The 9th International Conference on the History of Central Asian Jewry Has Convened in Almaty

The conference was attended by scientists from 8 countries, who presented 76 papers. The conference was supported by the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.

For eighteen years, the Jewish community of the Republic of Kazakhstan has been holding a biennial conference dedicated to the history of the evacuation of the civilian population during the Great Patriotic War and the history of Jews in Central Asia. The participating countries included Belarus, Israel, Kazakhstan, Canada, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Poland.

Welcoming remarks to the participants were sent by: Sergey Tereshchenko, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and Honorary Consul of Israel in Kazakhstan; Leonid Prokopenko, Deputy Chairman of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan; Liat Wexelman, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Israel to the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic; and Mikhail Mirilashvili, President of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.

Among the papers presented at the conference were:  “Jewish Migration to Kazakhstan in the Pre-war Decade and during the Great Patriotic War: Donor and Recipient Regions, Quantitative Composition” by Evgeniya Chilikova, Head of the Department of Scientific Publication of Documents of the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty, Kazakhstan); “Evacuated Jewish Doctors in Kazakhstan” by Aigerim Erkenova, Master of Social Sciences, Senior Archivist of the Central State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation of the Republic of Kazakhstan  (Almaty, Kazakhstan); “Socio-economic Data in Archival Materials on the Jewish Population Evacuated to Tashkent in 1942” by Khayriya Burieva, PhD in History, Associate Professor of the Department of Source Studies and Archival Studies of the Faculty of History at the Mirzo Ulugbek National University of Uzbekistan (NUUz), Researcher at the Coordination and Methodology Center for Contemporary History of Uzbekistan under the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Uzbekistan); “Evacuated Jews in the Archival Institutions of Uzbekistan” by Max Wexelman (Israel); “State Anti-Semitism in the Archival Institutions of Kazakhstan” by Evgeny Vilensky, PhD in History (Almaty, Kazakhstan, “Changes in the Denominational Life of the Jews of the Steppe Region in the late 19th – early 20th Centuries”); Tamara Volkova, PhD in History, Professor at the Kazakh-German University (Almaty, Kazakhstan);  “The Contribution of Russian Jews to the Archival Studies of Uzbekistan and Central Asia (1941–1991)” by Yosif Birnbaum (Beer-Sheva, Israel); “Modern Museum and Excursion-Tourist Technologies” by David Kizhner, Gabbai of the Tomsk Choral Synagogue, Lead Engineer of the Research and Innovation Laboratory; “The Reichseligman Brewers of Tomsk” of the Department of Museology, Cultural and Natural Heritage of Tomsk State University (Tomsk, Russia, “Iosif Budnevich – Personal Photographer of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan”);  Symbat Shaizhanova, Master of Social Sciences, Expert of the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty, Kazakhstan);  “People of Kazakhstan in Persons: From the History of the Jews” by Mendyganym Shaimerdenova, PhD in History, Associate Professor, Academician of the International Academy of Informatization, Professor at the T.K. Zhurgenov Kazakh National Academy of Arts (Almaty, Kazakhstan); “Trotsky in Kazakhstan” by Vladimir Yudakov, History Teacher (Atyrau, Kazakhstan); and “‘Another World’ through the Eyes of a Medieval Jewish Cartographer” by Alexander Yarkov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor at Tyumen State University (Tomsk, Russia).

The EAJC notes with satisfaction that the International Scientific and Practical Historical Conference “History. Memory. People” has become a key recurring event for studying the history of Jews in Central Asia and Western Siberia.