Jews Along the Silk Road Inter­national Conference on Migration Routes, Entangled Spaces, and In-between Positions

From 10-12 October 2021, Darja Klingenberg from the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION, in cooperation with Dr Alina Gromova from the Michael W. Blumenthal Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin, Dr Tsypylma Dariva from the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), organised the international conference "Jews along the Silk Road. Migration Routes, Intermediate Spaces and Intermediate Positions".

At the three-day conference, the little-known stories of flight, deportation and migration between Europe and Asia, experiences of neighbourhood and religious everyday practice of (post-)Soviet Jews from the Caucasus and Central Asia were discussed. The focus was on intermediate social and cultural spaces, places of encounters and interdependencies as well as intermediate positions of people who live as minorities and immimigrants in multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies.

Discussions took place on 5 panels, with 15 presentations by academics from Georgia, Poland, Iran, Israel, Austria, Germany, the USA and Canada, as well as in 2 lecture performances and a reading. Most of these took place in the Academy.

The panel on Monday evening in particular should not be overlooked.  Viadrina students presented their learning research projects from the summer semester: a staged reading, a glossary based on objects of migration and a podcast on the young generation of Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The reading and a discussion on multilingualism between the author Olga Grjasnova and Professor Britta Schneider was also a highlight of the conference.