On March 23–25, 2017 a seminar "Pearls of Yiddish culture" for 22 professionals of Jewish organizations from the Russian city of Kaliningrad (former Koenigsberg) took place in Vilnius public Jewish library. That was made possible thanks to cooperation between World Jewish Congress International Yiddish center and Kaliningrad Jewish community.

Alongside with the academic director of WJC YC, Dr. Mordechay Yushkovsky, lectures were provided by Dr. Lara Lempert, who is a lecturer at Vilnius State University and the director of Jewish section at the Lithuanian State Library, and by another Vilnius University lecturer Dr. Vilma Gradinskaitė, who was participated in our events for the first time.

Dr. Yushkovsky gave three lectures: "Yiddish as a treasury of national collective memory", "Three classics of Yiddish literature (Mendele Moicher-Sforim, Sholom Aleichem, I.L. Peretz)", and "Literature of Jewish emigrants". As usual, his appearances arouse very enthusiastic reaction.

The topic of Dr. Lempert's talk was "Jewish intellectuals – creative/artistic life of Lithuania and Vilnius in pre-war period". Dr. Vilma Gradinskaitė presented a lecture named "Shtetl, its structure and life", which was illustrated by pictures of various Jewish artists. The lecture was also highly appraised by the audience.

There were also two study tours led by the guide Nikita Meitin. One of them was a walk on foot round Jewish sites of Vilnius center; another one - by bus, including visiting the Vilnius suburb Paneriai (Ponary), where some 70,000 Jews were murdered by Nazis and their collaborators.

Here is the feedback from Svetlana Yelokhina, the employee of the charity fund "Khesed Kaliningrad": "My impression on the seminar exceeded all expectations. I have attended lots of seminars, but this one….Very informative, very professional, very important. The lectures encouraged me to study Yiddish literature. It is inevitably important to organize such seminar for young Jewish generations. Thank you, hope to carry on our cooperation".