Conference "Jewish Childhood in Eastern Europe"

The conference, launching vol. 36 of Polin. Studies in Polish Jewry, will take the form of two online discussions hosted in cooperation with POLIN Museum of History of Polish Jews. The volume is an examination of the history of children, childhood and child-rearing in Jewish Eastern Europe.
- February 22, 2024, 1 PM – 8 PM
- Registration is mandatory. Register →
The contributors, drawn from Israel, Poland, western Europe and North America, have endevoured throughout to let children and teenagers speak for themselves and, while aware of the limits of their freedom of action, to assess their degree of agency. At the same time, close attention has been paid to ideas and ideals about Jewish children and Jewish childhood expressed by those with a degree of power over these children’s lives: not only their parents, but religious and communal leaders, educators and political activists invested in mobilizing the youth.
Program
- 1:00 – 2:45 PM GMT
Welcome: Dr Michał Trębacz, Prof François Guesnet
Panel One: Jewish childhood in the early 20th Century – online, in partnership with POLIN Museum, Warsaw
Chair: François Guesnet
Yehoshua Ecker: The Jewish Galician countryside experience from a child’s perspective
Jan Rybak: Refugee Children into Pillars of the Nation: Zionist Care Work for Galician Jewish Refugee Children in WW1 Vienna
Ula Madej-Krupitski: Polish Jewish Youth Encounters the ‘Other’ while Vacationing in the Second Polish Republic
- 2:45 – 3:15 PM – Break
- 3:15 – 5:00 PM GMT
Panel Two: The Holocaust and Its Aftermath – online, in partnership with POLIN Museum, Warsaw
Chair: Natalia Aleksiun (or switch with F.Guesnet)
Joanna Śliwa: Jewish Children Seeking Help from Catholic Institutions in Kraków during the Holocaust
Anna Sternshis: Yiddish Childrens’ songs of the Holocaust in Transnistria
Boaz Cohen: Rehabilitating Holocaust child victims in postwar Poland
- 5:00 – 6:00 PM GMT – Break
- 6:00 – 8:00 PM GMT
Panel Three: Jewish Childhood in Eastern Europe
In person, in cooperation with and at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, London followed by a reception (invitation only)
Welcome: HE Professor Piotr Wilczek, Ambassador, and Vivian Wineman (President, IPJS)
Chair: Antony Polonsky
Natalia Aleksiun: Jewish childhood in Eastern Europe/the Polish lands
Christine Schmidt: Response
Speakers in order of presentation →
The conference is organised by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and the UCL Institute of Jewish Studies, in partnership with POLIN Museum of History of Polish Jews, Warsaw, and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland.
The conference is organized within the the Global Education Outreach Program.
The conference is made possible with support from Taube Philanthropies, William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland.