Zvi Gitelman

Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet Jewish theaters became catalysts for modernist experimentation. Working with avant-garde playwrights, actors, and producers in a new political environment, artists such as Marc Chagall, Natan Altman, Robert Falk, and Aleksandr Tyshler combined Russian folk art with elements of Cubo-Futurism and Constructivism into a bold new style. This collaboration gave rise to extraordinary productions with highly original stage designs that redefined the concept of theater itself. From the Jewish mythical and folkloric plays produced at Habima to the daring, expressionistic Yiddish dramas presented at the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (GOSET), this beautifully illustrated book chronicles the flourishing of Soviet Jewish theater in the 1920s and 1930s. Spanning such topics as Jewish culture and history in the Soviet Union, the volume includes stunning reproductions of Chagall's celebrated theater murals; fascinating archival materials such as posters, prints, and playbills; designs for costumes and sets; and many other breathtaking works.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 397 pp. $65.00. Two of the best political-sociologists writing on Israel have joined together (not for the first time) to offer a comprehensive analysis of Israeli society along its twisted history, and to point to the relevance of such analysis to the understanding of current Israel. For the most part, the authors fulfill the ambitious promise built in a project of such a magnitude. Even readers who would disagree with their assumptions, argumentations, and empirical analysis, would not deny the importance of this book to the study of Israeli society and politics. The key question that the book presents is grounded on an institutional framework of analysis: how within the evolving society a compromise was made between the universalizing requirements of democratic institutions and the exclusionary, ethnonationalist colonial drive. Moreover, how such institutional contradictions have led, later on, to both a peace process with the Palestinians and to an unbending dispute among Israelis on its meaning and consequences. In order to answer these questions the authors have built a theoretical scheme around the concept of citizenship. Interestingly, they adopt neither a formal or legal definition of the concept, nor a political narrowed one, but a sociological definition, namely one that defines citizenship as a "discourse" on claims for rights, duties, and privileges in all aspects of life. Philosophically and empirically, these claims can be divided, according to Shafir and Peled, into three main categories, all of which existed in different degrees and variants in Israel's past and present: the liberal discourse of citizenship, the republican, and the ethno-national one. Couched within the spirit of the Lockean tradition, the liberal discourse on citizenship emphasizes civil liberties and private property; the republican discourse, following Montesqieu and Rousseau, posits the "common will" and the community of consent at its center; whereas the ethno-national stresses the importance of membership in a community of descent. These three different claims were concentrated around what Stephen Krasner, John Meyer, and Yasemin Soysal have called the "incorporation regime," meaning the institutionalized modes whereby various social groups are incorporated through the differential allocation of rights and privileges. For years, Shafir and Peled claim, the republican discourse of citizenship was the predominant one in the Yishuv (pre-state Israel) period and the first years of the new state. The Founding Fathers of Israel hoped to accomplish a colonial plan through the creation of a common moral purpose for all the newcomers. Groups and organizations were judged according to one criterion only: their contribution to the demands of the "collective." With the creation of the state, the republican definition of reality was even extended to include the new immigrants, most of them Mizrahim (immigrants from Middle East and North-African countries), driving them to accept state imperatives and dictates (Etatism in French or Mamlachtiyut in Hebrew). Evidently, not all Israelis could equally contribute to the common national purposes, the result of which was a hierarchical stratification system, with the Ashkenazi males at its head. With the 1967 Six Day war and the occupation of new territories, the frontier was reopened and the colonial drive emerged again, this time by new groups, mainly the religious settlers of Gush Emunim (Bloc of Faith). During these years a crisis of legitimacy had already started, as the regime had to face both the difficulties posed by the control of non-citizen Palestinians living in the territories under military occupation, and by the new settlers ever growing intransigence against political compromises and moderation. With the decline of the republican mode of incorporation, the two organizing principles that had been appeased under the long years of hegemonic republicanism broke into a blatant and uncompromising conflict: the liberal aspirations, headed by the new entrepreneurs sitting at the steering wheel of the economy, on the one hand, and the right wing religious settlers with their ethno-national creed, on the other. …

An attempt is made to survey demographic trends among Soviet Jews by examining 3 kinds of data: Russian and Soviet censuses whatever data on Jews appear in other relevant Soviet sources and general Soviet demographic studies that might suggest explanations of trends among Jews. The survey is then placed in the context of broader interpretations of the typically low levels of Jewish fertility among Jews in the Western world and an effort is made to explore the social and political consequences of demographic trends among Soviet Jews. As in most developed nations the birthrate in the USSR has been falling and natural increase has slowed considerably. There is no reason to believe that Soviet policymakers have a demographic policy with regard to the Jews but no doubt the long standing trend toward a decline in the Jewish population does not displease them. This is the case not only in regard to Jews who present special problems but to other nationalities. The continuing decline in the ...

The Soviet Union inherited a multinational state from the Russian Empire. That empire had gained a reputation as ‘the prisonhouse of nations’, and the Bolsheviks exploited the grievances of non-Russians in rallying support for their cause. Leaders of the Soviet state claimed to have the solution to the ‘national question’: all peoples would be equal and then they would come to realise that class, not ethnicity or religion, was the important dividing line in society. In line with Marx’s teachings, the Bolsheviks expected ethnic consciousness to recede and nations to disappear, just as the state would.

Can someone be considered Jewish if he or she never goes to synagogue, doesn't keep kosher, and for whom the only connection to his or her ancestral past is attending an annual Passover seder? In Religion or Ethnicity? sixteen leading scholars trace the evolution of Jewish identity. The book examines Judaism from the Greco-Roman age, through medieval times, modern western and eastern Europe, to today. Jewish identity has been defined as an ethnicity, a nation, a culture, and even a race. Religion or Ethnicity? questions what it means to be Jewish. The contributors show how the Jewish people have evolved over time in different ethnic, religious, and political movements. In his closing essay, Gitelman questions the viability of secular Jewishness outside Israel but suggests that the continued interest in exploring the relationship between Judaism's secular and religious forms will keep the heritage alive for generations to come.

Eastern and Western Europe are moving toward each other economically, culturally, and politically; the physical and political barriers between them are disappearing. Yet, in one important respect they seem to be moving in opposite directions. While Western Europe moves toward international integration, several East European states seem to be heading toward national disintegration. The Yugoslav federation appears more fragile than ever; renaming the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic took some wrangling until the two major nations could agree on ‘Czech and Slovak Federated Republic’; in Transylvania there has been violence between Hungarians and Romanians; and in Bulgaria a high level of tension remains between Turks and Bulgars. In the Soviet Union the facade of ‘friendship of the peoples’ has crumbled.

In 1900 over five million Jews lived in the Russian empire; today, there are four times as many Russian-speaking Jews residing outside the former Soviet Union than there are in that region. The New Jewish Diaspora is the first English-language study of the Russian-speaking Jewish diaspora. This migration has made deep marks on the social, cultural, and political terrain of many countries, in particular the United States, Israel, and Germany. The contributors examine the varied ways these immigrants have adapted to new environments, while identifying the common cultural bonds that continue to unite them. Assembling an international array of experts on the Soviet and post-Soviet Jewish diaspora, the book makes room for a wide range of scholarly approaches, allowing readers to appreciate the significance of this migration from many different angles. Some chapters offer data-driven analyses that seek to quantify the impact Russian-speaking Jewish populations are making in their adoptive countries and their adaptations there. Others take a more ethnographic approach, using interviews and observations to determine how these immigrants integrate their old traditions and affiliations into their new identities. Further chapters examine how, despite the oceans separating them, members of this diaspora form imagined communities within cyberspace and through literature, enabling them to keep their shared culture alive. Above all, the scholars in The New Jewish Diaspora place the migration of Russian-speaking Jews in its historical and social contexts, showing where it fits within the larger historic saga of the Jewish diaspora, exploring its dynamic engagement with the contemporary world, and pointing to future paths these immigrants and their descendants might follow. Introduction: Homelands, Diasporas, and the Islands in Between Zvi Gitelman Part I Demography: Who Are the Migrants and Where Have They Gone? Chapter 1 Demography of the Contemporary Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora Mark Tolts Chapter 2 The Russian-Speaking Israeli Diaspora in the FSU, Europe, and North America: Jewish Identification and Attachment to Israel Uzi Rebhun Chapter 3 Home in the Diaspora? Jewish Returnees and Transmigrants in Ukraine Marina Sapritsky Part II Transnationalism and Diasporas Chapter 4 Rethinking Boundaries in the Jewish Diaspora from the FSU Jonathan Dekel-Chen Chapter 5 Diaspora from the Inside Out: Litvaks in Lithuania Today Hannah Pollin-Galay Chapter 6 Russian-Speaking Jews and Israeli Emigrants in the United States: A Comparison of Migrant Populations Steven J. Gold Part III Political and Economic Change Chapter 7 Political Newborns: Immigrants in Israel and Germany Olena Bagno-Moldavski Chapter 8 The Move from Russia/the Soviet Union to Israel: A Transformation of Jewish Culture and Identity Yaacov Ro’i Chapter 9 The Economic Integration of Soviet Jewish Immigrants in Israel Gur Ofer Part IV Resocialization and the Malleability of Ethnicity Chapter 10 Russian-Speaking Jews in Germany Eliezer Ben-Rafael Chapter 11 Performing Jewishness and Questioning the Civic Subject among Russian-Jewish Migrants in Germany Sveta Roberman Chapter 12 Inventing a “New Jew”: The Transformation of Jewish Identity in Post-Soviet Russia Elena Nosenko-Shtein Part V Migration and Religious Change Chapter 13 Post-Soviet Immigrant Religiosity: Beyond the Israeli National Religion Nelly Elias and Julia Lerner Chapter 14 Virtual Village in a Real World: The Russian Jewish Diaspora Online Anna Shternshis Part VI Diaspora Russian Literature Chapter 15 Four Voices from the Last Soviet Generation: Evgeny Steiner, Alexander Goldstein, Oleg Yuryev, and Alexander Ilichevsky Mikhail Krutikov Chapter 16 Poets and Poetry in Today’s Diaspora: On Being “Marginally Jewish” Stephanie Sandler Chapter 17 Triple Identities: Russian-Speaking Jews as German, American, and Israeli Writers Adrian Wanner Afterword: The Future of a Diaspora Zvi Gitelman

The study of Jewish political ideas, institutions and behavior has not been incorporated into comparative politics, nor have the concepts and tools of comparative politics been used to illuminate the Jewish political experience. This article attempts to show how the study of the Jewish political heritage, distinguished by longevity, adaptability, and the development of both concepts and institutions worthy of study, could enrich comparative politics. Similarly, using concepts such as national integration, ethnopolitics, political culture, civil-military relations and others may help us understand better the experience of Jews both in the diaspora and in the State of Israel.

The presentation will discuss identity challenges, social dynamics, political and religious views and behavior, and prospects of continuing as a distinctive socio-cultural group of the Russian-speaking American Jews who arrived to the US during the last 40 years. In search of their multi-faceted identity, Russian Jews have to cooperate with their American (and Jewish American) counterparts and hosts. Simultaneously, explicitly or implicitly, they attempt to maintain a separation line, a zone where they would feel socially, culturally, religiously, politically, linguistically, and even economically comfortable, relatively independent in their life-style and mindset from their American brethren. The presentation will be using data that was obtained and interpreted by a number of surveys sponsored by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and other agencies and conducted by Research Institute for New Americans (RINA) during 1998-2012.

This presentation addresses Soviet policy on emigration as it relates to Russian Jews. The Jewish people are described as an "ever-migrating" people, and the largest migration of Jews in recent history is that of Russian Jews from Imperialist Russia and Soviet Russia to Palestine and what later became the state of Israel. The reasons for this migration are outlined, including suppression of Jewish religion, culture, language, and Zionism.

... For the latter one must still turn to the appropri-ate volumes (6, 7, 8, 9) ,of Ludwig Pastor's classic History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, or to Emmanuel Pierre Rodocanachi's La pre-mi&e renaissance: Rome au temps de Jules 11 et de Leon X (1912). ...

Soviet historiography ignored the Jewish role in World War II, for reasons shall explore. Yet the topic is very important to Soviet and post-Soviet Jews (as well as to others), in part precisely because it was ignored by the Soviets. This is manifested in the number of articles and books published on the subject in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the Soviet Jewish diaspora, few of them by professional historians.1 One way of supplementing amateur historiography and filling in gaps in our knowledge is by taking oral testimonies from participants in the war. This has been done successfully by some popular historians in the United States.2 Oral history has serious limitations, of course. It should probably not be used to establish facts, especially at a distance of more than fifty years and in regard to events fraught with great meanings and emotions. Oral history allows for embellishment, cover-ups, falsifications and distortions. However, it can be most useful in establishing perceptions, that is, not so much what happened — though that should not be dismissed — but what people think happened, or think now happened then.3