The first of a series of nine Lo Tishkach educational seminars among Jewish youth in Ukraine took place this month near the city of Dnipropetrovsk in the east of the country. Over 50 high-school and university students took part in the event held over the weekend of January 7-9 in a hotel camp in Novomoskovsk.
The students heard lectures on the history of Jewish life in eastern Ukraine and the impact of the Holocaust in the region.
The event was organised in collaboration with the Centre for Jewish Education in Ukraine, Hillel Dnipropetrovsk and the Dnipropetrovsk Jewish Community. Participants came from Dnipropetrovsk, Dniprodzerzhynsk, Kryvyi Rih, Donetsk and Cherkasy.
Lectures on the history of the region were given by Irina Sergeeva, head of the Judaica section at the National Library of Ukraine in Kyiv, Vladimir Lubchenko, researcher at the National Academy History Institute, and Nadia Lipes, an expert on Jewish genealogy. The three-day event was also attended by Lo Tishkach Executive Director, Philip Carmel.
Practical programmes on surveying and protecting Jewish burial sites were given by Ekatarina Malakhova of the Centre for Jewish Education in Ukraine.
Participants at the event will now prepare projects for Jewish youth in their respective communities which will be presented at a future seminar in the spring before undertaking the projects throughout the summer months.
A similar series of three seminars and micro-projects kicks off later this month for the northern and western region in Kyiv and for the southern region in Mykolaiv.
Lo Tishkach education projects in Ukraine are now into their third year and are made possible through the generous support of the Genesis Philanthropy Group.
