three fragments of a marriage contract from Cairo, stored in the Department of manuscripts of the Russian State Library" (in which an independent line of development of culture and IP was voiced-

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the similarities of Karaite ktubbot-a topic that already claims to be an independent direction in itself), etc.

The musicology section presented reports from various fields, covering areas ranging from historiography to ethnomusicology.

Topics of the reports of the section " Jewish national identity. Sociology. Demography" (presenters - V. Sobkin, M. Kupovetsky) was very diverse. O. Sobolevskaya (Grodno) studied the language situation among Belarusian Jews (late XIX-early XX centuries). S. Stampfer (Jerusalem) chose a very unexpected and interesting angle for his report "Between Bagel and falafel": in the USA bagel it is considered a classic Jewish food, and in Israel this role belongs to falafel 3.

M. Kupovetsky (Moscow) demonstrated an original approach to the analysis of Jewish identity in his report "Touches on the analysis of the identity of Aron Vergelis as a Cultural Yiddish nationalist in the 1950s".

Contemporary issues were discussed in the reports of D. Olekhnovich (Daugavpils) "Anti-Semitism in the Republic of Latvia: monitoring the situation in 2004-2006"; J. Kofman (Krasnoyarsk) "On the current state of Jewish organizations in Siberia and the Far East"; E. Nosenko (Moscow) " Peculiarities of the formation of certain gender stereotypes among Russian Jews (on the example of the Russian Jewish community). descendants of mixed marriages)"; S. Muterperel (Moscow) "The influence of identification on the manifestations of tolerance in the field of national culture and politics" , etc.

In general, the conference demonstrated a certain degree of maturity of academic Judaism in the CIS and Baltic countries.

The conference proceedings will be published at the end of 2007.

3 These flour products are relatively new in the Jewish community-both American and Israeli. They replaced those dishes that were considered predominantly Jewish and were associated with religious rituals.

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