Throughout the year, the ANU Museum of the Jewish People, with the support of the NADAV Foundation, hosted a variety of events for Russian-speaking Israelis: lectures, public talks, book and film presentations, and performances. Educational events included a lecture on bad habits for young ANU visitors, as well as a lecture on war, aggression, and propaganda in human history for adults by renowned scientist journalist Ilya Kolmanovskiy.
ANU invited famous Russian playwright, satirist, and scriptwriter Semyon Altov to discuss recent events with the museum guests. Another famous writer, director, and actor Veniamin Smekhov performed a poetic reading at ANU. The museum also hosted a question-and-answer stand-up with psychologist Dmitriy Zitzer and an interactive performance by pianist Polina Fradkina.
The museum featured several book presentations, such as famous actor Anatoliy Beliy presenting Artur Solomonov’s novel “Nathan,” renowned writer and journalist Viktor Shenderovich reading from his book of aphorisms “Don’t Be Afraid of Anything. Everything Has Happened Before,” and a discussion on Vika Roytman’s book “Yerve from Assedo” about the adaptation of the young ola hadasha. ANU introduced the first Russian translation of Elhanan Leyb Levinskiy’s famous book “Travelling to the Land of Israel in the 800th Year of the Sixth Millennium.”
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the ANU Museum of Jewish People has continued to hold events dedicated to Ukraine and the suffering of Russians under the current political regime in Russia. Notable events included a public talk by Ukrainian politician and blogger Aleksey Arestovych and a screening of the play “Finist, the Brave Falcon” by Svetlana Petreychuk, which resulted in criminal charges against Petreychuk and the director of the play Evgeniya Berkovich. ANU also hosted a discussion on the war with Hamas and the integration of newcomers from Ukraine and Russia. Additionally, ANU guests were the first to watch a documentary about Aleksey Navalny’s young supporters by famous Russian journalist Andrey Loshak.
