EVENT: UCU Migration History Seminar on the Immigration of Polish Jews to Eretz Israel

The UCU Migration History Seminar invites you on 25 November 2022 at 18.30 (EET) to a public lecture on "The Immigration of Polish Jews to Eretz Israel in XIX and XX century" by Ewa Węgrzyn (Jagiellonian University, Krakow).
Venue: online on Zoom.
Register for participation here.

Abstract
In the XIX and XX centuries, there were many mass emigration movements of Polish citizens with Jewish origins to Eretz Israel. During the lecture, firstly, I will briefly present the situation of the Polish Jews in this period. Secondly, I will indicate the reasons behind the Jewish mass emigration from Poland, its structure as well as problems that the emigrants had to face while leaving Poland. Moreover, I will focus on the political and social situation that was present in Eretz Israel in XIX and XX centuries. Finally, I will describe the absorption process of the immigrants in their New Homeland - Israel. The study material used in this presentation comes from several different sources. The main resource was research carried out both in Polish and Israeli archives. Another source is more than a hundred interviews that I conducted in Israel between 2010 and 2016 with the participants of this emigration.

About the lecturer
Dr. Ewa Węgrzyn is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. In 2012 she obtained a Ph.D. in humanities from Jagiellonian University. Her scientific research is centered around the history of Polish Jews post-1945 and the emigration of Jews from Poland to Israel after World War II. Her academic interests also focus on the history of modern Israel as well as the Hebrew language. She is fluent in Hebrew, as documented by her PTOR certificate (awarded by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2011). She has received numerous domestic and foreign scholarships, for instance, a semester-long stay at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2019 and an eight-month scholarship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem awarded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel. She has organized or co-organized numerous international and national conferences, such as 30 Years of the Renewal of Polish-Israeli Diplomatic Relations, International Congress of the European Association of Jewish Studies (2018), Social and Political Dynamics in Israel, Jewish State 70 Years after the Declaration of Independence (2018). She also co-organized Polish-Israeli doctoral workshops organized by the Jagiellonian University, the University of Wrocław, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Tel Aviv. She is a member of the Polish Society of Jewish Studies, the Association of Israel Studies in Israel, and the European Association of Israel Studies.

The UCU Migration History Seminar is co-organized by the Department of History and the Jewish Studies Program at the Ukrainian Catholic University with support from the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe at the University of St. Gallen.
To participate, registration is required: unisg.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Apc-2orzssGNEg0FaOwf9ClKn-Ang9ywCV