24 September 2019

Professionals of the Jewish Documentary Heritage United in a Workshop

The workshop “At the Source: Baltics”, which took place on 16–20 September, united professionals from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Israel working with the Jewish documentary heritage. A partner of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, which hosted the event, was the National Library of Israel.

This intensive workshop provided professionals from, various institutions with an opportunity to meet one another, get to know the specifics of each institution and the collection of the Jewish documentary heritage held at these institutions. This experience will provide the basis for improving coordination activities, develop joint projects and share skills and knowledge.

The organizers provided the participants with a wider context and information relevant to working with the Jewish documentary heritage. The renowned historian Prof. David Fishman, who had visited the National Library of Lithuania several times and presented his book there, told the participants of the workshop the dramatic history of saving and preserving Jewish documents and books and introduced the cultural and historical climate of the Jewish communities of the Eastern Europe. Other activities required more active participation – to recognize various Jewish books, learn to read annals of the community and get acquainted with the Hebrew alphabet. A series of workshops were conducted by the Head of the Judaica Research Centre Lara Lempertienė, who introduced the participants to the principals for working with Jewish books.

The workshop “At the Source: Baltics” will continue in Israel next February, where participants will work with individual mentors to further deepen their knowledge.