In the creative competition took part students from all over the country
Exclusive interest in the literary competition on topic: “Jews and Bulgarians – two peoples, one country, one love” have showed boys and girls from across the country. The Jewish – Bulgarian cooperation center “Alef” announced the competition on September 15th and in a short time over 60 students from 28 locations in the country, including Sofia, Plovdiv, Ruse, Montana, Burgas, Razgrad, Dimitrovgrad, Gabrovo, Gorna Oryahovitsa, Tervel, Apriltsi, the villages Nikolaevka and Wicker, Petrich, Gotse Delchev and many others, took part in it. One more the young people time have proved that nothing is forgotten and that they are not afraid to travel back in time to empathy the most tragic moments of the Bulgarian history.
This is the second student competition that Center “Alef” organizes to stimulate the interest of the young people in crucial for our country moments from the past and to make them draw conclusions for the present. In 2013 several dozen students participated in the competition on topic “Whoever saves one life, saves the entire universe.”
This year the participants are significantly more, since the geographic scope was extended. Additionally, in the initiative for the promotion of the competition among the high school students took part media and many of Inspectorates of Education in the country.
“We did not put any constraints for participation. The students could take part with an essay, story, paper to describe the participation of the Jews in the ranks of the Bulgarian army, their sacrifice and patriotism during the Liberation, Balkan and First World War. We only required their works to include examples of acts of courage and friendship that illustrate the human relationships between the two peoples and that later became the reason for the commitment of one the most heroic acts of the Bulgarian people – the rescue of the Jews from deportation” said Alberta Alkalay, Chairperson of Center “Alef”.
Especially for the competition on its website http://alef-bg.org “Alef” created the first of its kind electronic library containing numerous materials, concerning the participation of the Jews in the Bulgarian wars. This gave the opportunity of the young people to get in touch to authentic documents and to learn not very known facts, which to help them while making the works.
Now the students` researches have to be evaluated by the jury and this is the toughest part so far. The jury includes: Mihaylina Pavlova – Editor-in-chief of newspaper “Jewish news”, Rumen Leonidov – poet and publisher, Asen Yordanov – journalist and director of the website Bivol.bg.
The winners will be announced on a ceremony at the end of Hanukkah and on the eve of the Christian Christmas. Then the awards will be presented. The author of the work, ranked first place will receive 250 BGN, for the second place 200 BGN, and third place 150 BGN. For every outstanding participant the organizers have prepared many material incentive awards, books and other surprises. The most interesting work will be published in leading Bulgarian media.