ANNOUNCEMENTS
XVIII International Youth Conference and Moscow Summer School of Jewish Studies were held in "Cosmos"
We are pleased to report that the two major events of the year in the world of student Jewish studies - XVIII International Youth Conference and Summer School of Jewish Studies – were held in hotel "Cosmos", Moscow on July 7-12. Students, graduate students and young scientists from different regions of Russia, CIS and Baltic countries gathered in Moscow to participate in these significant events.
The programs were organized in cooperation with the Chais Center (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), and with the support of charitable funds AVI CHAI, Genesis Philanthropy Group (within the program CAF «Jewish communities»), UJA Federation of NY, Russian Jewish Congress, Joint Distribution Committee and some other donors who prefer to remain anonymous.
The school and conference were opened with the welcoming words by Sefer Center Victoria Mochalova, educational programs coordinator Anna Shaevich and the Chais Center director Simon Goldin. Then the lectures briefly outlined the contents of the upcoming courses. A.Yampolskaya and V.Shaydurov presented to the guests and participants their latest books. The Executive director of the Russian Jewish 
Congress Matvey Chlenov made the announcement about the new grant program of RJC, and as the chief editor of the book "Tirosh: works on Jewish Studies" presented a new 13 edition.
Lecture program was intense and diversified in topics. The courses of lectures were given by the leading professors of CIS and Israel, the program was divided into five thematic sessions each containing 3 courses. The topics included Jews and Judaism in the Ancient times and in the era of the Second Temple (Sergey Tishchenko, Michael Tuval, Dmitry Bratkin), History and Historical Memory . Nationalism (Simon Goldin, Valery Dymshits, Victoria Mochalova), The Jews in the economy (Maxim Hammal, Ilya Barkussky, Dmitry Maryasis), Jewish Thought (Michail Vogman, Sophia Kopelyan, Anna Yampol'skaya), Jewish Art (Hillel Kazovsky, Velvl Chernin, Svetlana Pakhomova).
In addition to the lecturing part the participants were offered daily optional evening program: Booknik project Birthday celebration, Tours around Jewish Moscow, tours by the leading fellows at the Jewish Museum and the Museum of the History of Jews in Russia.
As part of the school program the presentation of collection volumes based on Sefer’s Field Schools in Latgale and Belarus was organized in cooperation with the Research Center of the Jewish Museum on July 9.
We are pleased to note that a lot of warm words were said at the school closing session. One could hear the expressions of gratitude towards the lecturers, as they managed to truly quicken the interest of both young scientists who had repeated experience in our previous programs and novice participants. For their part, teachers the lecturers praised the work of students who have demonstrated a good knowledge background and activity in the classrooms. As for the organizers and sponsors, their work was appraised in the words of Valery Dymshitz. As he put it it is nearly a miracle that such valuable programs in Jewish studies are held on a regular basis already for many years.
