Jewish heritage explorations in Belarus – who, how and for what?
Belarus is a real treasury, brimming with a historical and cultural heritage. One of the peoples who formed it were the Jews, and that’s why, in the cities of this country, you can easily find their presence in almost every building and street. This must be known and remembered and how do Belarusians cope with this task?
Sonya Shaipak in Minsk and Sasha Astashkevich in Polotsk invite you to an exciting journey to show how they are playing their key roles in The Together Plan’s Belarus Jewish heritage clubs. They all have one common goal – to explore and preserve Jewish past, culture and heritage. This session will introduce you to their understanding of what they can do together to achieve this in order to help people learn more about their identity and to empower communities in their cities.
This event will be in: English 🇬🇧
Speakers
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Sasha AstashkevichSasha started her “Jewish” activity in 2003 when she joined a youth club in the Polotsk Jewish community. In 2013 she graduated from Minsk State Linguistic University and joined the Together Plan team as an interpreter in Polotsk. At that time she also served as an administrator of the Polotsk Jewish Cultural Educational Foundation “Finchley” for several months. This spring she came back to work for The Together Plan with the coordination of the Babynichy cemetery project. Since then Sasha has dived into the magical world of Jewish heritage and culture.
In June she became the Polotsk Jewish community administrator and this has given her an opportunity to be a part of The Together Plan’s life, to discover an “unexplored world” of Jewish heritage in Belarus and to be a bridge between past and present.
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Sonya ShaipakHeritage CoordinatorSonya Shaipak joined the The Together Plan team only at the end of this spring and has already managed to become a part of it. She attended College for Linguistics and Humanity for four years, where she became interested in studying the peculiarities of the development of history and culture. That is why the directions of the organization’s work immediately attracted her attention and made her immerse herself in the exploring of Jewish heritage. Now she combines her studies at Minsk State Linguistic University, where she receives theoretical knowledge, with the work in the TTP, where she gains invaluable experience of working in such a friendly team!