At a conference this weekend, scholars from around the world will share information and insights about a community that is changing more rapidly perhaps than at any time in its history -- the Jews of the former Soviet Union.

"Jewish Life After the U.S.S.R.: A Community in Transition" is cosponsored by the Davis Center for Russian Studies and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston. Also contributing are the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies and the Center for Jewish Studies. The conference will take place Feb. 13-15, at Harvard.

"Nothing is really known about these topics," said Musya Glants, an associate of the Davis Center and one of the organizers of the conference. "None of them has been examined fully. The conference is a first step toward sharing our findings and opinions and checking them with one another."

Glants, an art historian, became interested in the subject of contemporary Jews in the former U.S.S.R. through her work on Russian-Jewish artists. Her original idea was to organize a small workshop on these artists, but when she mentioned the idea to Marshall Goldman, associate director of the Davis Center, he proposed widening the scope of the event.

"His idea was to broaden the topic to Jewish life in the post- Soviet era. And so the conference began to grow in a different direction, which I am not at all sorry about," Glants said.

Glants had high praise for Goldman's organizational help and his ability to raise needed funds and to attract prestigious scholars from around the globe.

Svi Gitelman, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, also helped to organize the conference. Currently a visiting fellow at the Davis Center, he will edit a volume of papers presented at the conference.

In its expanded form, the conference will cover a very full two and a half days. Beginning at sundown on Saturday, to accommodate the Jewish Sabbath, it will cover topics such as Soviet policies on nationalities and Jewish immigration, the role of the Refuseniks, changing Jewish identity, anti-Semitism, shifts in demography, religious revival in Ukraine, the revival of Judaica studies, and Jews in the arts, politics, and business.

The participants will include scholars from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies in England, the Jewish Research Center of the Russian Academy of Science, Jewish leaders from Kiev and Moscow, as well as scholars and representatives of Jewish organizations from the United States and Canada.

Concurrent with the conference, there will be an exhibition of books on Jewish life in the former Soviet Union, donated by the Russian language book store Petropl in Brookline. There will also be an exhibition of artworks by four Russian-Jewish artists.

For further information on the conference and related events, please call Marshall Goldman at (617) 495-4485.