From 28-30 March 2012 the conference East European Jews in Switzerland until World War I will take place at the Institut für Jüdische Studien of Basel University:

"Since the 1880’s, Switzerland was a point of attraction for East European Jews. Located at the periphery of the main migration routes to overseas destinations as it was, it played only a minor role in the mass migration movement from Eastern Europe. However, given the liberal admission regulations and the developing tourism in the Alps, Switzerland became a destination for students, revolutionaries and travelers.

Although the years those migrants and sojourners spent in Switzerland proved formative for their further ideological, professional and personal lives and although central actors of East European Jewish politics spent time in the students’ colonies in Berne, Zurich, Geneva and Lausanne, this chapter of East European Jewish history has found little attention in academic research. The use of source material produced by these migrants and visitors has been especially neglected.

An interdisciplinary workshop, organized at the institute for Jewish Studies in cooperation with the chair for East European History at the University of Basle, is aiming at bringing together young researchers and senior scholars to discuss their current research.

Possible topics we suggest:
- Switzerland in Hebrew and Yiddish literature and autobiography
- Jewish socialists in Switzerland
- Jewish students’ colonies in Swiss university towns
- The foreign committee of the Bund and Bundists in Switzerland
- East European Jews as sojourners and tourists in the Swiss Alps
- East European Jews in Switzerland in the context of transnational migration
- The encounter between Swiss Jews and East European Jews
- East European Jews and the Swiss policy on foreigners

All abstracts for papers (400 words plus cv) should be submitted by 15.5.2011 to Tamar Lewinsky or Sandrine Mayoraz. Participants will be reimbursed for travel and lodging."