The Forum, first launched in 2004, is an ongoing summer program designed to promote the research, and advance the careers, of promising young scholars from Israel, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and North America. 

This highly selective gathering brings together 15-20 advanced doctoral students and recent Ph.D.s in each of its sessions. Its biennial meetings afford young scholars an opportunity to meet one another and to exchange ideas and insights with their peers and with a group of prominent senior scholars, including Israel Bartal (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Oleg Budnitskii (Higher School of Economics, Moscow), Jonathan Dekel–Chen (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), David Engel (New York University), Zvi Gitelman (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor),  Eli Lederhendler (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Gabriella Safran (Stanford University),  Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto), and Yfaat Weiss (Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig). 

Each session of the Forum features research presentations, professional-development workshops, research trips to Jewish historical sites and to local libraries and archives.
The Forum has benefitted enormously from sessions in a range of cities and prominent hosts, such as the universities in Leipzig, Odessa, Boston, New York, London, Vilnius, Prague and others. 

A focus on aspiring scholars has been among the most important focal points of the Center’s program. Through the Forum of Young Scholars on East European Jewry, dozens of promising academics have been able to advance their research projects and to promote the publication of the results of their hard work by leading scholarly presses. The Forum has emerged as a recognized platform for promoting the careers of young scholars in our field and has helped to create a “global community” for the Center.