An educational seminar “Jewish Families of the North Country” was held in St. Petersburg as part of the international project “Rod’N’Ya”. 120 participants aged 18-27 from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Saratov and Penza took part in the seminar. The goal of the project is to reveal the rich history and heritage of Russian Jews, and to show participants that the history of their families is inextricably linked to the history of the community and the entire Jewish people.
Within the framework of the project young people got acquainted with the basics of science about Jewish names and surnames, learned what to pay attention to in the family archive, how to work with available sources of family information and how exactly and when their ancestors came to the Russian Empire. Seminar participants also walked the streets of St. Petersburg, where Jewish families lived at the turn of the century, together with Victor Amchislavsky, Julia Patrakova and Maxim Mosezhnikov.
The workshop in St. Petersburg is only the first stage of the project, which will be followed in September by independent research work of 15 project participants. In November, 40 finalists from Russia, CIS and Israel who have successfully completed the training and research parts of the project will join an international group of students on an educational expedition to Jewish communities of the late Middle Ages. Students will follow the migration path of our ancestors: Bohemia – Silesia – Greater Poland, and learn about the role of community in the history of the Jewish people. By the end of 2017, participants will have developed individualized projects in their communities.
The project was created with the help and support of the Genesis Foundation by the Am-a-Zikaron Institute and the Hillel organization.