Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139789627
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (397 download)

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Book Synopsis Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine by : Zvi Gitelman

Download or read book Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine written by Zvi Gitelman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the USSR collapsed, ethnic identities were imposed by the state. This book analyzes how and why Jews decided what being Jewish meant to them after the state dissolved and describes the historical evolution of Jewish identities. Surveys of more than 6,000 Jews in the early and late 1990s reveal that Russian and Ukrainian Jews have a deep sense of their Jewishness but are uncertain what it means. They see little connection between Judaism and being Jewish. Their attitudes toward Judaism, intermarriage and Jewish nationhood differ dramatically from those of Jews elsewhere. Many think Jews can believe in Christianity and do not condemn marrying non-Jews. This complicates their connections with other Jews, resettlement in Israel, the United States and Germany, and the rebuilding of public Jewish life in Russia and Ukraine. Post-Communist Jews, especially the young, are transforming religious-based practices into ethnic traditions and increasingly manifesting their Jewishness in public.

Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781139889049
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine by : Zvi Y. Gitelman

Download or read book Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine written by Zvi Y. Gitelman and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Things did not turn out as they were supposed to. Ethnic groups were supposed to disappear. Marxists, western liberals and social scientists agreed on that for different reasons. For Marxists, the inevitable demise of capitalism would do it. Others banked on economic development and "modernization" to rendered ethnicity and other "traditional" categories irrelevant. Many intellectuals and statesmen believed that the era of ethnicity and nationalism, which had brought such violence and bloodshed to the mankind, would soon be superseded by a rational and scientific temper in the world. After the Second World War nationalism had been sufficiently discredited so that all expressions of ethnicity would be looked at askance. Yet, ethnicity persists and is one of the fundamental cleavages in many European, Asian and African societies, as well in parts of the Americas. As the example of Yugoslavia shows, national or ethnic hatreds can still be the basis for wars, the dismemberment of states, and the killing of one's neighbors, even in a region which suffered so much from ethnic wars just half a century earlier. After discussing ethnicity, we shall return to its predicted demise and why it has persisted"--

The New Jewish Diaspora

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Author :
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 081357630X
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (135 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Jewish Diaspora by : Zvi Gitelman

Download or read book The New Jewish Diaspora written by Zvi Gitelman and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

The Jews of Contemporary Post-Soviet States

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110791072
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Jews of Contemporary Post-Soviet States by : Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin

Download or read book The Jews of Contemporary Post-Soviet States written by Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-10-23 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the end of the USSR, post-Soviet Jewry has evolved into an ethnically and culturally diverse Russian speaking community. This process is taking place against the gradual inflation of a collective identity among Russian-speaking Jews that survived the first post-Soviet decade. The infrastructure for this new entity is provided by new local (or ethno-civic) groups of East European Ashkenazi Jewry with specific communal, subcultural, and ethno-political identities (“Ukrainian,” “Moldavian,” or “Russian” Jews, e.g.). These communities demonstrate a changing balance of identification between their countries of residence and the “transnational Russian-Jewish community”, and they absorb a significant number of persons of non-Jewish and ethnically heterogeneous origins as well. This book discusses identity, community modes, migration dynamics, socioeconomic status, attitudes toward Israel, social and political environments, and other parameters framing these trends using the results of a comprehensive sociological study of the extended Jewish population conducted in 2019–2020 by this author in the five former-Soviet Union countries (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Kazakhstan).

New Jewish Identities

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Author :
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 6155211132
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (552 download)

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Book Synopsis New Jewish Identities by : Zvi Y. Gitelman

Download or read book New Jewish Identities written by Zvi Y. Gitelman and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2003-07-30 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique collection of essays that deal with the intriguing and complex problems connected to the question of Jewish identity in the contemporary world. Based on a conference held in Budapest, Hungary in July 2001, it analyzes and compares how Jews conceive of their Jewishness. Do they see it in mostly religious, cultural or ethnic terms? What are the policy implications of these views and how have they been evolving? What do they portend for the future of world Jewry? The authors present new data from west European and post-Communist countries (Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Ukraine) and re-interpret data from other European countries as well as from Israel and the United States, making this a truly comprehensive, comparative and contemporary work.

Russian Jews on Three Continents

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 135149225X
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis Russian Jews on Three Continents by : Larissa Remennick

Download or read book Russian Jews on Three Continents written by Larissa Remennick and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1990s, more than 1.6 million Jews from the former Soviet Union emigrated to Israel, the United States, Canada, Germany, and other Western countries. Larissa Remennick relates the saga of their encounter with the economic marketplaces, lifestyles, and everyday cultures of their new homelands, drawing on comparative sociological research among Russian-Jewish immigrants.Although citizens of Jewish origin ostensibly left the former Soviet Union to flee persecution and join their co-religionists, Israeli, North American, and German Jews were universally disappointed by the new arrivals' tenuous Jewish identity. In turn, Russian Jews, whose identity had been shaped by seventy years of secular education and assimilation into the Soviet mainstream, hoped to be accepted as ambitious and hard working individuals seeking better lives. These divergent expectations shaped lines of conflict between Russian-speaking Jews and the Jewish communities of the receiving countries.Since her own immigration to Israel from Moscow in 1991, Remennick has been both a participant and an observer of this saga. This is the first attempt to compare resettlement and integration experiences of a single ethnic community (former Soviet Jews) in various global destinations. It also analyzes their emerging transnational lifestyles. Written from an interdisciplinary perspective, this book opens new perspectives for a diverse readership, including sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, historians, Slavic scholars, and Jewish studies specialists.

A Century of Ambivalence, Second Expanded Edition

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Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253214188
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (141 download)

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Book Synopsis A Century of Ambivalence, Second Expanded Edition by : Zvi Y. Gitelman

Download or read book A Century of Ambivalence, Second Expanded Edition written by Zvi Y. Gitelman and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2001-04-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now back in print in a new edition A Century of Ambivalence The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present Second, Expanded Edition Zvi Gitelman A richly illustrated survey of the Jewish historical experience in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the post-Soviet era. "Anyone with even a passing interest in the history of Russian Jewry will want to own this splendid... book." --Janet Hadda, Los Angeles Times "... a badly needed historical perspective on Soviet Jewry.... Gitelman] is evenhanded in his treatment of various periods and themes, as well as in his overall evaluation of the Soviet Jewish experience.... A Century of Ambivalence is illuminated by an extraordinary collection of photographs that vividly reflect the hopes, triumphs and agonies of Russian Jewish life." --David E. Fishman, Hadassah Magazine "Wonderful pictures of famous personalities, unknown villagers, small hamlets, markets and communal structures combine with the text to create an uplifting book] for a broad and general audience." --Alexander Orbach, Slavic Review "Gitelman's text provides an important commentary and careful historic explanation.... His portrayal of the promise and disillusionment, hope and despair, intellectual restlessness succeeded by swift repression enlarges the reader's understanding of the dynamic forces behind some of the most important movements in contemporary Jewish life." --Jane S. Gerber, Bergen Jewish News "... a lucid and reasonably objective popular history that expertly threads its way through the dizzying reversals of the Russian Jewish experience." --Village Voice A century ago the Russian Empire contained the largest Jewish community in the world, numbering about five million people. Today, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union has dwindled to half a million, but remains probably the world's third largest Jewish community. In the intervening century the Jews of that area have been at the center of some of the most dramatic events of modern history--two world wars, revolutions, pogroms, political liberation, repression, and the collapse of the USSR. They have gone through tumultuous upward and downward economic and social mobility and experienced great enthusiasms and profound disappointments. In startling photographs from the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and with a lively and lucid narrative, A Century of Ambivalence traces the historical experience of Jews in Russia from a period of creativity and repression in the second half of the 19th century through the paradoxes posed by the post-Soviet era. This redesigned edition, which includes more than 200 photographs and two substantial new chapters on the fate of Jews and Judaism in the former Soviet Union, is ideal for general readers and classroom use. Zvi Gitelman is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He is author of Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 and editor of Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR (Indiana University Press). Published in association with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Contents Introduction Creativity versus Repression: The Jews in Russia, 1881-1917 Revolution and the Ambiguities of Liberation Reaching for Utopia: Building Socialism and a New Jewish Culture The Holocaust The Black Years and the Gray, 1948-1967 Soviet Jews, 1967-1987: To Reform, Conform, or Leave? The "Other" Jews of the Former USSR: Georgian, Central Asian, and Mountain Jews The Post-Soviet Era: Winding Down or Starting Up Again? The Paradoxes of Post-Soviet Jewry

Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107023289
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine by : Zvi Y. Gitelman

Download or read book Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine written by Zvi Y. Gitelman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most comprehensive surveys ever undertaken of Jews in Russia and Ukraine show that their sense of Jewishness is powerful but detached from religion. Their understandings of Jewishness differ from those of Jews elsewhere and create tensions in their interactions with other Jews, especially in Israel. This book examines in depth post-Soviet Jews' attitudes toward religion, intermarriage, emigration, anti-Semitism, and rebuilding Jewish life.

Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920

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Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812208145
Total Pages : 541 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920 by : Oleg Budnitskii

Download or read book Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920 written by Oleg Budnitskii and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years following the Russian Revolution, a bitter civil war was waged between the Bolsheviks, with their Red Army of Workers and Peasants on the one side, and the various groups that constituted the anti-Bolshevik movement on the other. The major anti-Bolshevik force was the White Army, whose leadership consisted of former officers of the Russian imperial army. In the received—and simplified—version of this history, those Jews who were drawn into the political and military conflict were overwhelmingly affiliated with the Reds, while from the start, the Whites orchestrated campaigns of anti-Jewish violence, leading to the deaths of thousands of Jews in pogroms in the Ukraine and elsewhere. In Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920, Oleg Budnitskii provides the first comprehensive historical account of the role of Jews in the Russian Civil War. According to Budnitskii, Jews were both victims and executioners, and while they were among the founders of the Soviet state, they also played an important role in the establishment of the anti-Bolshevik factions. He offers a far more nuanced picture of the policies of the White leadership toward the Jews than has been previously available, exploring such issues as the role of prominent Jewish politicians in the establishment of the White movement of southern Russia, the "Jewish Question" in the White ideology and its international aspects, and the attempts of the Russian Orthodox Church and White diplomacy to forestall the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The relationship between the Jews and the Reds was no less complicated. Nearly all of the Jewish political parties severely disapproved of the Bolshevik coup, and the Red Army was hardly without sin when it came to pogroms against the Jews. Budnitskii offers a fresh assessment of the part played by Jews in the establishment of the Soviet state, of the turn in the policies of Jewish socialist parties after the first wave of mass pogroms and their efforts to attract Jews to the Red Army, of Bolshevik policies concerning the Jewish population, and of how these stances changed radically over the course of the Civil War.

Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781097257508
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (575 download)

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Book Synopsis Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews by : Sam Sokol

Download or read book Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews written by Sam Sokol and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-03 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on journalist Sam Sokol's reporting from Ukraine during the first years of the Donbas War, Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews chronicles the collapse of Jewish life in the regions of eastern Ukraine occupied by Russian-backed separatist militias in 2014. Based on extensive interviews and told through the eyes of refugees, politicians, soldiers, and aid workers, this book is a rich account of both the ravages of armed conflict and the Kremlin's attempts to weaponize antisemitism as part of its hybrid war against Ukraine.

Russian Anti-semitism and the Scapegoating of Jews

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 52 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Russian Anti-semitism and the Scapegoating of Jews by : James L. Gibson

Download or read book Russian Anti-semitism and the Scapegoating of Jews written by James L. Gibson and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Bringing the Dark Past to Light

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Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1496210204
Total Pages : 946 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (962 download)

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Book Synopsis Bringing the Dark Past to Light by : John-Paul Himka

Download or read book Bringing the Dark Past to Light written by John-Paul Himka and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-06-12 with total page 946 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the Holocaust's profound impact on the history of Eastern Europe, the communist regimes successfully repressed public discourse about and memory of this tragedy. Since the collapse of communism in 1989, however, this has changed. Not only has a wealth of archival sources become available, but there have also been oral history projects and interviews recording the testimonies of eyewitnesses who experienced the Holocaust as children and young adults. Recent political, social, and cultural developments have facilitated a more nuanced and complex understanding of the continuities and discontinuities in representations of the Holocaust. People are beginning to realize the significant role that memory of Holocaust plays in contemporary discussions of national identity in Eastern Europe. This volume of original essays explores the memory of the Holocaust and the Jewish past in postcommunist Eastern Europe. Devoting space to every postcommunist country, the essays in Bringing the Dark Past to Light explore how the memory of the "dark pasts" of Eastern European nations is being recollected and reworked. In addition, it examines how this memory shapes the collective identities and the social identity of ethnic and national minorities. Memory of the Holocaust has practical implications regarding the current development of national cultures and international relationships.

Britons

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Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780300107593
Total Pages : 452 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis Britons by : Linda Colley

Download or read book Britons written by Linda Colley and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Controversial, entertaining and alarmingly topical ... a delight to read."Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph

The Origins of the Slavic Nations

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521155113
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (551 download)

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Book Synopsis The Origins of the Slavic Nations by : Serhii Plokhy

Download or read book The Origins of the Slavic Nations written by Serhii Plokhy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-19 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2006 book documents developments in the countries of eastern Europe, including the rise of authoritarian tendencies in Russia and Belarus, as well as the victory of the democratic 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine, and poses important questions about the origins of the East Slavic nations and the essential similarities or differences between their cultures. It traces the origins of the modern Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nations by focusing on pre-modern forms of group identity among the Eastern Slavs. It also challenges attempts to 'nationalize' the Rus' past on behalf of existing national projects, laying the groundwork for understanding of the pre-modern history of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The book covers the period from the Christianization of Kyivan Rus' in the tenth century to the reign of Peter I and his eighteenth-century successors, by which time the idea of nationalism had begun to influence the thinking of East Slavic elites.

Ukraine and Russia

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009315501
Total Pages : 387 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Ukraine and Russia by : Paul D'Anieri

Download or read book Ukraine and Russia written by Paul D'Anieri and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-04-30 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fully revised and updated, this book explores the long-term dynamics of international conflict between Ukraine, Russia and the West, revealing the historic background to the invasion of Ukraine.

The Jews of Contemporary Post-Soviet States

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110791110
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Jews of Contemporary Post-Soviet States by : Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin

Download or read book The Jews of Contemporary Post-Soviet States written by Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-10-23 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the end of the USSR, post-Soviet Jewry has evolved into an ethnically and culturally diverse Russian speaking community. This process is taking place against the gradual inflation of a collective identity among Russian-speaking Jews that survived the first post-Soviet decade. The infrastructure for this new entity is provided by new local (or ethno-civic) groups of East European Ashkenazi Jewry with specific communal, subcultural, and ethno-political identities (“Ukrainian,” “Moldavian,” or “Russian” Jews, e.g.). These communities demonstrate a changing balance of identification between their countries of residence and the “transnational Russian-Jewish community”, and they absorb a significant number of persons of non-Jewish and ethnically heterogeneous origins as well. This book discusses identity, community modes, migration dynamics, socioeconomic status, attitudes toward Israel, social and political environments, and other parameters framing these trends using the results of a comprehensive sociological study of the extended Jewish population conducted in 2019–2020 by this author in the five former-Soviet Union countries (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Kazakhstan).

In the Shadow of the Shtetl

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Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253011523
Total Pages : 441 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis In the Shadow of the Shtetl by : Jeffrey Veidlinger

Download or read book In the Shadow of the Shtetl written by Jeffrey Veidlinger and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history based on interviews with hundreds of Ukrainian Jews who survived both Hitler and Stalin, recounting experiences ordinary and extraordinary. The story of how the Holocaust decimated Jewish life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe is well known. Still, thousands of Jews in these small towns survived the war and returned afterward to rebuild their communities. The recollections of some four hundred returnees in Ukraine provide the basis for Jeffrey Veidlinger’s reappraisal of the traditional narrative of twentieth-century Jewish history. These elderly Yiddish speakers relate their memories of Jewish life in the prewar shtetl, their stories of survival during the Holocaust, and their experiences living as Jews under Communism. Despite Stalinist repressions, the Holocaust, and official antisemitism, their individual remembrances of family life, religious observance, education, and work testify to the survival of Jewish life in the shadow of the shtetl to this day.