At the Crossroads of Cultures: The Jews of Central Asia and the Caucasus (Moscow-Almaty, June 2025)

The Research Center of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center (Moscow), together with the Ben-Zvi Institute (Jerusalem) and the Turan University (Almaty), with the support of the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) organize the 3rd Annual Conference devoted to the interaction and mutual influence of various Jewish groups, and their neighbors of other ethnicities and faiths in Central Asia and the Caucasus during the “colonial era” of the 19-20th centuries and nowadays.

We consider a wide range of topics related to Jewish life in Central Asia and the Caucasus, including, but not limited to:

• The impact of modernization and migration on the life of Jewish communities;
• Political activities and interaction with authorities;
• Relations and interactions with local and foreign (Jewish and non-Jewish) populations;
• Cultural history and assimilation processes;
• Languages and language policies.

In addition, this year the organizers plan a panel devoted to demographic cataclysms and the great migration to the Central Asian region during the Second World War. In this panel, we will be glad to see researchers who are engaged not only in Jewish studies.

Format: the conference will take place in Moscow on June 4, and in Almaty on June 6 – 8, 2025. Online presentations are also welcome.

We accept applications in Russian and English languages (simultaneous translation will be provided)

You can submit your application following the link.

Applications will be accepted until March 20, 2025.

Decisions by: March 27, 2025.

After the conference, we plan to publish a peer-reviewed collection of papers in Russian and English.

We will try to cover accommodation in Moscow (up to 2 nights) and Almaty (up to 3 nights). The Organizing Committee does not provide visa support, but we can prepare an official invitation. For young researchers (master’s students, postgraduate students and researchers who defended their theses no more than 5 years ago) we have a few travel grants (please don’t forget to indicate this in your application).

Conference Organizing Committee:

• Svetlana Amosova — Head of the Research Center of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Junior Research Fellow in the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
• Anastasia Deka — Manager of the Research Center of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow
• Elena Fomenko — Assistant at the Research Center of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow
• Ablet Kamalov — Director of the Center for Regional Studies, Turan University, Almaty; President of the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS)
• Zeev Levin — Director of the Research Center of Jews in Central Asia and the Iranian Sphere, Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East, Jerusalem
• Maria Zarkh — Coordinator in the Research Center of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center (Secretary of the Organizing Committee), Moscow

For questions and inquiries: rc@jewish-museum.ru