Abstract: The Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) of Birobidzhan in Siberia is still alive. The once famous “Siberian Zion”, at the confluence of the Bira and Bidzhan rivers, a stone’s throw away from China and a day from the Pacific Ocean, 9,000 km and six days by train from Moscow, is still a geographical reality. The political class of the Soviet Union decided to create a territory the size of Belgium for a settlement for Jews, choosing a region on the border between China and the Soviet Union. It believed that Soviet Jews needed, like other national minorities, a homeland with a territory. The Soviet regime thus opted to establish an enclave that would become the JAR in 1934. We should note that the creation of the JAR was the first historically fulfilled case of building an officially recognised Jewish national territory since antiquity and well before Israel. Nevertheless, many historians declared this experiment a failure and the history of the Region only tragic. It is interesting to note, however, that the survival of the JAR in post-Soviet Russia has been not only a historical curiosity, a legacy of Soviet national policy, but today – after the collapse of the Soviet Union – it represents a very interesting case study. It is also a topic useful for the analysis and understanding of inter-ethnic relations, cooperation, and coexistence and it is a unique case of geographic resettlement that produced a special case of “local patriotism”, as an example also for different ethnic groups living in the JAR, based on Jewish and Yiddish roots.
Abstract: Отталкиваясь от распространенных в антисионистской кампании обвинений евреев-эмигрантов и отказников в меркантильности и потребительстве, статья рассматривает вещественный мир и его осмысление в советском и еврейском нарративах эмиграции, сосредотачиваясь на трех ситуациях: иммиграция вещей, эмиграция вещей и вещь как альтернатива эмиграции. Отмечая предубеждение против материального как традиционную установку мемуаристов, причисляющих себя к интеллигенции, автор тем не менее обнаруживает несколько категорий вещей, регулярно упоминаемых в разнообразных рассказах о своей и чужой эмиграции, и исследует то, как эти вещи проблематизируются и социализируются, превращаясь из
машинально используемых предметов в «социальные объекты», наделенные в антагонистичных нарративах различным, иногда противоположным, значением.
Abstract: In less than a century, Jews in Russia have survived two world wars, revolution, political and economic turmoil, and persecution by both Nazis and Soviets. Yet they have managed not only to survive, but also transform themselves and emerge as a highly creative, educated entity that has transplanted itself into other countries. Revolution, Repression and Revival: The Soviet Jewish Experience enhances our understanding of the Russian Jewish past by bringing together some of the latest thinking by the leading scholars from the former Soviet Union, Israel and the United States. The book explains the contradictions, ambiguities and anomalies of the Russian Jewish story and helps us understand one of the most complex and unsettled chapters in modern Jewish history. The Soviet Jewish story has had many fits and starts as it transfers from one chapter of Soviet history to another and eventually, from one country to another. Some believe that the chapter of Russian Jewry is coming to a close. Whatever the future of Russian Jewry may be, it has a rich, turbulent past. Revolution, Repression and Revival sheds new light on the past, illustrating the complexities of the present, and gives needed insights into the likely future.
