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Smell and memory as Jewish archives: the case of Russian Jewish writers
Author(s): Mondry, Henrietta
Date: 2014
Topics: Jewish Identity, Age and Generational Issues, Artefacts and Material Culture, Memory, Main Topic: Other, Attitudes to Jews, Stereotypes, Libraries and Archives, Literature
Abstract: The paper analyses the complex dynamics of the rejection of ‘Jewish smells’ as markers of Jewish corporeality in the context of stereotypes constructed by Russian culture. It addresses the conflicting desire to cherish and yet reject the smells of childhood as an important repository of memory in autobiographical prose by Russian Jewish writers. It theorizes the notion of smell as a Jewish archive in the context of inter-generational knowledge, displacement, space and time. How can the most ethereal of all sensations serve as an archive? How do we pass on this type of knowledge-inducing mechanism to future generations? And how do writers negotiate their national/ethnic identities on the basis of this form of remembering?
Denial and Repression of Anti-Semitism: Post-Communist Rehabilitation of the Serbian Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic
Author(s): Byford, Jovan
Date: 2008
Topics: Christianity, Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Christian, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović (1881–1956) is arguably one the most controversial figures in contemporary Serbian national culture. Having been vilified by the former Yugoslav Communist authorities as a fascist and an antisemite, this Orthodox Christian thinker has over the past two decades come to be regarded in Serbian society as the most important religious person since medieval times and an embodiment of the authentic Serbian national spirit. Velimirović was formally canonised by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2003. In this book, Jovan Byford charts the posthumous transformation of Velimirović from 'traitor' to 'saint' and examines the dynamics of repression and denial that were used to divert public attention from the controversies surrounding the bishop's life, the most important of which is his antisemitism. Byford offers the first detailed examination of the way in which an Eastern Orthodox Church manages controversy surrounding the presence of antisemitism within its ranks and he considers the implications of the continuing reverence of Nikolaj Velimirović for the persistence of antisemitism in Serbian Orthodox culture and in Serbian society as a whole. This book is based on a detailed examination of the changing representation of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović in the Serbian media and in commemorative discourse devoted to him. The book also makes extensive use of exclusive interviews with a number of Serbian public figures who have been actively involved in the bishop’s rehabilitation over the past two decades.
From Soviet National Policy to Contemporary Russian Federalism: The Past and Future of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Author(s): Fabrykant, Marharyta
Editor(s): Salat, Levente; Constantin, Sergiu; Osipov, Alexander; Székely, István Gergő
Date: 2014
Topics: Jewish History, Soviet Jewry, Post-1989, Nationality, Main Topic: Other
„Zoo” i „makieta”. O dominujących sposobach pisania o Birobidżanie
Translated Title: A “zoo” and “mock-up”: On the most frequent ways of portraying Birobidzhan
Author(s): Maksimowska, Agata
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Attitudes to Jews, Communism, Jewish History, Media, Soviet Jewry
Abstract: W artykule przeanalizowane zostały najczęstsze sposoby opisywania Birobidżanu przez dziennikarzy, blogerów, filmowców i pisarzy. Utworzony w 1934 r. Żydowski Obwód Autonomiczny wciąż istnieje jako jednostka administracyjna w ramach Federacji Rosyjskiej. Zazwyczaj traktowany jest przez odwiedzających z innych części Rosji lub z zagranicy jako „egzotyczny”, „śmieszny”, „absurdalny”, „groteskowy” czy „sztuczny”. Jego historia postrzegana jest jako „porażka”, zwłaszcza w porównaniu z historią Izraela. Autorzy rozmaitych przedstawień Birobidżanu posługują się także koncepcją „utopii” w jej zawężonym, negatywnym rozumieniu, jako „nierealnej mrzonki”. Orientalizacja Żydowskiego Obwodu Autonomicznego przyczynia się do uprzedmiotowienia jego mieszkańców i delegitymizowania ich praktyk nadawania sensu historii regionu.
The Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan in Siberia
Author(s): Vitale, Alessandro
Date: 2021
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Post-1989, Communism, Soviet Jewry
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.
Jewish emigration from the USSR in the 1990s
Author(s): Benifand, Alexander
Date: 1991
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Russian Emigration, Soviet Jewry, Emigration
Soviet‐jewish emigration and resettlement in the 1990s an overview
Author(s): Basok, Tanya; Brym, Robert J.
Date: 1991
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Russian Emigration, Soviet Jewry, Emigration
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.
Recent Demographic and Migratory Trends Among Soviet Jews: Implications for Policy
Author(s): Gitelman, Zvi
Date: 1992
Topics: Demography, Emigration, Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Russian Emigration
Abstract: A prominent authority on the Jewish population of the former USSR focuses on demographic trends and migration behavior (both within the former USSR and abroad), while also addressing the effect of Soviet state policy toward the Jewish population. Among the factors whose effects on population dynamics are examined, emphasis is placed on the Jewish population's concentration in large urban areas, the effects of emigration on age structure of the remaining population, self-identification as a method in census enumeration, ethnic intermarriage and family characteristics, and the outlook and prospects for emigres in Israel and the United States.
Current Developments in the Jewish Community in the USSR
Author(s): Altschuler, Mordechai
Date: 1993
Topics: Soviet Jewry, Main Topic: Other, Russian Emigration, Jewish Community
Abstract: Professor Altschuler launched his discussion of the volatile status of Jews living in the USSR by challenging the popular understanding of ‘Soviet Jewry.’ Fundamental questions arise: how many Soviet Jews are there? What are the various types of Jewish communities within the Soviet Union, and how do they differ one from another? What are the distinguishing cultural activities of Soviet Jews? and what is the status of their emigration from the USSR?
Conceptualizations of the Holocaust in Soviet and Post-Soviet Ukraine and Belarus: Public Debates and Historiography
Author(s): Baranova, Olga
Date: 2019
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Post-1989, Communism
Abstract: This article investigates how the Holocaust was recollected, presented, and interpreted in Ukraine and Belarus during the Soviet era. It further examines the changes that have taken place in the representation of the Holocaust in Ukraine and Belarus in the post-communist period. First, the article aims to explain the ideological reasons why the Jewish origin of many Nazi victims was largely played down or ignored in the Soviet historiography. Second, it investigates the new political dynamics in independent post-communist Ukraine and Belarus that have influenced public discourse and historiographical reflections on various issues of the Second World War, including the persecution of the Jews. As well as historiography, the article investigates the developments that have taken place in contemporary Ukraine and Belarus regarding commemorative practices, monuments, museum exhibitions, and education initiatives to honor the victims of the Holocaust and to promote knowledge about this event
Authenticity, Autonomy, and Authority: Feminist Jewish Learning among Post-Soviet Women
Author(s): Grant, Lisa
Date: 2008
Topics: Education: Adult Education, Jewish Education, Jewish Women, Main Topic: Education, Jewish Identity
Abstract: This articles explores how a group of women in the Former Soviet Union grapple with questions of Jewish identity and Jewish “authenticity” as they participate in adult Jewish learning program that employs methods of feminist pedagogy and transformative learning. The study reflects on areas of dissonance between the transformational learning process and the tenacity of the women's world assumptions that are shaped by background, history, and worldview. While the learning process seems to be prompting these women to seriously and critically reflect on and reframe their self-understanding as learners and as Jews, their limited content-knowledge combined with a tentative sense of personal authority about Jewish life seems to impede their ability to harmonize their learning with a clear sense of what constitutes authentic practice of Judaism.
"там, на снегах севера, капли моей крови". Исторические и идеологические корни израильской диаспоры в россии и ссср
Translated Title: Historical and ideological roots of the Israeli diaspora in Russia and the USSR
Author(s): Чернин, Велвл (Владимир)
Date: 2013
Topics: Russian-Speaking Jews, Israeli Expatriates, Immigration, Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Jewish History
Abstract: Jewish emigration from Israel of the recent decades brought the creation of the communities of Israeli passport holders in the various countries of the world, including Russia and other post-Soviet states. Although this fact is commonly accepted as a totally new phenomenon, the returned migration of Russian and other Jews, who first immigrated to their historical Homeland - the Land of Israel/Palestine, and in a period of time came back to Russia has centuries-long history. In the 17th - 19th centuries this trend included Jerusalem and other Palestine Jewish communities' envoys, educators and fundraisers, who visited Russian and East European Jewish communities and sometimes stayed there for years, as well as Russian Jewish pilgrims to the Holy Land, who on returning were often respected as «representatives» of the Land of Israel and its Jewry. Some members of First, Second and Third Zionist Aliyot (waves of Jewish ideological repatriation) to the Land of Israel/Palestine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries created another substantial group of «Israeli Returnees» to Russia and the USSR. The article shows that typical patterns of immigrants from the Palestine to Russia and the early USSR are very close to, or even similar with «ideological re-immigrants», envoys, labor migrants, «economic refugees», and other relevant subgroups among current Israeli diaspora in Russia and the CIS.
«Из-за куска импортной колбасы, поношенных вещей и жевательной резинки»: материальный мир в полемике о еврейской эмиграции
Translated Title: “For the Piece of Foreign-Made Sausage, Second-Hand Clothes and Chewing Gum”: the Material World in the Polemics on Jewish Emigration
Author(s): Зеленина, Галина
Editor(s): Белова, O. B.
Date: 2019
Topics: Oral History and Biography, Main Topic: Other, Soviet Jewry, Memory, Russian Emigration, Artefacts and Material Culture
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.
Fifty Years After the Refusenik Movement: How Post-Soviet Jews Have Proven Triumphant
Author(s): Drinkwater, Gregg; Shneer, David
Date: 2020
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Soviet Jewry, Post-1989, Jewish Revival
The Use of Hebrew and Yiddish in the Rituals of Contemporary Jewry of Bukovina and Bessarabia
Author(s): Polyan, Alexandra
Editor(s): Veidlinger, Jeffrey
Date: 2016
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Ethnography, Hebrew, Yiddish, Liturgy, Language
Разрыв Еврейской Традиции И Его Преодоление В Постсоветской Украине
Translated Title: Jewish Tradition in Post-Soviet Ukraine: Lost and Regained
Author(s): Евсеенко, Наталья
Date: 2011
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Renewal, Jewish Revival, Post-1989, Age and Generational Issues
Abstract: The paper is focused on the problem of relationship to one’s own religious tradition. Here one can find preliminary analysis of field materials gathered in small Ukrainian town Balta - former Jewish shtetl, a small town with a large Jewish population. Nowadays the Balta Jews are facing the revival of their religious life and are actively participating in this process. Our aim was to analyze how different generations of Balta Jews see their own religious experience. We found out that the elderly people tended to consider contemporary religious revival as a direct continuation of their parents’ and grandparents’ traditions as they remember it since the time they used to be children. On the contrary, the middle generation of Balta Jews believe that they are in a way victims of a «tradition gap»; they tend to blame the Soviet state for depriving them of any opportunity to live a full Jewish life. The middle generation sees the pre-Holocaust tradition as a «lost paradise» which never comes back. And, finally, the young Balta Jews express no relation to the previous stages of Jewish life in their town, but they are obviously proud of their Jewishness because they understand and use it as a resource for getting a good education in different Jewish high schools and as a possibility to emigrate from Ukraine.
В Поисках Общины. Модели Возрождения Организованной Еврейской Жизни В Позднем Ссср И Постсоветских Странах
Translated Title: In Search of a Community: Jewish National-Cultural Renaissance in the USSR and the Post-Soviet States
Author(s): Ханин, Зеев
Date: 2011
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Renewal, Jewish Revival, Post-1989, Jewish Organisations
Abstract: After the decades of discrimination against organized Jewish life in the Soviet Union, the present period shows creation and rapid development of Jewish national organizations and institutional infrastructure of Jewish communities in most of the post-Soviet states, especially in Russia and Ukraine. Not a few of these organizations were rooted in history of Jewish life in the USSR after World War II, including the experience of the creation and existence of legal (state-sponsored), illegal (underground national and human rights organizations), and quasi-legal (religious communities) Jewish social institutions in a hostile social and political environment. The Jewish organizations, including local/sectarian institutions, municipal/regional federations, as well as nationwide «umbrella» structures, that were established in the USSR successor states, had to meet the challenge of new conditions of Jewish life in post-communist countries which included a demand for services normally provided by a Jewish community (education, welfare, synagogues, cultural activities, etc.) and a need for an adequate institutional framework which reflected local Jewish identity (whether ethnic nationalism or cultural/religious affiliation)...
Глобальная Демография Постсоветской Еврейской Диаспоры
Translated Title: The Global Demography of the Post-Soviet Jewish Diaspora
Author(s): Тольц, Марк
Date: 2011
Topics: Demography, Immigration, Aliyah, Diaspora, Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Russian Emigration, Russian-Speaking Jews
Abstract: This article is a study of the population dynamics of the post-Soviet Jewish diaspora based on the various statistical sources collected from the many countries where these Jews live. It examines (post-) Soviet Jewish resettlement, and analyzes the annual volume of migration streams to the three main destinations - Israel, the USA and Germany. The findings clearly show the decisive role of the push factor in this migration movement. A very large differentiation in age structure of the migrants to their three main destinations was found which points to many sizable discrepancies in adaptation processes in these receiving countries, and different prospects for future development of these segments of the contemporary post-Soviet Jewish diaspora. Out-migration from Israel of FSU immigrants was studied based on official Israeli data and statistics of FSU countries. According to our findings based on recent data, emigration from Israel is largely dependent on the dynamics of the country's business cycle. Finally, an update for 2010 of the number of «core» Jews (by self-identification) originating from the FSU was presented by country, and the total number of people belonging to the post-Soviet Jewish diaspora worldwide and their distribution was estimated.
«Мы никого не притесняли»: особенности кросс-культурных контактов в смешанных семьях (по материалам экспедиций в Приднестровье)
Translated Title: “We Didn’t Oppress Anyone”: Peculiarities of Cross-Cultural Contacts in Mixed Families (Based on the Field Material from the Expeditions to Transnistria)
Author(s): Киреева, Наталья Михайловна; Чиркина, Любовь Вячеславовна
Date: 2020
Topics: Marriage, Ritual, Main Topic: Other, Family and Household, Intermarriage, Religious Observance and Practice, Interviews
Abstract: Статья посвящена проблеме межэтнических брачных союзов, в основу исследования легли экспедиционные материалы, собранные в Приднестровье в 2017-2019 гг. В еврейской среде в советский период традиция смешанных браков получает широкое распространение, такие союзы приводят к трансформации классического определения еврейства, что в свою очередь оказывает влияние на представления партнеров о собственной идентичности. Авторами было собрано и проанализировано 29 интервью с информантами (евреями и неевреями), состоявшими в смешанных браках, и их детьми; были выделены три основных зоны напряжения в межэтнических семьях (восприятие данного союза окружающими, имянаречение ребенка и похороны) и три стратегии преодоления напряжения: выбор нейтральной и светской традиции; компромисс (сочетание двух традиций) и интеграция одного из партнеров в культуру другого. В качестве зоны кросс-культурного взаимодействия информанты выделяли праздники; связанные с ними традиции, как правило, были смешанными (например, Песах и Пасха). Авторы приходят к выводу, что описываемый синтез культур приводит к дрейфу идентичности информантов и трансформации представлений о «настоящем еврее», согласно которым знания о традиции или практические навыки становятся важнее принципов галахи.
Наше наследство: синагоги снг в прошлом и настоящем
Translated Title: Our legacy: synagogues of the cis in the past and present
Author(s): Бейзер, Михаэль
Date: 2002
Topics: Jewish Heritage, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Synagogues, Restitution and Reparations, Post-1989
Abstract: Книга посвящена судьбе синагогальных зданий на территории СНГ на протяжении прошедшего столетия. Первая ее часть охватывает период от начала ХХ века до распада СССР; вторая - рассказ о том, как в постсоветское время часть конфискованных государством синагог возвращается еврейским общинам и обретает вторую жизнь. Автор вводит читателя в круг проблем, связанных с этим процессом, и останавливается на роли Джойнта в деле реституции и ремонта синагог. Книга богато иллюстрирована фотографиями, в основном из коллекции Джойнта; большая часть из них публикуется впервые. В приложении приведен список действующих сегодня синагог СНГ. Одна из предыдущих книг Бейзера - "Евреи Ленинграда, 1917 - 1939: национальная жизнь и советизация" (1999) - удостоилась Анциферовской премии 2000 г. за лучшую зарубежную книгу о Санкт-Петербурге.
Hardship And Needs Of Elderly Hesed Clients: An Analysis Of Clients Served By Hesed Service Centers In Russia & Ukraine
Author(s): Tighe, Elizabeth; Magidin de Kramer, Raquel; Bleckman, Dina; Begli, Nursahedov; Saxe, Leonard
Date: 2012
Topics: Ageing and the Elderly, Care and Welfare, Health, Evaluation, Main Topic: Other, Social Services, Social Work, NGOs
Abstract:

The countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) are the home today for a substantial number of Jews, many of whom live in poor, economically disadvantaged communities. Throughout the FSU, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) has supported the development of Hesed welfare and Jewish community centers to assist in the provision of services to Jews in need and to support the renewal of Jewish life after years of suppression. The present report is designed to review the current economic, health, and social conditions of these elderly Jews in need in the FSU and to compare their circumstances, as best possible, to their counterparts who live in western countries such as the United States.

Data from a large number of sources are reviewed and analyzed, including national statistics, national and local surveys, and client-level data. The data indicate clearly that, in view of demographic composition, as well as economic and social conditions, elderly Jews in the FSU have tremendous needs for supportive services funded by philanthropy compared to their peers in the United States. The comparisons also highlight the disparities in available care among those most in need.

There is a clear need for external support for basic health and social services for elderly Jews in the FSU. Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is not an adequate safety net for the elderly. The situation is in flux and there are unique challenges associated with understanding service delivery in societies that are in transition. The available data on pensions and living circumstances make clear that the economic situation for elderly in the FSU who seek Hesed services is dire. Faced with increasing costs for basic needs such as utilities and food, along with health services including essential medicines, quality care and homecare, the pension amounts that Hesed clients rely on are inadequate to meet their needs.
Project Kesher – Making Jewish Women’s Voices Heard in the Former Soviet Union
Author(s): Yakimenko, Svetlana
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Women
Der Ort des Judentums in der Gegenwart
Translated Title: The place of Judaism in the present
Editor(s): Wallenborn, Hiltrud; Kümper, Michal; Lipphardt, Anna; Neumann, Jens; Schwartz, Johannes; Vassilikou, Maria
Date: 2004
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Space, Jewish Community, Jewish Identity, Holocaust, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Commemoration, Immigration, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
Abstract: Eine Sammlung von Beiträgen zur Konferenz „Der Ort des Judentums in der Gegenwart, 1989–2002“. Die Autoren begeben sich in ein Feld, das Diana Pinto erstmals 1996 als „Jewish Space“ bezeichnet hat. Sie beschäftigen sich mit der Existenz des Staates Israel, der neuen Einwanderung aus der ehemaligen Sowjetunion in die westlichen Länder, dem wieder erwachten Interesse europäischer Öffentlichkeiten an jüdischer Kultur, den Formen von Erinnerungspolitik in Gedenkstätten und Mahnmalen und mit der öffentlichen Debatten über die Instrumentalisierung des Gedenkens. Auch die Intifada in Israel und Palästina und bereits überwunden geglaubte antisemitische Denkstrukturen in Europa werden betrachtet. Blick auf das jüdische Leben in Europa nach der Shoah und nach den politischen Umwälzungen am Ende der achtziger Jahre.
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.
Jews in Europe at the turn of the Millennium: Population trends and estimates
Author(s): DellaPergola, Sergio; Staetsky, L. Daniel
Date: 2020
Topics: Demography, Main Topic: Demography and Migration, European Union, Aliyah, Emigration, Immigration, Israeli Expatriates, Intermarriage
Abstract: This detailed and thorough report is rapidly becoming the ‘must-read’ study on European Jews, taking the reader on an extraordinary journey through one thousand years of European Jewish history before arriving at the most comprehensive analysis of European Jewish demography today.

Written by leading Jewish demographers Professor Sergio DellaPergola and Dr Daniel Staetsky, the Chair and Director of JPR’s European Jewish Demography Unit respectively, it explores how the European Jewish population has ebbed and flowed over time. It begins as far back as the twelfth century, travelling through many years of population stability, until the tremendous growth of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, followed by the dramatic decline prompted by a combination of mass migration and the horrors of the Shoah. Extraordinarily, after all this time, the proportion of world Jewry living in Europe today is almost identical to the proportion living in Europe 900 years ago.

Using multiple definitions of Jewishness and a vast array of sources to determine the size of the contemporary population, the study proceeds to measure it in multiple ways, looking at the major blocs of the European Union and the European countries of the Former Soviet Union, as well as providing country-by-country analyses, ranging from major centres such as France, the UK, Germany and Hungary, to tiny territories such as Gibraltar, Monaco and even the Holy See.

The report also contains the most up-to-date analysis we have on the key mechanisms of demographic change in Europe, touching variously on patterns of migration in and out of Europe, fertility, intermarriage, conversion and age compositions. While the report itself is a fascinating and important read, the underlying data are essential tools for the JPR team to utilise as it supports Jewish organisations across the continent to plan for the future.
Утраченное соседство: евреи в культурной памяти жителей Латгалии. Часть II
Translated Title: Neighborhood Lost: Jews in the Cultural Memory of Contemporary Latgale. Part II
Editor(s): Амосова, Светлана
Date: 2016
Topics: Antisemitism, Attitudes to Jews, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Main Topic: Other, Ethnography, Memory
Abstract: Данный сборник является продолжением большого проекта по изучению памяти о евреях, еврейской истории, культуре, этнографии и эпиграфике, а также исследованию стереотипов и различных представлений, связанных с евреями Восточной Европы, у представителей других этнических групп. Сборник является вторым выпуском в латгальской серии изданий Центра «Сэфер». Предлагаемые вниманию читателя материалы по еврейской этнографии, истории и эпиграфике собраны во время экспедиций 2011–2015 гг., проходивших как в самой
Латгалии, так и в Израиле.
"ТАМ, НА СНЕГАХ СЕВЕРА, КАПЛИ МОЕЙ КРОВИ". ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЕ И ИДЕОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ КОРНИ ИЗРАИЛЬСКОЙ ДИАСПОРЫ В РОССИИ И СССР
Translated Title: Historical and Ideological Roots of the Israeli Diaspora in Russia and the USSR
Author(s): Чернин, Велвл (Владимир)
Date: 2013
Topics: Diaspora, Israeli Expatriates, Immigration, Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Russian Emigration, Russian-Speaking Jews
Abstract: Jewish emigration from Israel of the recent decades brought the creation of the communities of Israeli passport holders in the various countries of the world, including Russia and other post-Soviet states. Although this fact is commonly accepted as a totally new phenomenon, the returned migration of Russian and other Jews, who first immigrated to their historical Homeland - the Land of Israel/Palestine, and in a period of time came back to Russia has centuries-long history. In the 17th - 19th centuries this trend included Jerusalem and other Palestine Jewish communities' envoys, educators and fundraisers, who visited Russian and East European Jewish communities and sometimes stayed there for years, as well as Russian Jewish pilgrims to the Holy Land, who on returning were often respected as «representatives» of the Land of Israel and its Jewry. Some members of First, Second and Third Zionist Aliyot (waves of Jewish ideological repatriation) to the Land of Israel/Palestine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries created another substantial group of «Israeli Returnees» to Russia and the USSR. The article shows that typical patterns of immigrants from the Palestine to Russia and the early USSR are very close to, or even similar with «ideological re-immigrants», envoys, labor migrants, «economic refugees», and other relevant subgroups among current Israeli diaspora in Russia and the CIS.
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.
Jewish Studies in the FSU: From Scholarship to Social, Cultural and Educational Construction, Regeneration and Growth
Author(s): Parizhsky, Simon
Editor(s): Wygoda, Shmuel; Sorek, Israel
Date: 2009
Topics: Education, Education: Adult Education, Jewish Education, Jewish Studies, Jewish Schools, Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Education, Universities / Higher Education, Jewish Organisations
Suffering the Difference: Reflections on Russian Anti-Semitism
Author(s): Leighton, Christopher M.
Date: 1991
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Antisemitism
The Holocaust in the Occupied USSR and its Memorialization in Contemporary Russia
Author(s): Al'tman, Il'ya
Editor(s): Kay, Alex J.; Stahel, David
Date: 2018
Topics: Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Post-1989, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Who went where? Jewish immigration from the Former Soviet Union to Israel, the USA and Germany, 1990–2000
Author(s): Cohen, Yinon; Haberfeld, Yitchak; Kogan, Irena
Date: 2011
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Russian-Speaking Jews, Russian Emigration, Immigration
Abstract: Drawing on Israeli, German and US census data, we compare the educational levels of Jewish immigrants (and their non-Jewish family members) from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) arriving in Israel, Germany, and the US during 1990–2000. The comparison of educational levels among immigrants arriving in the three countries can be viewed as a ‘natural experiment’ in immigrants' destination options, whereby immigrants could choose two countries with practically no visa restriction (Israel and Germany) and one country (USA) with visa requirements. Drawing on Borjas' theory of self-selection, the paper discusses the relative attractiveness of the three countries to various types of immigrants, expecting highly educated immigrants to prefer destinations where returns on skills are higher. The findings support theoretical expectations: highly educated migrants were more likely to move to the US, where the labour market is more flexible and returns on skills are higher than in Israel or Germany.
Holocaust Sites in Ukraine: Pechora and the Politics of Memorialization
Author(s): Golbert, Rebecca L.
Date: 2004
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Memory, Memorial, Ethnography, Oral History and Biography
Abstract: This study of the Pechora camp, in Transnistria, examines the contributions of contemporary testimonies to our understanding of the Holocaust experience and the ways survivors and witnesses perceive and recount that experience over time. In the case of Transnistria, the testimonies of living witnesses may at times provide the only significant historical and social record of the ghetto and camp experience. While existing scholarship on the Holocaust in Romania and Transnistria has emerged primarily out of the Romanian Jewish experience of the war, this article highlights the wartime experiences and postwar memories of Ukrainian Jewish survivors, whose perspectives on Transnistria have until recently been overlooked. The author also offers a distinctly ethnographic dimension to the study of the Holocaust by examining memory and identity processes and by revealing substantial fissures in the way the Holocaust is remembered and memorialized.
Antisemitism and Its Opponents in the Russian Press: From Perestroika until the Present.
Author(s): Friedgut, Theodore
Date: 1994
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism, Media, Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals
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)
Евреи
Editor(s): Емельяненко, Т. Г.,; Носенко-Штейн, Елена
Date: 2018
Topics: Folklore, Anthropology, Main Topic: Other, Jewish Culture, Jewish Community, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Identity
Abstract: Очередной том фундаментальной серии «Народы и культуры» посвящен истории и культуре евреев на территории Российской империи, СССР и стран СНГ. В монографии рассматриваются общие вопросы происхождения и истории еврейского народа, особенности историкоантропологического облика и языков, а также проблемы изучения еврейского фольклора и этнографии. Основное внимание уделено этнополитической истории и своеобразию традиционной культуры российских евреев: их занятиям, костюму, обрядам жизненного цикла, религиозным праздникам, пище, народным знаниям, фольклору, декоративно-прикладному искусству, образованию. Специальные разделы освещают многообразные процессы, протекающие среди евреев в современном мире, взаимоотношения евреев с другими народами. В отдельных разделах даны историко-этнографические материалы по неашкеназским группам: грузинским и бухарским евреям и иудействующим. В создании тома приняли участие историки, филологи, этнографы, антропологи, социологи, фольклористы из России, Украины, Израиля и Франции.
Для историков, этнологов, культурологов, специалистов в разных областях иудаики, студентов профильных вузов и кафедр, широкого круга читателей
A Half Century of Jewish Emigration from the Former Soviet Union
Author(s): Tolts, Mark
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Demography, Emigration, Aliyah, Russian-Speaking Jews
Российские евреи в контексте русского мира: от религиозности к этничности и обратно?
Translated Title: Russian Jews in the context of the Russian world: from religiosity to ethnicity and back?
Author(s): Носенко-Штейн, Елена
Editor(s): Комарова, Г.А.
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Ethnicity, Diaspora, Religious Observance and Practice, Russian-Speaking Jews
Volunteering in Jewish Communities in the FSU: aims, effectiveness and impact
Translated Title: Еврейская добровольческая активность в странах бывшего СССР: содержание, цели и влияние на общинную жизнь
Author(s): Kaniel, Asaf; Arnon, Liora
Date: 2019
Topics: Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Other, Volunteering, Surveys
Abstract: In the late 1980s, JDC resumed its work in the Soviet Union. It continued to operate in the new countries that emerged upon its dissolution. Since then, it has focused on the fulfillment of two main goals: the renewal of Jewish life, through the establishment of community infrastructures and bringing Jews closer to their people and their culture, and support for the elderly and poor Jewish population. These goals are promoted primarily by the community organizations ‑ Hassadim and community centers (JCCs) ‑ scattered throughout FSU.
Мифы о «пятой колонне» и проблема двойной лояльности: евреи постсоветской Евро-Азии и государство Израиль
Translated Title: Myths of the “Fifth Column” and the Dual Loyalty Issue: Jews of Euro-Asia vis-à-vis the State of Israel
Author(s): Бен Яаков, Хаим
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Russian-Speaking Jews, Jewish Identity, National Identity, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Diaspora
Abstract: Концепция «двойной лояльности» в еврейском случае подразумевает, что еврей стоит на стороне Израиля вне зависимости от страны своего проживания, а принцип Талмуда, известный как «Закон государства обязателен для исполнения евреями» (Дина де-мальхута дина) часто рассматривается как требование к еврею придерживаться лояльности тому государству, где он живет. Попытка многих советских евреев, на разных этапах послевоенной истории этой страны, совмещать патриотизм в отношении страны проживания и преданность Израилю, воспринимался властями СССР как вызов и повод для репрессивных кампаний. Нынешняя ситуация в постсоветских странах в целом иная, и ближе к подходу современных демократических государств, признающих феномен «поли-лояльности» и двойного гражданства, закрепленного межправительственными соглашениями и программами о развитии культурных, научных, деловых и других связей.
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.
The Russian-Jewish Transnational Social Space: An Overview
Author(s): Remennick, Larissa
Date: 2011
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Migration, Russian Emigration, Russian-Speaking Jews, Diaspora
Abstract: After the demise of state socialism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, over 1.6 million Jews and their non-Jewish family members from Russia, Ukraine, and other parts of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) emigrated to Israel, the United States, Canada, Germany, and other Western countries. Large communities of former Soviets found themselves in the diverse national contexts of the receiving countries as either refugees or independent migrants.1 Soon after establishing an initial economic and social foothold, former Soviet immigrants started rebuilding their social networks, both within each new homeland and across national borders. These networks, spanning four continents, based on common language, culture, and historic legacies, mainly come to the fore as informal social spaces, although there are also some examples of successful civic associations representing common interests of Russian immigrants or Russian Jewry at large. This introduction examines the roots of Russian Jewish identity in the Former Soviet Union and presents an overview of some major trends in late twentieth century Russian Jewish migration to the West.
The Jewish Autonomous Region in Siberia. Multicultural heritage and coexistence
Translated Title: Żydowski Obwód Autonomiczny na Syberii. Wielokulturowe dziedzictwo i współistnienie
Author(s): Vitale, Alessandro
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Conflict, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Ethnicity, Post-1989
Abstract: Technically, Israel is not the only official Jewish homeland in the world. In the Far East of Russian Siberia there still exists the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) of Birobidzhan. Beginning in 1928 the Soviet Union set aside a territory larger than Belgium and Holland combined and considerably bigger than Israel, for Jewish settlement, located some five thousands miles east of Moscow along the Soviet-Chinese border, between the 48th and 49th parallels north latitude, where the climate and conditions are similar to Ontario and Michigan. Believing that Soviet Jewish people, like other national minorities, deserved a territorial homeland, the Soviet regime decided to settle a territorythat in 1934 would become the Jewish Autonomous Region. The idea was to create a new Zion–in a move to counterweight to Palestine – where a “proletarian Jewish culture” based on Yiddish language could be developed. In fact, the establishment of the JAR was the first instance of an officially acknowledged Jewish national territory since ancient times: the “First Israel”. But the history of the Region was tragic and the ex-periment failed. Nevertheless, Birobidzhan’s renewed existence of today and the revival of Jewish life in the post-Soviet JAR are not only a curious legacy of Soviet national policy, but after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the worldwide religious rebirth represent an interesting case-study in order to studysome challenging geographic pro-blems, and interethnic relations.
Ethnopolitics as Co-operation and Coexistence: The Case- Study of the Jewish Autonomous Region in Siberia
Author(s): Vitale, Alessandro
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Conflict, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Ethnicity, Post-1989
Abstract: It would be a mistake to assume that ethnopolitics is only a matter of confrontation between different ethnic groups. On the contrary, there is a range of examples where it is pursued in a spirit of compromise and co-operation. One of them is the case of the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan, in Post-Soviet Russia. Often ethnic groups realize that co-operation and cultural coexistence are more profitable than conflict. Beginning in 1928 the Soviet Union set aside a territory the size of Belgium for Jewish settlement, located some five thousands miles east of Moscow along the Soviet-Chinese border. Believing that Soviet Jewish people, like other national minorities, deserved a territorial homeland, the regime decided to settle an enclave that would become the Jewish Autonomous Region in 1934. In fact, the establishment of the JAR was the first instance of an officially acknowledged Jewish national territory since ancient times. But the history of the Region was tragic and the experiment failed dismally. Nevertheless, Birobidzhan’s renewed existence of today is not only a curious legacy of Soviet national policy, but after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the definite religious rebirth, represents an interesting case-study in respect to interethnic relations.
Still warm but getting colder: changing ethnic identity of post-Soviet Jewry
Author(s): Nosenko-Stein, Elena
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Ethnicity, Post-1989, Soviet Jewry, Assimilation, Interviews, Surveys
Abstract: For many centuries, ‘being a Jew’ was equivalent to ‘performing the ceremonial laws of Judaism’. Thus, ethnic and confessional principles coincided and reinforced the cultural identity of Jewry as an entity. Strong self-identification and in-group solidarity supported the high ‘ethnic temperature’ of this group. The processes of secularisation, which first took place in modern Europe and then spread to other regions, led, therefore, to the ‘cooling’ of the Jewish ethnic temperature. This process has its roots in different periods of Russian history and resulted in deep changes in Jewish identity.
Yiddish, Jewish Russian, and Jewish Lithuanian in the Former Soviet Union
Author(s): Verschik, Anna
Editor(s): Hary, Benjamin; Benor`, Sarah Bunin
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Yiddish, Language, Linguistics, Russian-Speaking Jews
Основные этнокультурные аспекты русскоязычной караимской публицистики и состояние крымской караимской общины в конце XX – начале XXI вв
Translated Title: The contemporary Karaite community of Criimea: major theories of self-identification
Author(s): Щеголева, Татьяна
Date: 2003
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Karaites
Yiddish in the Former Soviet Union since 1989: A Statistical-Demographic Analysis
Author(s): Tolts, Mark
Editor(s): Estraikh, Gennady; Krutikov, Mikhail
Date: 1999
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Demography, Yiddish
Post-Soviet Jewish Demographic Dynamics: An Analysis of Recent Data
Author(s): Tolts, Mark
Editor(s): DellaPergola, Sergio; Rebhun, Uzi
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Demography, Russian Emigration
Abstract: FSU Jewish numerical dynamics and emigration are presented. The demographic characteristics of the Jews today in different FSU countries and some parts of the Russian Federation are analyzed in comparison with those of Soviet Jewry at the onset of the mass emigration of the 1990s.