Webinars

In October 2013 �Sefer� announced the new project that allows to take part in courses on Jewish Studies during the whole academic year not leaving the house. The project has been made possible with the generous support of Genesis Philanthropy Group, President�s Grant Foundation, JOODS Humanitair Fond, L.A. Pincus Fund for Jewish Education in the Diaspora, Israel and UJA Federation of New York

Webinar is a new educational form that allows students from different countries to take part in lectures and language courses. It has minimum requirements (such as stabile Internet connection and microphone). We use the system, which is extremely easy and gives to the lecturers the possibility to demonstrate photos, illustrations and texts and to interact with the students.

The registration for the language groups in the 2019/2020 academic year is closed.

LANGUAGE COURSES:

JEWISH AND SEMITIC LANGUAGES WITH "SEFER"

COURSES ON JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE:

NEW! webinar by Prof. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger Hebrew Palaeography today: the Making of a Digital Album (June, 4, 2026, 20.00 msk)

In the 2025/2026 academic year, the following lectures and mini-courses took place:

In the 2024/2025 academic year, the following lectures and mini-courses took place:

In the 2023/2024 academic year, the following lectures and mini-courses took place:

In the 2022/2023 academic year, the following lectures and mini-courses took place:

In the 2021/2022 academic year the following lectures and mini-courses were held:

(Courses are in Russian)

Siberian Jews (mini-course by A.Beresin and V.Levin, 19, 26.09 and 3.10)
Know, Remember, Fight: Holocaust Memory in Late USSR and Contemporary Russia (mini-course by A.Arkhipova and A.Kirzyuk, 17 - 24.10)
"We stand here like orphans". Post-Soviet Jewish Identity in France (lectures by D.Vedenyapina )
Jewish Chronology: Calendar Structures and Reckoning Systems (mini-course by A.Gordin, 24.11 - 1, 8, 15.12)
Past in the Local Urban Text: Ways of Acquisition (lecture by P. Kupriyanov, 12.12)
Anti-Jewish Violence: 4 Main Questions (mini-course by A. Markovsky, 9, 13, 23, 30.01)
Jews and Race: Imagining Jewish Post-Imperial National Modernity (lecture by M. Mogilner, 06.02)
Jewish Childhood within the Pale of Settlement (mini-course by E. Oleshkevich, 12, 20, 27.02 - 06.03)
Jewish Question in the Policies of Russian Imperial Authorities (Lecture by A.Miller, 13.03)
Other Jewish Languages (mini-course by G.Bogdanov, M.Gammal, T.Luchina, 27.03 - 03, 10.04)
Mini-course "Soviet Jews, Freedom and Active Political Position: How the Research in Unofficial Jewish Practices in USSR in 1970s and 1980s Enriches the Social Theory"
(August, 30, September 6 and 13)

In the 2020/2021 academic year the following lectures and mini-courses were held:

VAAD Archive: Unique History, Abundant Materials (lectures by M.Chlenov, 14 and 16.06)
Debates (by B.Grozovsky and A.Vileikis, 16 - 23.05)
New Prospects in Jewish Studies: "Judaic Studies on Sundays" (Lectures by V.Chernin, R.Kiperwasser, I.Rodov, J.Kalik, D.Moyal, 16.05, 23.05, 30.05, 6.06, 13.06)
"Soviet Jews on the Eve and During the Second World War" (Course by Oleg Budnitsky, 28.03, 04.04, 11.04, 18.04.)
"I Was Born on the Way Home!" (lecture by Serafima Velkovich 22.04)
Course "Judaic Studies on Sundays" organized in collaboration with the International Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilisation.
Jews and Christians at the onset of Western European choreography in the 15th and 16th centuries (lecture by Ekaterina Mikhailova-Smolyakova, 29.09)
Jokes about Coronavirus in Israel (lecture by V.Preter (Chumakova), 6.10)
Never again: how the Reception of the Holocaust Changed the Values and Ideas of Health, Environment, and Society (mini-course by A.Vileykis, 1.10, 8.10, 15.10)
Museumification of Urban Space: Forms, Mechanisms, Effects (lecture by P.Kupriyanov, 25.10)
Jewish Museums in USSR in the First Half of XX Century (mini-course by M.Scherbakova, 3.11, 5.11, 8.11)
Circumcision: A Ritual and Its Significance in Jewish and Christian Art. From the Middle Ages to the present day (lecture by D.Harman, 12.11)
Beth Midrash with Uri Gershovitch: What Talmudic Pitra and Babel's Short Novels Have in Common (20.12)
Comment as a Way of Thinking: from Biblic Exegetics to Internet Comment (lecture by Semen Parizhskiy, 28.01)
Writing and Reading: Phobias, Passions, Techniques, Style (Course by B.Grozovskiy, 17.01, 24.01, 31.01, 7.02)

2019/2020 academic year:

Architecture of utopian imagination (lecture by Viktor Wachstein, 02.09)
Urbanghetto: the trajectory of a single concept (lecture by Viktor Wachstein, 03.09)
Anti-Semitism in modern Russia-the main myths and stories (lecture by Viktor Shnirelman, 10.09)
Careful,matzo! The struggle against the "religious attribute" in the USSR (lecture by Alexandra Arkhipova, 14.09)
"Neighbors not of our faith": Jews in the memoirs of modern oldbelievers in Moldova (lecture by Natalia Dushakova, 17.09)
Memorial culture in the digital age: total Yolocaust (lecture by Oksana Moroz, 20.09)
Soap made from Jews: reality and legends of the Holocaust (lecture by Alexandra Arkhipova, 21.09)
Jews andsports: a controversial phenomenon of modernity (Maxim Gammal mini-course, 4.10, 11.10, 18.10, 25.10)
Dura-Europos-a vivid evidence of Jewish life in late antiquity (mini-course by Lidia �hak'ovskaya, 15.10, 16.10, 22.10)
Discourses of Anti-Semitism in the Public Sphere (lecture by Johannes Angermuller in English, 11.11)
Theory ofthe "zhidomason" conspiracy (lecture by Anastasia Astapova, 20.11)
Jewish Ethnography (mini-course by Maria Kaspina, 8.11, 15.11, 22.11, 29.11)
Jewishartist Lazar Lisitsky (mini-course by Valery Dymshits, 12.11, 19.11, 26.11)
Modern mountain-Jewish community of Derbent: how we study it (collective course of Svetlana Amosova, Maria Vyatchina, Svetlana Pogodina, Arusyak Aghababyan, Elizaveta Zabolotnykh 13.12, 17.12, 20.12)
Thelegend of Jewish ritual murder in European and Russian culture (lecture by Alexander Panchenko 22.12)
Messiahs and their friends about telling themselves: genre and identity of early moderntimes (lecture by Mark M. Gondelman, 24.12)
Vowels in modern Hebrew (mini-course by Sergey Belousov, 22.01, 29.01)
Sleepless nights of the Bible poets: how Psalms ' work� (mini-course by Mikhail Vogman, 14.01, 21.01, 28.01, 11.02)
European literature in Hebrew of the first half - mid-XIX century (mini-course of Alexandra Polyan, 26.02, 4.03, 11.03)
Traditional decoration of Jewish tombstones in Eastern Europe (mini-course by Mikhail Vasiliev, 15.04, 22.04, 29.04)

year 2018/2019

Oral history and folklore of Soviet Jews about the Second World War (mini-course by Anna Shternshis, 5.09 and 12.09)
The issue of the stranger in social theory: locals, old-timers and newcomers (lecture by Victor Vakhstain, 4.09)
Between the' blood libel 'and the 'Jewish Kingdom': how the moral panic arose during the 'doctors' case' of 1953(lecture by Alexandra Arkhipova, 8.09)
"Prozhito" - web archive of personal diaries: working with texts in the digital age (lecture by Mikhail Melnichenko, 22.09)
The category of "Schicksalsgemeinschaft": the history of its neglect and rehabilitation (lecture by Viktor Vakhshtain, 23.09)
How to read images on Jewish tombstones? (mini-course by Mikhail Vasiliev, 28.09, 5.10 and 12.10)
The alphabetical letter and the beginning of West-Semitic epigraphy (mini-course-by Tanya Notarius, 25.09, 2.10, 9.10)
Database SFIRA in the Digital Humanities and Jewish studies systems (mini-course by Svetlana Amosova, 9.10 and 23.10)
"Jewish field" in Moscow suburbs: Jews in the (in)formal Soviet economy of the post-war decades (mini-course by Anna Kushkova, 21.10 and 28.10)
Jewish burials: history, traditions, texts (mini-course by Alexandra Fischel, 23.10, 30.10 and 6.11)
Social structure of shtetls (mini-course by Valery Dymshits, 14.11, 18.11 and 21.11)
Local text of contemporary provincial town (based on field research in Podolia) (mini-course by Michail Lurie, 10.11, 11.11,17.11, 18.11)
AHEYM database: what to look for, how to find it or at least why to search? (lecture by Dov-Ber Kerler, 22.11)
Epigraphy of Crimea and Caucasus: Historiography and Recent Discoveries (mini-course by Natalia Kashovskaya, 24.11, 25.11)
Russian Judaizers: Mysteries and Paradoxes (mini-course by Tatiana Khizhaya, 12.12, 19.12)
Jean Amery as a Philosopher (lecture by Kirill Martynov, 23.01)
Philosophy of Hanna Arendt and Giorgio Agamben (lecture by Kirill Martynov, 13.02)
Jewish Sacred Texts on the Cristian East (mini-course by Alexey Muraviov, 08.02, 15.02, 22.02)
Jewish Apocalypses in Ancient Times (mini-course by Alexey Sivertsev, 19.02, 26.02, 05.03, 12.03)
Women in Literatire in Yiddish (mini-course by E. Kuznetsova and A. Liubas, 8.03, 13.03, 20.03)
Karl Schmitt's Political Theology and Walter Benjamin's Philosophy (lecture by Igor Chiubarov, 02.04)
Jews and Social Success (mini-course by Maxim Hammal, 3.04, 10.04, 17.04, 24.04)
Four seminars on the Jewish literary family (mini-course by Mikhail Krutikov, 20.01, 17.02, 17.03, 14.04)
Political ontology of Martin Heidegger after the release of Black Notebooks (lecture by Mikhail Maiatskiy, 7.05)
Lectures on history and culture of Mountain Jews (collection of courses)

year 2017/2018:

� History of the Jewish Literature in six novels (�. Krutikov)

� Postsecular Jewish philosophy in XXI century Judith Batler, Duglas Rashkoff, Udi Aloni (S. Stepanishev)

� Notes on the margins of the history of the traditional Jewish community (�. Gammal)

� New Testament as a literature of the Jewish Diaspora (D. Bratkin)

� Lost shrines of the tabernacle of the Covenant: history and mythology (S. Babkina)

� Disputes about the cross: Christian themes and images in Yiddish literature (�. Kuznetsova)

� Jews and Christians in Russian Empire: friends, enemies neighbors (V. Gerasimova)

� Language and literary contacts of Slavs and Jews in medieval Russian lands (�. Grishenko)

� History of Jewish Thought in Middle ages (U. Gershovitch)

� From a virtuous Wife to a Royal Bride: images of Wisdom in Tanakh and Apocrypha (N. Kireeva)

� Texts in stone. Middle East archaeology in the light of written sources (�. Freikman)

� Lyons, flowers and birds: illuminated ktubbot as a mirror of Jewish History (�. Karaskova)

� Judaism, Hellenism and Christianity- matrix of the European mentality (�. Kovelman)

� On the edge of Ashkenaz: Jews in Courland and Riga 1560-1940 ( I. Lenskiy)

� Jewish art as a way of expressing of the national character (L. Chakovskaya)

� Beasts and birds in Jewish Medieval scrolls: miniatures, margins, micrography (D. Harman)

� European Art of the late middle ages and Renaissance (I. Chernetskaya)

year 2016/2017:

� Jews in India (�. Zykov, Moscow)

� History of Judaica in Russian 1850-1917 (V. Schedrin, Kingston)

� �Beautiful Jewess� in the World literature (�. Polonskaya, Jerusalem)

� Jewish folklore and Ethnography: from field research to material processing (�.Kaspina, S. Amosova, Moscow)

� Medieval Jewish illustrated scrolls (D. Harman, Moscow)

� Kabbalah and the materialist dialectic (Y. Regev, Jerusalem)

� Galicia, Volhynia and Podolia Synagogues architecture (S. Kravtsov, Jerusalem)

� Life of "others": representation policy in Israeli Cinema (S. Pakhomova, Moscow)

� Historical and Mythical Jerusalem or the way the ideas world forms the reality (L. Chakovskaya, Moscow)

� "Big Brother Oh where are Thou": Conspiracy theories in modern policy and culture (I. Yablokov, Lids)

Year 2015/2016:

� Introduction into Biblical Archaeology (Mikhail Freikman, Jerusalem)

� Slow Reading of Classical Jewish Texts (Andrey Pshenitskiy, Jerusalem),

� Jewish Art in the 20th Century: (Maria Berezanskaya, Moscow)History of the State of Israel (Dmitry Maryasis, Moscow),

� Modern Jewish History (Maksim Hammal, Moscow),

� Between Sky and Earth: the Ideas of Spiritual and Intellectual Ascension in Synagogue Art (Ilya Rodov, Bar Ilan),

� I Bashevis-Singer in Yiddish and in English; the change of language, reader and context. (V. Fedchenko, St-Petersburg)

Year 2014/2015:

� Introduction into Jewish Mystics (Mark Gondelman, Jerusalem),

� Exegesis of Genesis: the Forms and the Ideas of Bereshit Rabba (Reuven Kiperwasser, Jerusalem)

� The Horns of Moses VS the Horns of Devil: Jews in the Medieval Christian Iconography (Mikhail Maizuls, Moscow),

� Introduction into Biblical Archaelogy (Mikhail Freikman, Jerusalem)

Year 2013/2014:

� Qumran: the History of the Community and the History of the Research (Michael Tuval).

� History of the Yiddish Literature (Valery Dymshits)

� Jewish Traditional Music (Mark Kovnatskiy, Dmitriy Slepovich)

� Antisemitism and nationalism in Russia and around (V. Likhachev, Jerusalem)

COURSES IN EPIGRAPHY AND JEWISH FOLKLORE:

� Epigrahy course (2014)

� Epigrahy course for beginners (2015)

� Epigrahy course for advanced (2015)

� Jewish Folklore course (2014)

PRESS ON THE PROJECT:

� �Judaika for home delivery� on Avi Chai Foundation Web site

� �Jewish studies in a new format� on Jewish News Agency site

We would be happy to answer any questions on enrollment at sefer.webinar(at)gmail.com

Autonomous Non-Profit Organization For Academic Research and Humanitarian Purposes Center �Sefer�

Educational programs

Academic programs

ARCHIVES

Webinars

Our sponsors