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Eastern European Jewish Studies: The Past Thirty Years
Author(s): Wodziński, Marcin
Date: 2012
Topics: Jewish Studies, Universities / Higher Education, Main Topic: Other, Diaspora, Israel-Diaspora Relations
Abstract: This study, based on quantitative analysis of several bibliometric datasets, examines the position of East European Jewish studies. It is argued here that the number of studies on East European Jewry, as exemplified by the datasets analyzed here, is not proportional to its demographic, sociopolitical, or cultural position in history. The proportion seems rather to replicate the mental maps of “centrality” and “marginality” in the contemporary world, with Israel as an important exception. It is further suggested that power relations between centers and peripheries of academic Jewish studies go along the lines of the more general mechanisms of systemic inequity in academia, for which geography and social diversity, together with gender, are the primary and best recognized factors of underrepresentation. The underrepresentation of Eastern Europe is even more transparent when viewed through the map of the geographical origin of the scholarship. Most high-profile scholarship is produced in North America and Israel, while the number of contributions coming from Eastern Europe is negligible. This is surprising when confronted with the apparent boom of Jewish studies in several countries of the region. The sample material analyzed here suggests the existence of self-limiting East European practices which create alternative local circulations for publications produced and distributed there that never merge into a wider international exchange of knowledge.
« Collaboration » : un terme contesté et une invitation au révisionnisme
Translated Title: “Collaboration”: A contested term and an invitation for revisionism
Author(s): Klacsmann, Borbála; Petõ, Andrea; Taczyńska, Katarzyna
Date: 2025
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Museums, Post-1989, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust, Holocaust Memorials
Abstract: La culture mémorielle de l’Europe de l’Est a subi une transformation radicale après l’effondrement du communisme, du fait de l’« américanisation » de la Shoah, c’est-à-dire, pour reprendre les termes de Winfried Fluck, spécialiste de la culture allemande, un processus de démocratisation consistant à éradiquer toute complexité afin de rendre accessibles à un vaste public des événements complexes. De nouveaux musées ont été créés pour réécrire l’histoire de la Seconde Guerre mondiale d’un point de vue anticommuniste. Le langage utilisé ne correspondait ni à la culture mémorielle nationale, ni à la conceptualisation religieuse de la Shoah, ni au contexte linguistique et culturel de la vie dans l’Allemagne nazie avant et pendant le conflit. Divers auteurs ont analysé le phénomène des pays européens qui n’opposèrent aucune résistance à l’hégémonie de l’Allemagne nazie et de son programme politique. Ceux-ci s’accordent à dire que l’analyse devrait dépasser le clivage bourreaux-spectateurs-victimes.Il existe une contradiction flagrante entre la terminologie employée par la muséologie antifasciste avant 1989 et celle qui est en cours dans les nouveaux musées construits dans les années 2000. L’idée d’une coexistence avec l’Allemagne nazie est une question idéologique et politique majeure, notamment, aujourd’hui, avec la mise en relief illibérale de zones d’ombre précédemment ignorées dans le discours muséologique. Le présent article soutient que le terme « collaboration » n’est pas un bon critère de mesure des phénomènes qui ont fait l’objet de travaux récents…
Проблеми Формування Європейської Культури Історичної Пам’яті В Україні: Голокост, Декомунізація,українсько-польські «війни Пам’яті»
Translated Title: Problems of Formation of European Culture of Historical Memory in Ukraine: Holocaust, Decommunization, Ukrainian-Polish “Memory Wars”
Author(s): Латиш, Юрій
Editor(s): Astramovich-Leik, T.; Turchyn, Ya.; Horbach, O.
Date: 2022
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Post-1989, Holocaust Commemoration
Abstract: Проаналізовано значення поняття «культура історичної пам’яті», розглянуто історію її формування у Західній Європі, особливості ландшафту пам’яті у Східній Європі та Україні, визначено ключові питання історичної політики України, які мають потенціал перешкодити європейській інтеграції України. Внаслідок проведеного дослідження встановлено, що Україна належить до східноєвропейського регіону історичної пам’яті, якому притаманні етатизм, єдність та героїчність, віктимність, сек’юритизація. На шляху до європейської інтеграції перед Україною поставатимуть проблеми піднесення ролі Голокосту в історичній пам’яті та визнання часткової відповідальності за злочини колаборантів, обмеження регулювання з боку держави історичної сфери, українсько-польських історичних конфліктів. Водночас може відбуватися дифузія західноєвропейської та східноєвропейської моделей пам’яті.
A Jewish Renaissance? Reflections on Jewish Life in East Central Europe since 1989
Author(s): Miller, Michael L.
Editor(s): Blumenthal, Rachel; Herskowitz, Daniel M.; Mayerhofer, Kerstin
Date: 2022
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
A Brief Assessment of the Current State of Restitution Policy at a National Level and in Eastern Europe
Author(s): Andreides, Katalin
Date: 2024
Topics: Restitution and Reparations, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Hierarchies, emotions, and memory in international relations
Author(s): Subotić, Jelena; Zarakol, Ayşe
Editor(s): Koschut, Simon
Date: 2020
Topics: Holocaust Commemoration, Post-1989, Memory, International Relations, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: This chapter has two goals. First, it aims to conceptualize how emotions intersect with status hierarchies. Despite the simultaneous growth of the research programs on emotions and hierarchies in IR, these research strands have mostly remained unconnected. In previous work, we raised the possibility that emotions may be underwritten by the structural positions of the actors. In this chapter, we further develop that theoretical suggestion by building on recent scholarship on hierarchies and extending insights into a new substantive research area. The chapter’s second goal is to explore the relationship between history, memory, and emotions. We argue that taking international hierarchies seriously can shed light on the relationship between (collective) memory and emotions. The chapter delineates the ways emotional historical narratives and symbols structured by hierarchy impact and constrain foreign policy choices of states. We illustrate these arguments with examples of contested – and highly emotionally charged – Holocaust remembrance practices in post-communist Europe. Specifically, we demonstrate how the European narrative of the Holocaust has developed as a “feeling rule” of guilt at the European level, but was resisted and contested in East European countries where it never matured into a “feeling rule” – not during the communist period, nor in its aftermath.
The International Relations of Holocaust Memory
Author(s): Subotić, Jelena
Editor(s): Kopstein, Jeffrey S.; Subotić, Jelena; Welch, Susan
Date: 2023
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Nationalism, National Identity, International Relations, Memory, Post-1989
Legitimating Myths and the Holocaust in Postsocialist States
Author(s): Gitelman, Zvi
Editor(s): Kopstein, Jeffrey S.; Subotić, Jelena; Welch, Susan
Date: 2023
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Nationalism, National Identity, Memory, Post-1989
Restitution and Memory: Material Restoration in Europe
Editor(s): Diner, Dan; Wunberg, Gotthard
Date: 2007
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Survivors, Restitution and Reparations, Post-1989, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: The myriad debates on restitution and memory, which have been going on in Europe for decades, indicate that World War II never ended. It is still very much with us, paradoxically re-invoked by the events of 1989/90 and the expansion of Europe to the east in the aftermath of the collapse of communism and economic globalization. The growing privatization and reprivatization in Eastern Europe revive pre-war memories that lay buried under the blanket of collectivization and nationalization of property after 1945. World War II did not only result in the death and destruction on a large scale but also in an a far-reaching revolution of existing property relations. This volume offers an assessment of the problematic of restitution and its close interconnection with the discourses of memory that have recently emerged.
Becoming Post-Communist: Jews And The New Political Cultures Of Russia And Eastern Europe
Editor(s): Lederhendler, Eli
Date: 2023
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Post-1989, Politics, Memory
Abstract: Across the landscape that until 1939 housed most of the world’s Jewish population, the closing decade of the 20th century witnessed dramatic upheavals: the overturning of the East European communist governments and the fall of the USSR, accompanied by a major Jewish emigration movement. The legacy of the Jewish presence in those countries, as viewed from today’s vantage point, and the ways in which it became enmeshed in the quest by people of the region – Jews and non-Jews alike – to secure their prospects for the future, highlighted fundamental issues about the nature and quality of the politics of memory, national identity, and the continuity and relative stability of regimes in the region. If those questions were important even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, understanding their implications now seems even more crucial. In a field fraught with conflicting narratives, the challenges of social and political reconstruction are primary concerns for peoples and governments. The experts contributing to this volume apply interdisciplinary approaches to analyze and interpret a multiplicity of post-communist social realities and aid our understanding of recent events.
Rebuilding Jewish Europe after the Fall of Communism, 1989-2000: a case of transnational circulation of narratives, resources and knowledge
Author(s): Dimentstein, Marcelo David
Date: 2024
Topics: NGOs, Jewish Revival, Post-1989, Main Topic: Other, Jewish Peoplehood, Jewish Renewal, Jewish Organisations, Fundraising and Philanthropy
Abstract: The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the communist regimes in Europe represented a radical change for Judaism on the continent. The most striking change occurred, naturally, in Central and Eastern Europe, that is, in those countries that were behind the Iron Curtain, such as Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia or the German Democratic Republic. There, while the political decomposition of the Soviet bloc was gaining traction, thousands of people rediscovered their Jewish origins – forbidden, concealed, or silenced under communism, giving rise to a process of Jewish revivalism. In this context, numerous Jewish philanthropic organizations came to the region to support these developments with the mission of renewing local Jewish communities. The process involved a multitude of actors – Jewish agencies, organizations and foundations based in the United States, Europe and Israel – and entailed the mobilization of professionals, specialists and financial resources. This thesis explores the concrete dynamics of this cross-border mobilization of Jewish philanthropic bodies in favor of the Jewish communities of East Central Europe after the fall of communism in 1989. It studies in-depth the historical origins and evolution of transnational Jewish solidarity in modern times, enquires about the Jewish agencies and organizations that started to operate in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, especially, but not only, their sources of financing and the circulation of economic resources. Finally, it gives an account of the narrative corpus that emerged about European Jews before and during this process, identifying those actors who created and mobilized these narratives.
The Appropriation of Holocaust Memory in Post-Communist Eastern Europe
Author(s): Subotić, Jelena
Date: 2020
Topics: Post-1989, Memory, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Politics
Abstract: This short essay explores the ways in which the visual and symbolic repertoire of cosmopolitan Holocaust memory has become appropriated to represent other types of historical crimes. Specifically, I examine to what extent has this instrumentalization of Holocaust memory fed into a crisis in cosmopolitan memory and the rise of its nationalized, particularized and populist variants. Focusing on post-communist Eastern Europe, I demonstrate how the familiar narratives and images of the Holocaust have been repurposed for two main goals: firstly, to normatively elevate the suffering of non-Jewish national majorities and equate it with the Holocaust; and secondly, to reposition the crimes of communism as the dominant criminal legacy of the twentieth century on a par with, and sometimes overtaking, the legacy of the Holocaust. I illustrate these arguments with brief examples of revisionist museum and commemorative practices in Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and Serbia. I conclude by thinking through some methodological and ethical dimensions of this research.
Sixth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2024
Author(s): Dimentstein, Marcelo
Date: 2024
Topics: Antisemitism, Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Jewish Leadership, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Antisemitism, October 7 2023 attacks + aftermath, Surveys
Abstract: The Sixth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2024, presents the results of an online survey offered in 10 languages and administered to 879 respondents in 31 countries. Conducted every three years using the same format, the survey seeks to identify trends and their evolution over time.

The 2024 survey came during a historically fraught moment for the Jewish people globally. The impact of the horrific October 7th attacks and the subsequent war in Israel cannot be understated. How is this affecting Jewish leadership and Jewish communal life? Therefore, in addition to the regular topics covered by the survey (community priorities, threats, security concerns, attitudes towards Europe and Israel), this edition included a special section designed to understand the impact of October 7th on Jewish life in Europe.

That October 7th has profoundly affected Jewish Europe is evident across multiple sections throughout the survey. Concern about antisemitism and the threat of physical attack has intensified. A large majority of 78% feel less safe living as Jews in their cities than they did before the Hamas attack, and respondents are more cautious about how they identify themselves as Jews. They are also more distant from their wider environments, with 38% reporting they have become more distant from non-Jewish friends.

The respondents were comprised of presidents and chairpersons of nationwide “umbrella organizations” or Federations; presidents and executive directors of private Jewish foundations, charities, and other privately funded initiatives; presidents and main representatives of Jewish communities that are organized at a city level; executive directors and programme coordinators, as well as current and former board members of Jewish organizations; among others
Holocaust memory and political legitimacy in contemporary Europe
Author(s): Subotić, Jelena
Date: 2023
Topics: Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Politics, Post-1989
Abstract: This article analyzes how Holocaust memory serves to consolidate political legitimacy in contemporary Europe. In the aftermath of communism, post-communist states performatively adopted the established Western memory canon while rejecting much of its focus on the uniqueness of Jewish suffering. Instead, they refocused the gaze on the suffering of non-Jewish national majorities. This approach provided cover and protection to Western governments, which have been reluctant to seriously address national mythologies that emphasize resistance and downplay complicity and collaboration in the Holocaust. Holocaust memory became decoupled from the Holocaust and is better understood through the prism of contemporary European politics.
The Ruin and Restoration of Sacred Spaces: the (Re)Construction of Eastern Europe and the Memorialization of Synagogues and Jewish Cemeteries.
Author(s): Nielsen, Julianna R. C.
Date: 2020
Topics: Cemeteries, Synagogues, Post-1989, Post-War Reconstruction, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Jewish Heritage, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials
Столкновение закона и обычая в традиционной культуре евреев Восточной Европы: народный иудаизм
Translated Title: Clashes between the law and the customs of traditional culture of Jews in Eastern Europe: The people’s Judaism
Author(s): Каспина, Мария
Date: 2010
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Folklore, Interviews, Oral History and Biography, Religious Observance and Practice, Ritual
Abstract: The article deals with the ways of treating a series of direct religious interdictions which were developed in traditional Jewish culture. For the founders of Jewish religious teaching it was obvious that in real life the law often came into conflict with the people’s customs and traditions which were accepted in those areas where Jews
live to this day. The author examines cases of clashes between customs and the law in material from the traditional culture of Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe in the 20th century. The article includes field material from expeditions carried out in 2000–2010 on the territory of former Jewish towns in Eastern Europe: in West Ukraine and Moldavia. The main systems of rules about the breaking of rules which have formed in traditional Jewish culture are more or less identical to universal ways of circumventing interdictions and prescripts: constructing a symbolic perfect tense, changing the status of an object and ritual exchange. Clear parallels to universal ways of
circumventing interdictions and prescripts can be found in the people’s everyday practices connected to the arrangement of one’s home, the funeral rites cycle, and protection from unclean powers
Romania: Neither “Fleishig” nor “Milchig”: A Comparative Study
Author(s): Shafir, Michael
Editor(s): Florian, Alexandru
Date: 2018
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Post-1989
Primary Holocaust Inversion and East European Antisemitism
Author(s): Katz, Dovid
Editor(s): Small, Charles A.
Date: 2018
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Denial, Antisemitism, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Notes on East European Jewish Studies thirty years after 1989
Author(s): Manchin, Anna
Date: 2020
Topics: Jewish Studies, Main Topic: Education, Universities / Higher Education, Post-1989
Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia since the End of Communism
Author(s): Polonsky, Antony
Date: 2013
Topics: Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Other, Post-1989
Abstract: This chapter highlights how the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union initiated a new period in the history of the Jews in the area. Poland was now a fully sovereign country, and Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Moldova also became independent states. Post-imperial Russia faced the task of creating a new form of national identity. This was to prove more difficult than in other post-imperial states since, unlike Britain and France, the tsarist empire and its successor, the Soviet Union, had not so much been the ruler of a colonial empire as an empire itself. All of these countries now embarked, with differing degrees of enthusiasm, on the difficult task of creating liberal democratic states with market economies. For the Jews of the area, the new political situation allowed both the creation and development of Jewish institutions and the fostering of Jewish cultural life in much freer conditions, but also facilitated emigration to Israel, North America, and western Europe on a much larger scale.
The Europeanization of Holocaust Memory and Eastern Europe
Author(s): Kucia, Marek
Date: 2016
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, NGOs, European Union
Abstract: Drawing upon developments in cultural and social memory studies and Europeanization theory, this article examines the Europeanization of Holocaust memory understood as the process of construction, institutionalization, and diffusion of beliefs regarding the Holocaust and norms and rules regarding Holocaust remembrance and education at a transnational, European level since the 1990s and their incorporation in the countries of post-communist Eastern Europe, which is also the area where the Holocaust largely took place. The article identifies the transnational agents of the Europeanization of Holocaust memory—the European Union’s parliament, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, as well as the United Nations. It analyzes chronologically the key Holocaust-related activities and documents of these agents, highlighting East European countries’ varied and changing position towards them. It examines synchronically the outcome of the Europeanization of Holocaust memory by these transnational agents—a European memory of the Holocaust—identifying its key components, discussing the main aspects, and illustrating the impact of this process and outcome upon the memory of the Holocaust in the East European countries. The article argues that the Europeanization of Holocaust memory has significantly contributed to the development of Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe, although other agents and processes were also involved.
“Anti-Semites of the Continent Unite!” Is the East still Different?
Author(s): Vago, Raphael
Editor(s): Gloeckner, Olaf; Schoeps, Julius H.
Date: 2011
Topics: Post-1989, Antisemitism, Communism, Main Topic: Antisemitism
A Review of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship Program
Author(s): Ukeles, Jacob B.; Baker, Sally; Cohen, Steven
Date: 1997
Topics: Surveys, Summer/Youth Camps, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Evaluation, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: The purpose of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship is to stimulate and train a new generation of young leadership for Jewish communities in Europe (East and West), and in Latin America. The purpose of this review is to collect information that will help the Memorial Foundation assess and improve this program. This report covers findings, interpretation of results, and implications for the future directions of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship Program. The report is based on the analysis of survey results.
The Antisemitic Paradox in Europe: Empirical Evidences and Jewish Perceptions. A Comparative Study Between the West and East
Author(s): Fireberg, Haim
Editor(s): Fireberg, Haim; Glöckner, Olaf; Zoufalá, Marcela Menachem
Date: 2020
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Surveys, Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys
Unfinished Business and Unexploited Opportunities: Central and Eastern Europe, Jews, and the Jewish State
Author(s): Rubin, Barry
Date: 2010
Topics: Israel-Diaspora Relations, Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Other
Jewish Europe Today. Between Memory and Everyday Life
Editor(s): Dimentstein, Marcelo; Tartakowsky, Ewa
Date: 2020
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Identity, Jewish Revival, Antisemitism, Jewish Culture, Jewish Heritage, Rabbis, Kashrut, Shechita / Ritual Slaughter, Jewish Organisations, Care and Welfare
Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial in Post-Communist Eastern Europe
Author(s): Lobont, Florin
Editor(s): Stone, Dan
Date: 2004
Topics: Antisemitism, Holocaust Denial, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Post-1989
Abstract: At a meeting of the Helsinki signatories (CSCE — Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) in Copenhagen in June 1990 a formal document was adopted which ‘clearly and unequivocally condemned anti-Semitism’ along with ‘racial and ethnic hatred’. The signatories agreed to ‘intensify their efforts to combat these phenomena’. The action was unprecedented. No international or regional treaty or agreement or declaration had ever specifically condemned anti-Semitism …. Motivation for the changed attitude resulted from the shock of European leaders with the results of the 1989 revolutions in East Central Europe which brought in their wake waves of hatred directed against Jews as well as Gypsies and migrants.
Holocaust Memorials in Central and Eastern Europe: Communist Legacies, Transnational Influences and National Developments
Author(s): Kucia, Marek
Date: 2016
Topics: Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Post-1989, Communism, Memorial
Abstract: The article analyses selected Holocaust memorials in several Central and East
European countries. Using the approaches of historical and visual sociology, it
identifies processes and agents that shaped the present-day memorials during
communism and after. These were: commemoration by Jews; memorialization,
marginalization, suppression and the obliteration of Jewish victimhood by the
communist authorities; making minor or substantial changes to the existing
monuments after communism and developing them; and creating new Holocaust
memorials both public and private, and by domestic and foreign agents. The article
concludes that the Holocaust memorials in the region are primarily a result of
legacies of communist times. They were also shaped by transnational influences.
By and large they are national developments.
Yellow Star, Red Star Holocaust Remembrance after Communism
Author(s): Subotic, Jelena
Date: 2019
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Survivors, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Post-1989, Nationalism, National Identity
Abstract: Yellow Star, Red Star asks why Holocaust memory continues to be so deeply troubled—ignored, appropriated, and obfuscated—throughout Eastern Europe, even though it was in those lands that most of the extermination campaign occurred. As part of accession to the European Union, Jelena Subotić shows, East European states were required to adopt, participate in, and contribute to the established Western narrative of the Holocaust. This requirement created anxiety and resentment in post-communist states: Holocaust memory replaced communist terror as the dominant narrative in Eastern Europe, focusing instead on predominantly Jewish suffering in World War II. Influencing the European Union's own memory politics and legislation in the process, post-communist states have attempted to reconcile these two memories by pursuing new strategies of Holocaust remembrance. The memory, symbols, and imagery of the Holocaust have been appropriated to represent crimes of communism.

Yellow Star, Red Star presents in-depth accounts of Holocaust remembrance practices in Serbia, Croatia, and Lithuania, and extends the discussion to other East European states. The book demonstrates how countries of the region used Holocaust remembrance as a political strategy to resolve their contemporary "ontological insecurities"—insecurities about their identities, about their international status, and about their relationships with other international actors. As Subotić concludes, Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe has never been about the Holocaust or about the desire to remember the past, whether during communism or in its aftermath. Rather, it has been about managing national identities in a precarious and uncertain world.
Traveling Jews, Creating Memory: Eastern Europe, Israel, and the Diaspora Business
Author(s): Aviv, Caryn; Shneer, David
Editor(s): Gerson, Judith M.; Wolf, Diane L.
Date: 2007
Topics: Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Jewish Heritage, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Diaspora, Memory, Educational Tours, Tourism
The International Jewish Youth Camp at Szarvas History, impact and future
Author(s): Pasajlic, Mina
Date: 2020
Topics: Main Topic: Education, Summer/Youth Camps, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Teenagers, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Informal Education, Jewish Revival
Abstract: The JDC-Lauder International Jewish Youth Camp at Szarvas is perceived today as the single most important Jewish outreach and educational programme in Central and Eastern Europe; it is a key symbol for Eastern European Jewry. This paper emphasises the importance of the Szarvas camp, located some 170 km south-east of Budapest in Hungary, and its impact on the Jewish identity of the Central and Eastern European participants, and by extension on their families and communities. It focuses on the camp’s history and uniqueness, and includes a personal experience on the part of the author, who has participated in the camp and today works as its programme director. It also presents information collected from those who have experienced the impact of the camp on themselves.
Is Eastern European ‘Double Genocide’ Revisionism Reaching Museums?
Author(s): Katz, Dovid
Date: 2016
Topics: Antisemitism, Holocaust, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Commemoration, Museums, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Post-1989
Abstract: In contrast to twentieth-century Holocaust Denial, the most recent assault on the narrative of the genocide of European Jewry has emanated from a sophisticated revisionist model known as Double Genocide, codified in the 2008 Prague Declaration. Positing ‘equality' of Nazi and Soviet crimes, the paradigm’s corollaries sometimes include attempts to rehabilitate perpetrators and discredit survivors. Emanating from pro-Western governments and elites in Eastern Europe in countries with records of high collaboration, the movement has reached out widely to the Holocaust Studies establishment as well as Jewish institutions. It occasionally enjoys the political support of major Western countries in the context of East-West politics, or in the case of Israel, attempts to garner (eastern) European Union support. The empirical effects to date have included demonstrable impact on museums, memorials and exhibits in Eastern Europe and beyond.
Antisemitism in Post-Communist Eastern Europe: A Marginal or Central Issue?
Author(s): Volovici, Leon
Date: 1994
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Far right, Politics, Surveys
Abstract: Surveys on present trends of post-Communist antisemitism in Eastern Europe reveal contradictory images of the weight and significance of current anti-Jewish manifestations and rhetoric. An evaluation of the main themes of the present antisemitic discourse points to the predominance of irrational myths -- the“Jewish (or Israeli) conspiracy” and world-wide “Jewish power.” In addition, the public debate on the Holocaust and collectiveresponsibility for crimes against the local Jewish population has had a significant impact on public discourse. Questions of national identity, a tendency towards historical distortion and mystification, and the propagandistic accusation of “Jewish guilt” for the former repressive communist regimes form another area of contention which leads to anti-Jewish manifestations.The reproduction and spread of antisemitic motifs is found mainly in political discourse. In order to understand whether antisemitic political groups are central or marginal, it is necessary to consider the degree of their acceptance or support bymainstream political forces, direct or insidious forms of legitimation for them, as well as the force of the antisemitic tradition,and the amplitude of public or official reactions against either the vulgar or the sophisticated expressions of antisemitism
Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization": Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe
Author(s): Shafir, Michael
Date: 2002
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust
The Danger of antisemitism in Central and Eastern Europe in the wake of 1989-1990
Editor(s): Bauer, Yehuda
Date: 1991
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Post-1989
Abstract: Papers delivered at a conference in Jerusalem, October 1990.

Contents:
Kulka, Otto Dov: History and Historical Prognoses (9-11);
Bauer, Yehuda: The Danger of Antisemitism in Today's Central Europe (13-24);
Benz, Wolfgang: Antisemitism in East and West Germany: Will It Increase after Reunification? (25-33);
Stern, Frank: The "Jewish Question" in the "German Question" 1945-1990: Reflections in the Light of November 9th (35- 51);
Deak, Istvan: The Danger of Antisemitism in Hungary (53-61);
Vago, Raphael: Antisemitism in the New Romania (63-74);
Gutman, Yisrael: Polish Antisemitism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Will Things Ever Change? (75-81);
Nosenko, Vladimir: The Upsurge of Antisemitism in the Soviet Union in the Years of Perestroika: Background and Causes (83-93);
Avineri, Shlomo: The Return to History and Its Consequences for the Jewish Communities in Eastern Europe (95-101);
Bauer, Yehuda: In Conclusion (103-106)
Reconstructing Jewish Communities and Jewish Identities in PostCommunist East Central Europe
Author(s): Gitelman, Zvi
Editor(s): Kovács, András; Andor, Eszter
Date: 2000
Topics: Jewish Revival, Jewish Renewal, Post-1989, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community
Anti‐Semitic Attitudes in Europe: A Comparative Perspective
Author(s): Bergmann, Werner
Date: 2008
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Surveys, Antisemitism: Discourse, Comparative Studies, Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys
Abstract: The article uses available survey data to depict the depth and spread of anti‐Semitic attitudes across Europe. The main assumption is that European anti‐Semitism, both currently and historically, is closely tied to issues and crises of national self‐identification; for this reason, social identity theory is employed to study the varying configurations of anti‐Semitic prejudice. In most European countries, Jews are a small and socially integrated minority. Attitudes toward them are determined less by concrete experiences of cultural differences, or conflicts over scarce resources, but rather by a perceived threat to the national self‐image. This leads to an accentuation of the pertinent prejudices that blame Jews to be responsible for that threat. This perspective brings to light considerable differences between Eastern and Western Europe and the continuing influence of national traditions.
Anti-Semitism in Postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe
Author(s): Starman, Hannah
Date: 2004
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism, Post-1989
East European Jewish migration: inside and outside
Author(s): Dekel-Chen, Jonathan
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Emigration, Aliyah, Post-1989, Post-War Jewish History, Russian Emigration, Russian-Speaking Jews
Abstract: This introductory article provides an overview of modern Jewish migration from Eastern Europe. It engages the foundational historiography of the field and explores intersections of Jewish migration with general migration theory. In addition to framing the six articles in this special collection, this essay presents longue durée factors linking today's post-Soviet diaspora communities on three continents with social and political trends beginning in the late nineteenth century and during the interwar period and postwar periods.
To Hear the Voices Still Heard: On Synagogue Restoration in Eastern Europe
Author(s): Bohlman, Philip V.
Editor(s): Berdahl, Daphne; Bunzl, Matti; Lampland, Martha
Date: 2000
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Synagogues, Ethnography, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
Progressive Judaism and Eastern Europe
Author(s): Finkelstein, Ludwig
Date: 2007
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
Abstract: Eastern Europe was until recently, for Jews in the rest of the world, an area of memories of disaster and oppression. It was a region that was wiped from the Jewish world and from which Jews fled. Dramatic developments and rapid change have altered the picture. Eastern Europe now presents us with glimmers of opportunity and challenges that must be met. This brief paper outlines these challenges and opportunities. It does not propose solutions. It is intended to be a starting point and basis for discussion.
Introduction: New Jewish museums in post-communist Europe
Author(s): Gershenson, Olga; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration
The Demography of Jewish Communities in Eastern Europe
Author(s): Halevi, Haim Shalom
Date: 1960
Topics: Demography
The Camping Experience: The Impact of JDC Jewish Summer Camps on Eastern European Jews
Author(s): Cohen, Erik H.
Date: 2013
Topics: Jewish Schools, Jewish Education, Main Topic: Education, Evaluation
Abstract: A comprehensive survey conducted (2008-2009) by the JDC International Centre for Community Development (ICCD) among Jews in five Eastern European countries provided data on Jewish background and current attitudes of young adults. Based on this data, a comparison is made of young adults who are alumni of Jewish summer camps and those who did not attend summer camp as youth. Campers express stronger Jewish identity as young adults, as documented through a number of indicators related to religious practice, Jewish Peoplehood and attachment to Israel. The impact of Jewish summer camps is particularly clear among campers from weak Jewish backgrounds.
Identity à la Carte: Research on Jewish identities, participation and affiliation in five Eastern European countries
Author(s): Kovács, András; Ildiko, Barna; DellaPergola, Sergio; Kosmin, Barry
Date: 2011
Topics: Affiliation and Belonging, Antisemitism, Intermarriage, Israel Attachment, Surveys, Jewish Identity, Religious Observance and Practice, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract:

This report describes the process and results of a research study on Jewish identity and community participation in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, it identifies trends among Jewish adults in Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania. This two-year and wide-reaching study, examined views on religious observance, Jewish identity, anti-Semitism, Israel, Jewish knowledge, and organizational affiliation among 1,270 Jews, ages 18-60.
Reclaiming memory: Urban regeneration in the historic Jewish quarters of Central European cities
Editor(s): Murzyn-Kupisz, Monika; Purchla, Jacek
Date: 2009
Topics: Jewish Heritage, Museums, Memory, Jewish Space, Post-1989, Restitution and Reparations, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: TABLE OF CONTENTS
7 Jacek Purchla, "A world after a Catastrophe" - in search of lost memory

Witnesses in the space of memory

13 Miriam Akavia, A world before a Catastrophe. My Krakow family between the wars
21 Leopold Unger, From the "last hope" to the "last exodus"
29 Yevsei Handel, Minsk: non-revitalisation ofJewish districts and possible reasons
43 Janusz Makuch, The Jewish Culture Festival: between two worlds

Jewish heritage - dilemmas of regained memory

53 Michal Firestone, The conservation ofJewish cultural heritage as a tool for the investigation of identity
63 Ruth Ellen Gruber, Beyond virtually Jewish... balancing the real, the surreal and real imaginary places
81 Sandra Lustig, Alternatives to "Jewish Disneyland." Some approaches to Jewish history in European cities and towns
99 Magdalena Waligorska, Spotlight on the unseen: the rediscovery of little Jerusalems
117 Agnieszka Sabor, In search of identity

Jewish heritage in Central European metropolises

123 Andreas Wilke, The Spandauer Vorstadt in Berlin.15 years of urban regeneration
139 Martha Keil, A clash of times. Jewish sites in Vienna (Judenplatz, Seitenstettengasse, Tempelgasse)
163 Krisztina Keresztely, Wasting memories -gentrification vs. urban values in the Jewish neighbourhood ofBudapest
181 Arno Pah'k, The struggle to protect the monuments of Prague's Jewish Town
215 Jaroslav Klenovsky, Jewish Brno
247 Sarunas Lields, The revitalisation of Jewish heritage in Vilnius

Approaches of Polish towns and cities to the problems of revitalising Jewish cultural heritage
263 Bogustaw Szmygin, Can a world which has ceased to exist be protected? The Jewish district in Lublin
287 Eleonora Bergman, The "Northern District" in Warsaw:a city within a city?
301 Jacek Wesoiowski, The Jewish heritage in the urban space of todz - a question ofpresence
325 Agnieszka Zabtocka-Kos, In search of new ideas. Wroclaw's "Jewish district" - yesterday and today
343 Adam Bartosz, This was the Tarnow shtetl
363 Monika Murzyn-Kupisz, Reclaiming memory or mass consumption? Dilemmas in rediscovering Jewish heritage ofKrakow's Kazimierz
Osteuropäische Juden in Deutschland seit 1990
Author(s): Harris, Paul A.
Editor(s): Bade, Klaus J.; Emmer, Pieter C.; Lucassen, Leo; Oltmer, Jochen
Date: 2007
Topics: Immigration, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
East European Jews in Germany Since 1990
Author(s): Harris, Paul A.
Editor(s): Bade, Klaus J.; Emmer, Pieter C.; Lucassen, Leo; Oltmer, Jochen
Date: 2013
Topics: Immigration, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
No Left Turn: Israel East and West
Author(s): Shepherd, Robin
Date: 2005
Topics: Attitudes to Israel, Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Main Topic: Antisemitism
From Soviet Jewish affairs to East European Jewish affairs: A 24-year retrospective on the shifting priorities of Jews in east-central Europe
Author(s): Klier, John D.
Date: 2000
Topics: Jewish Community, Jewish Revival, History, Main Topic: Other