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Nativization and Nationalization: A Comparative Landscape Study of Holocaust Museums in Israel, the US and the UK
Author(s): Cole, Tim
Date: 2004
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Memorials, National Identity, Museums, Nationality
Haredi Jews around the world: Population trends and estimates
Author(s): Staetsky, L. Daniel
Date: 2022
Topics: Demography, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: Capitalising on new resources and advances made in the methods of estimation, this report is the first time that the global Haredi (strictly Orthodox) population size has been estimated and calculated, revealing that about 2,100,000 Haredi Jews live worldwide, out of a total global Jewish population of 15 million. The report projects that the Haredi population could double in size by the year 2040, rising to over a fifth of the total by that time.

Some of the key findings in this report:

• The global Haredi population is estimated at 2,100,000, constituting about 14% of the total Jewish population in the world.
• Together, Israel and the USA account for about 92% of all Haredi Jews. Europe hosts 5% of the global Haredi population, while the rest live mainly in Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia.
• Outside of Israel and the USA, the three largest Haredi populations are located in the UK (about 75,000, or 25% of all British Jews), Canada (30,000, 8%) and France (12,000, 3%).
• While the world Jewish population has been growing by approximately 0.7% per year over the past decade, the Haredi population is currently growing by about 3.5%-4.0% annually.
• Today, a large part of the growth of the global Jewish population as a whole is due to the Haredi population: perhaps as much as 70%-80% of the total growth worldwide.
• Haredi rates of growth are very high not simply due to high fertility, but rather to the combined effects of very high fertility and very low mortality.
Guacamole, kneidalaj y ñora: La búsqueda de una identidad judía a través de la comida. Un estudio transatlántico entre Austin y Barcelona
Translated Title: Guacamole, kneidlach and ñora: The search for a Jewish identity through food. A transatlantic study between Austin and Barcelona
Author(s): Gallin, Catherine Simone
Date: 2016
Topics: Jewish Culture, Jewish Identity, Jewish Heritage, Food, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Holocaust museums, Holocaust memorial culture, and individuals: a Constructivist perspective
Author(s): Oztig, Lacin Idil
Date: 2022
Topics: Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Commemoration, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Museums, Jewish Museums
Abstract: There is a rich body of literature examining the contribution of Holocaust museums to the Holocaust memorial culture by focusing on their educative, awareness-raising, and memorializing functions. In this context, ample attention has been devoted to these museums’ exhibitions, educatory activities, reenactment practices, digital strategies, as well as their historical and architectural narratives. This article brings a novel perspective to the literature by giving an account of how Holocaust museums act as a medium through which individuals contribute to the Holocaust memorial culture from a Constructivist perspective. It argues that Holocaust museums do not treat individuals as passive recipients of the Holocaust memorial culture, but actors who could exercise agential capacities in relation to the Holocaust memorial culture. This argument is illustrated by case studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the Berlin Jewish Museum, and the Anne Frank House. It is shown that these museums offer platforms through which individuals actively contribute to the Holocaust memorial culture by encouraging them to conduct and share their Holocaust-related research, donating Holocaust-related objects, and engaging in social activities to diffuse related norms and messages.
Macro and Micro Insights into Contemporary Jewish Identities: Europe, Israel, and the United States
Author(s): Goldscheider, Calvin
Editor(s): Robinson, Ira; Cohn, Naftali S.; DiTommaso, Lorenzo
Date: 2015
Topics: Comparative Studies, Comparisons with other communities, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community
From Russia to Israel – And Back? Contemporary Transnational Russian Israeli Diaspora
Author(s): Khanin, Vladimir Zeev
Date: 2021
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Aliyah, Diaspora, Israeli Expatriates, Russian Emigration, Russian-Speaking Jews
Abstract: Of about a million Jews that arrived to Israel from the (former) USSR after 1989 some 12% left the country by the end of 2017. It is estimated that about a half of them left "back" for the FSU, and the rest for the USA, Canada and the Western Europe. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of this specific Jewish Israeli Diaspora group through cutting-edge approaches in the social sciences, and examines the settlement patterns of Israeli Russian-speaking emigrants, their identity, social demographic profile, reasons of emigration, their economic achievements, identification, and status vis-à-vis host Jewish and non-Jewish environment, vision of Israel, migration interests and behavior, as well as their social and community networks, elites and institutions. Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin makes a significant contribution to migration theory, academic understanding of transnational Diasporas, and sheds a new light on the identity and structure of contemporary Israeli society. The book is based on the unique statistics from Israeli and other Government sources and sociological information obtained from the author’s first of this kind on-going study of Israeli Russian-speaking emigrant communities in different regions of the world.
Musées et musées-mémoriaux urbains consacrés à la Shoah : mémoires douloureuses et ancrages géographiques. Les cas de Berlin, Budapest, Jérusalem, Los Angeles, Montréal, New York, Paris, Washington.
Translated Title: Urban museums and memorials dedicated to the Shoah: painful memories and geographic roots. The cases of Berlin, Budapest, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Paris, Washington.
Author(s): Chevalier, Dominique
Date: 2013
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Memorials, Jewish Museums, Museums
Abstract: Through the examples of the main urban museums and memorials worldwide, this work scrutinizes several issues elicited by the memorial policy of the Shoah (in the realms of urban planning, tourism, geopolitics, or pedagogy). Indeed, each of those museums or memorials is part of a process involving political, territorial as well as identity-related stakes. Thus, they insert the cities where they are built in within the worldwide network of the memory of the Shoah.
Stop the Spread: Gossip, COVID-19, and the Theology of Social Life
Author(s): Shuman, Sam
Date: 2021
Topics: Coronavirus/Covid, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Main Topic: Other, Conflict
Abstract: Scholars, journalists, and activists alike have offered a variety of explanations to understand the high incidence of COVID-19 among Haredi Jewish communities in the United States and abroad. Despite their differences, each assumes that Haredi Jews are inherently collectivistic. This article challenges this assumption and contends that COVID-19 has amplified pre-existing anxieties about the lack of proper social cohesion and solidarity within Haredi Jewish communities. It analyzes these dynamics through “Stop the Spread”, a Haredi “anti-gossip” campaign that links the ill health of social relations within the Haredi Jewish body politic to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 within its communities.
Israel connectedness: Australian, United States and English survey findings compared
Author(s): Markus, Andrew
Date: 2011
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Attitudes to Israel, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Surveys, Comparisons with other communities
Social Cleavages and Political Divisions: A Comparative Analysis of British, American and South African Jews in the 1990s
Author(s): Kotler-Berkowitz, Laurence A.
Date: 2002
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Divisions, Comparisons with other communities, Politics
Тора против вируса, раввины против правительства: ультраортодоксия перед лицом пандемии
Translated Title: Torah against the Virus, Rabbis against the Government: Ultra-Orthodoxy Facing the Pandemic
Author(s): Zelenina, Galina
Date: 2021
Topics: Coronavirus/Covid, Jewish Community, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Ritual
Abstract: В статье обсуждается ряд наиболее примечательных реакций на пандемию СOVID-19 и на меры социальной изоляции, исходящих от нескольких, в основном ультраортодоксальных, еврейских общин в Израиле, США и России. Рассматриваются основные элементы кризисного дискурса — герменевтика причин и смыслов пандемии, утверждение групповых границ и иерархий в результате поиска виновных, а также отношения между религиозной общиной и государством и структура религиозных верований и практик как факторы, определяющие социальное поведение и возможную трансформацию ритуальных практик.
Beyond Borders: Glimpsing the Underlying Purposes of Day School Education in the Midst of a Pandemic
Author(s): Pomson, Alex; Aharon, Nettie
Date: 2021
Topics: Coronavirus/Covid, Main Topic: Education, Jewish Schools, Teaching and Pedagogy, Students
Abstract: This paper examines data gathered from Jewish day school students in North America, Europe and Argentina about their experiences of remote schooling during the first 4 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data report on student access to technology, student satisfaction with the remote-learning pedagogies their schools employed, students’ feelings about what they gained from this experience, and how Judaic studies and general studies compared when delivered remotely. The paper provides an opportunity to probe cultural and structural differences between day school education in different cultural contexts and especially the differences between more communitarian and more individualistic school orientations.
Weaponising Covid-19: Far-Right Anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom and United States
Author(s): Ehsan, Rakib
Date: 2020
Topics: Antisemitism: Far right, Coronavirus/Covid, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: he Government needs to step up efforts to address attempts by the far-right to blame the COVID-19 pandemic on Jews, according to a think tank report.

The conspiracies are said to have permeated every corner of the internet, including encrypted apps like Telegram and everyday digital tools like podcasts. Despite much of the recent political and media focus being on mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, the report finds the most ardent forms of hatred circulate on peripheral so-called ‘alt-tech’ platforms.

The study — by the Henry Jackson Society — comes as it was revealed that Facebook has taken robust action in banning adverts by extremist group, which have attempted to sow the seeds of division amidst the COVID-19 crisis.

Among the online messages spread by the far-right identified within the report, are that:

Jews are using global lockdowns to “steal everything”.
“Satan in human form”, or Jewish people, are throwing dance parties to celebrate the spread of the coronavirus.
Jewish public leaders are using the COVID-19 crisis to “test the populations [sic] willingness to comply” with authoritarian restrictions on their civil liberties.
COVID-19 is being used as part of a plot to replace the ‘white’ population of Europe.
Those infected with the coronavirus should visit their local synagogue and mosque, and more broadly ethnically-diverse neighbourhoods, in order to spread the disease.
Jews spread the bubonic plague through Europe in the Middle Ages and demonstrate an inherent tendency for killing large numbers of non-Jews through efficient methods.
In response, the author recommends the introduction of stronger forms of internet regulation for alt-tech social media platforms, including a review by the Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) and extensive training for law enforcement officers on the full scope of alt-tech platforms. The report also recommends that the Home Office establish a new counter-disinformation unit to tackle online conspiracy theories head-on by “exposing their fundamental lack of credibility, through well-organised social media campaigns”.

This material is said to be circulating on both sides of the Atlantic with extremist messaging from the British National Socialist Movement in the UK and the National Socialist Movement in the United States. The similarities between the content across the Atlantic is identified by the author as an area of particular concern
The Remembered and Forgotten Jewish World: Jewish Heritage in Europe and the United States
Author(s): Walkowitz, Daniel J.
Date: 2018
Topics: Jewish Heritage, Jewish Culture, Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Memory, Museums, Tourism, Educational Tours
Abstract: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Jewish socialist movement played a vital role in protecting workers’ rights throughout Europe and the Americas. Yet few traces of this movement or its accomplishments have been preserved or memorialized in Jewish heritage sites.

The Remembered and Forgotten Jewish World investigates the politics of heritage tourism and collective memory. In an account that is part travelogue, part social history, and part family saga, acclaimed historian Daniel J. Walkowitz visits key Jewish museums and heritage sites from Berlin to Belgrade, from Krakow to Kiev, and from Warsaw to New York, to discover which stories of the Jewish experience are told and which are silenced. As he travels to thirteen different locations, participates in tours, displays, and public programs, and gleans insight from local historians, he juxtaposes the historical record with the stories presented in heritage tourism. What he finds raises provocative questions about the heritage tourism industry and its role in determining how we perceive Jewish history and identity. This book offers a unique perspective on the importance of collective memory and the dangers of collective forgetting.
The Jewish Woman in Contemporary Society: Transitions and Traditions
Author(s): Baker, Adrienne
Date: 1993
Topics: Jewish Women, Feminism, Main Topic: Other, Marriage, Motherhood, Orthodox Judaism
Abstract: Across the religious/non-religious spectrum, Jewish women have been affected by the women's movement, the impact on some leading to a reassessment of the woman's role in Judaism, with its emphasis on family and home. Conversely, a small but significant minority have withdrawn into the safety of extreme Orthodoxy. In the centre, the majority are seeking a balance between the powerful internalized message of Judaism, extolling marriage and motherhood as woman's primary concern, and a changing perception of themselves.
“It’s Important to hear a Human Voice,” Jews under COVID-19: An Oral History Project
Date: 2021
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Coronavirus/Covid, Oral History and Biography, Jewish Community, Family and Household
Abstract: This article presents research notes on an oral history project on the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on Jews over the age of 65 years. During the first stage of the project, we conducted nearly 80 interviews in eight cities worldwide: Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Milan, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and St. Petersburg, and in Israel. The interviews were conducted in the spring of 2020 and reflect the atmosphere and perception of interviewees at the end of the first lockdown.

Based on an analysis of the interviews, the findings are divided into three spheres: (1) the personal experience during the pandemic, including personal difficulties and the impact of the lockdown on family and social contacts; (2) Jewish communal life, manifested in changed functions and emergence of new needs, as well as religious rituals during the pandemic; and (3) perceived relations between the Jewish community and wider society, including relations with state authorities and civil society, attitudes of and towards official media, and the possible impact of COVID-19 on antisemitism. Together, these spheres shed light on how elderly Jews experience their current situation under COVID-19—as individuals and as part of a community.

COVID-19 taught interviewees to reappraise what was important to them. They felt their family relations became stronger under the pandemic, and that their Jewish community was more meaningful than they had thought. They understood that online communication will continue to be present in all three spheres, but concluded that human contact cannot be substituted by technical devices.
Group Distinctiveness and Ethnic Identity Among 1.5 and Second-generation Russian-speaking Jewish Immigrants in Germany and the U.S.
Author(s): Oppenheim, Jay Joshua
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Russian-Speaking Jews, Family and Household
Abstract: This study investigates the ethnic identity of the 1.5 and second-generation of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants to Germany and the U.S. in the most recent wave of immigration. Between 1989 and the mid-2000s, approximately 320,000 Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants departed the (former) Soviet Union for the U.S. and an additional 220,000 moved to Germany. The 1.5 and second-generations have successfully integrated into mainstream institutions, like schools and the workforce, but not the co-ethnic Jewish community in each country. Moreover, Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants are subject to a number of critiques, most prominently, of having a ‘thin culture’ that relies on abstract forms of ethnic expression and lacks in frequent and concrete forms of identification (Gitelman 1998).

The study asks several questions: how the 1.5 and second-generation see themselves as a distinctive social group? Where do they locate social boundaries between themselves and others? How do they maintain them? Close family ties lie at the center of the group’s ethnic identity. Russian-speaking cultures offer an alternative, and in the mind of the 1.5 and second-generation, superior approach to relating to family and friends, where, for example, being an unmarried adult does not contradict living at home or where youths and adults can socialize in the same setting. Their understandings and practices of family often run counter to the expectations of the mainstream in both Germany and the U.S. of what it means to be an independent adult. The organization and expectation of social relations among these immigrants reflect not only their different national origins, but their constitution as a distinctive moral community. Different foods and language use support these immigrants’ sense of group distinctiveness and reinforce the centrality of family as a shared ethnic practice.

Immigration has endowed family practices with the capacity to impart a sense of distinctiveness to the 1.5 and second-generation by changing the context in which close family ties are practiced. Transported across national borders these practices now contrast with prevailing understandings of family and serve as a cultural resource. Moreover, Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants have benefited, both culturally and economically, from state policies that granted them refugee status and enabled them to cross national borders as families and avoid years of separation other immigrants often must endure. The distinctiveness of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants’ family practices is relative to those of the receiving country’s mainstream, but not those of other immigrant groups. As a result, a sense of group difference and belonging anchored in these practices may be challenging to impart to the third generation, who are removed from the immigration experience. Nevertheless, the 1.5 and second-generation experience their family relationships, obligations and expectations as anything but ‘thin’. They inform consequential decisions, are encountered regularly, and offer meaning to their lives as individuals, children and members of an immigrant and ethnic group.

This study draws on in-depth interviews in New York City and multiple locations in Germany with 93 Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants who arrived at the age of 13 or younger or were born in the U.S. or Germany. Despite the different history and structure of Jewish communities in the U.S. and Germany, 1.5 and second-generation Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants’ experience in each country have much in common with one another, a finding that emerged as a result of the study’s comparative design.
Antizionistische Bildwelten. Ambivalenzen von Kritik an Israel und Antisemitismus in Deutschland und den USA
Translated Title: Anti-Zionist imagery. Ambivalences of criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism in Germany and the USA
Author(s): Ullrich, Peter; Arnold, Sina
Editor(s): Kohlstruck, Michael; Schüler-Springorum, Stefanie; Wyrwa, Ulrich
Date: 2015
Topics: Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Israel Criticism, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Феномен русскоязычного еврейства в философском и педагогическом измерении
Translated Title: The phenomenon of Russian-speaking Jewry in a philosophical and pedagogical dimension
Author(s): Милитарев, Александр Юрьевич
Date: 2009
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Russian-Speaking Jews
Abstract: Posing a question whether it makes sense to try and speak in rational and scholarly terms of comparative value systems, ethnic «models», the role of various ethnic entities and cultures in world history and their contribution to civilization process, the author tends to give a «cautiously affirmative» answer to this question. He insists on the necessity of researching into this complicated, delicate and dangerous field, one of the goals being not to leave it in the hands of nationalistic ideologists, irresponsible politicians and mass media dilettanti. Discussing from this angle the position of the world Jewry and its disproportionally outstanding role in the shaping of the «Western» civilization, the author focuses on the Russian Jewry, its contribution to Russian and world culture and its peculiar - from the traditional point of view - identity. In his opinion, this fairly secular identity based on ethnic and cultural self-consciousness is the most tenable future model for the American Jewry which badly needs a revision of old stereotypes, first of all on the part of US Jewish leaders. He also analyzes what he calls a general crisis of Jewish identity and evaluates the comparative perspectives of retaining or losing the Russian Jewish identity by the young generations in Russian-speaking Jewish communities both in Israel, USA and Germany. Touching upon the subject of ethos and asserting that it is meaningless even for a secular mind to discuss it other than in a dialogue with two religious stands a Russian Jew is most familiar with, Jewish and Christian, he suggests several issues for such a dialogue. Finally, the author regards the existing conceptions of Jewish education, especially in the USA, as outdated and no more efficient and gives his vision of how they should be re-shaped.
From Ferguson to Gaza. Sport, political sensibility, and the Israel/Palestine conflict in the age of Black Lives Matter
Author(s): Dart, Jon
Date: 2021
Topics: Sports, Football, Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Race, Racism, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: In June 2020, Black Lives Matter UK (BLM-UK) posted a series of tweets in which they endorsed the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Calling for ‘targeted sanctions in line with international law against Israel’s colonial, apartheid regime,’ one tweet claimed that ‘mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism’. The tweets were seen by some to be antisemitic and resulted in the English Premier League, the BBC and Sky Sports, which had hitherto been supportive of the Black Lives Matter protests, distance themselves from the Black Lives Matter movement. One month later, during the BLM protests in the USA, Black NFL player DeSean Jackson posted material to his Instagram story that was also viewed as antisemitic. This article unpacks, via these two sports-based incidents, the relationship between anti-racism, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism. I discuss how these tensions are not new, but a clear echo of the tensions that existed in the 1960s and 1970s during the height of the Civil Rights Movement; these tensions continue because the foundational issues remain unchanged. These two incidents raise important questions about how sports organisations operate in a world where sport is seen as ‘apolitical’ and strive for ‘neutrality’ but fail to recognise sport is political and that a position of neutrality cannot be successfully achieved. The article assesses the challenges that arise when sports organisations, and their athletes, choose to engage in a certain kind of sport politics.
O "eruv" na Europa, nos Estados Unidos e no Brasil: novas estratégias de demarcação do espaço judaico
Translated Title: The "eruv" in Europe, the United States and Brazil: new strategies for the demarcation of the Jewish space
Author(s): Topel, Marta Francisca
Date: 2012
Topics: Eruv, Jewish Neighbourhoods, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: No artigo são discutidas as mudanças acontecidas nas comunidades da diaspóra nas últimas décadas no que diz respeito a novas estratégias de apropria-ção do espaço público. Para ilustrar esta questão, são analisadas as controvérsias suscitadas em cidades dos Estados Unidos e da Inglaterra como resultado do estabelecimento de eruvim em alguns de seus bairros. Finalmente, tendo como base empírica os bairros judaicos paulistanos, tentou-se mostrar como eles também estão passando por um processo de judaização, que inclui diferentes modos de apropriação do espaço público pelas correntes ortodoxas da cidade.
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.
Jewish Identities in Poland and America: The Impact of the Shoah on Religion and Ethnicity
Author(s): Rejak, Sebastian
Date: 2011
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust, Religious Belief, Religious Observance and Practice, Secularity
Women’s Rosh Chodesh Services in Orthodox Judaism: Music, Gender, and Power-Negotiations on the Periphery
Author(s): Crowdus, Miranda L.
Date: 2018
Topics: Feminism, Jewish Women, Main Topic: Other, Liturgy, Orthodox Judaism, Jewish Music, Prayer
Abstract: This article is a discussion on my research that examines the social and musical aspects of orthodox women’s Rosh Chodesh groups. These groups, both past and present, are not a widespread phenomenon and have remained very much on the periphery of Jewish practices which, apart from communities based in Israel, already operate on the periphery of non-Jewish societies. As such, my research has required a broad, international focus. My discussion is largely based on groups in North America and Europe (specific locations examined include New York, Montreal, Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, which is also the site for fieldwork on the relatively recent phenomenon called the ‘Partnership Minyan’). I also conducted preliminary fieldwork with the much-discussed group Women of the Wall (WoW) based in Jerusalem.
Cultural Pluralism as an American Zionist Option for Solidarity and its Relevance for Today’s European Jewry
Author(s): Schiff, Ofer
Editor(s): Schoeps, Julius; Glöckner, Olaf
Date: 2011
Topics: Diaspora, Main Topic: Other, Diaspora Relations, Comparisons with other communities, Diversity, Pluralism
COVID-19 mortality and Jews: A global overview of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, March to May 2020
Author(s): Staetsky, L. Daniel; Paltiel, Ari
Date: 2020
Topics: Coronavirus/Covid, Health, Demography, Main Topic: Other, Statistics, Surveys
Abstract: This study, the first to assess mortality among Jews around the world during the COVID-19 crisis, draws on data from a wide variety of sources to understand the extent to which Jews were affected by coronavirus in different parts of the world during the first wave of the pandemic, March to May 2020.

The first section describes the methods of quantification of COVID-19 mortality, and explains why measuring it using the excess mortality method is the most effective way to understand how Jewish communities have been affected. The second section presents data on Jewish mortality during the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, drawing particularly on data provided to JPR by Jewish burial societies in communities all over the world. It does so in a comparative perspective, setting the data on Jews alongside the data on non-Jews, to explore both the extent to which Jews have been affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, and how the Jewish experience with COVID-19 compares to the experience of non-Jewish populations.

The immediate impression is that there is not a single ‘Jewish pattern’ that is observable everywhere, and, with respect to the presence of excess mortality, Jewish communities, by and large, followed the populations surrounding them.

The report cautions against speculation about why Jews were disproportionately affected in some places, but rule out two candidate explanations: that Jewish populations with particularly elderly age profiles were hardest hit, or that Jews have been badly affected due to any underlying health issue common among them. They consider the possibility that Jewish lifestyle effects (e.g. above average size families, convening in large groups for Jewish rituals and holidays), may have been an important factor in certain instances, noting that these are unambiguous risk factors in the context of communicable diseases. Whilst they suggest that the spread of the virus among Jews “may have been enhanced by intense social contact,” they argue that without accurate quantification, this explanation for elevated mortality in certain places remains unproven.

The report also includes a strongly worded preface from Hebrew University Professor Sergio DellaPergola, the Chair of the JPR European Jewish Demography Unit, and the world’s leading expert in Jewish demography. In it, he stresses the importance of systematically testing representative samples of the population at the national and local levels, and, in Jewish community contexts, of routinely gathering Jewish population vital statistics. He states: “If there is one lesson for Jewish community research that emerges out of this crisis it is that the routine gathering of vital statistics – the monitoring of deaths, as well as births, marriages, divorces, conversions, immigrants and emigrants – is one of the fundamental responsibilities community bodies must take.”
Measuring Holocaust Knowledge and Its Relationship to Attitudes towards Diversity in Spain, Canada, Germany, and the United States
Author(s): Jedwab, Jack
Editor(s): Gross, Zehavit; Stevick, E. Doyle
Date: 2015
Topics: Holocaust Education, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust, Diversity
Curricular Choices of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Communities: Translating International Human Rights Law to Education Policy
Author(s): Perry-Hazan, Lotem
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Education, Jewish Schools, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews
Abstract: This paper employs the provisions of international human rights law in order to analyse whether and how liberal states should regulate Haredi educational practices, which sanctify the exclusive focus on religious studies in schools for boys. It conceptualises the conflict between the right to acceptable education and the right to adaptable education in international human rights law, and analyses four case studies of Haredi education that exemplify different socio-legal approaches towards this conflict. The case studies show how education laws are transformed along the cogwheels of education policy, in which there are plural normative orders and many agents who implement them. Based on the case studies, I suggest that policies providing financial incentives for implementing educational standards may facilitate the realisation of the right to acceptable education in Haredi schools more than policies devised to enforce this right. I also suggest stipulations for effective conditional-funding policies.
Remembering the Holocaust in Educational Settings
Editor(s): Pearce, Andy
Date: 2018
Topics: Holocaust Education, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: Remembering the Holocaust in Educational Settings brings together a group of international experts to investigate the relationship between Holocaust remembrance and different types of educational activity through consideration of how education has become charged with preserving and perpetuating Holocaust memory and an examination of the challenges and opportunities this presents.

The book is divided into two key parts. The first part considers the issues of and approaches to the remembrance of the Holocaust within an educational setting, with essays covering topics such as historical culture, genocide education, familial narratives, the survivor generation, and memory spaces in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. In the second part, contributors explore a wide range of case studies within which education and Holocaust remembrance interact, including young people’s understanding of the Holocaust in Germany, Polish identity narratives, Shoah remembrance and education in Israel, the Holocaust and Genocide Centre of Education and Memory in South Africa, and teaching at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

Table of Contents
Series editors’ foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Education, remembrance, and the Holocaust: towards pedagogic memory-work

Andy Pearce

Part I: Issues, approaches, spaces

1. Lessons at the limits: on learning Holocaust history in historical culture

Klas-Göran Karlsson

2. The anatomy of a relationship: the Holocaust, genocide, and education in Britain

Andy Pearce

3. Väterliteratur: remembering, writing, and reconciling the familial past

Carson Phillips

4. Memories of survivors in Holocaust education

Wolf Kaiser

5. Figures of memory at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Michael Bernard-Donals

6. Imperial War Museums: reflecting and shaping Holocaust memory

Rachel Donnelly

7. Beyond learning facts: teaching commemoration as an educational task in German memorials sites for the victims of National Socialist crimes

Martin Schellenberg

Part II: National perspectives, contexts, and case studies

8. Hitler as a figure of ignorance in young people's incidental accounts of the Holocaust in Germany

Peter Carrier

9. Who was the victim and who was the saviour? The Holocaust in Polish identity narratives

Mikołaj Winiewski, Marta Beneda, Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, and Marta Witkowska

10. Conveying the message of Holocaust survivors: Shoah remembrance and education in Israel

Richelle Budd Caplan and Shulamit Imber

11. Holocaust education in the US: a pre-history, 1939–1960

Thomas D. Fallace

12. The Presence of the past: creating a new Holocaust and Genocide Centre of Education and Memory in post-Apartheid South Africa

Tali Nates

13. Educational bridges to the intangible: an Australian perspective to teaching and learning about the Holocaust

Tony Joel, Donna-Lee Frieze, and Mathew Turner

14. Myths, misconceptions, and mis-memory: Holocaust education in England

Stuart Foster
Individual Difference and Social Status Predictors of Anti-Semitism and Racism: U.S. and Czech Findings with the Prejudice/Tolerance and Right Wing Authoritarianism Scales
Author(s): Dunbar, Edward; Simonova, Lucie
Date: 2003
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Far right, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Racism
Abstract: The relationship of individual difference and social status variables to outgroup bias was studied in the Czech Republic and the US Gough's prejudice/tolerance (Pr/To) and Altemeyer's right wing authoritarianism (RWA) scales were employed with social status variables of gender, age, economic level, and ethnicity in predicting anti-Semitism and racial bias. One hundred and eighty-eight Czech and 281 US participants were included in the study. Results revealed similar cross-cultural relationships for Pr/To and RWA to outgroup bias. However, significant US and Czech differences existed for the social status variables in relationship to outgroup bias. For the Czech sample, men scored significantly higher on Pr/To, RWA, and the measures of outgroup bias while for the US sample of the outgroup bias measures varied by economic level. Hierarchical multiple regression results, controlling for social status variables, demonstrated similar predictive relationships of Pr/To and RWA for anti-Semitism with the Czech and US samples and anti-Roma bias (Czech sample) and anti-Black racism (US sample). A two-factor model is proposed to examine individual difference predisposition to endorse outgroup bias.
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.
Classroom challenges for teaching about and addressing anti-semitism in the OSCE region
Author(s): Weller, Paul; Foster, Ihsan
Date: 2019
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Education against, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Schools: Non-Jewish, Education, Youth
Abstract: This report, produced by Professor P. Weller and Dr. I. Foster of the University of Derby, United Kingdom, is based on two phases of research conducted in six OSCE participating States—Belgium, Germany, Greece, Moldova, Poland and the United States of America—between December 2016 and May 2018. The research took various forms, including focus groups, interviews, questionnaires, observations, as well as desk research based on published literature. A detailed bibliography of works consulted is provided in an appendix to the report. The report provides background information about the history of anti-Semitism in each of the countries studied, along with recent statistics concerning reported anti-Semitic incidents in each country. The report does not compare how significant an issue anti-Semitism is in these participating States; rather, it presents an overall pattern of evidence to identify a range of key challenges with at least some relevance for teaching about and addressing anti-Semitism in classroom contexts across the OSCE region as a whole, and thus provides the basis for recommendations that could inform the development of teacher resources to meet those challenges in any OSCE participating State, not just the ones studied for this report. The research has made clear that, while the incidence, frequency and forms of anti-Semitism may vary over time, it remains a reality in OSCE participating States. However, there is relatively little published research on anti-Semitism among young people as such, and even less that is specifically focused on teaching about anti-Semitism and/or addressing it in classroom contexts. Therefore, the primary research that informs this report makes a clear contribution to understanding anti-Semitism as it currently exists in a number of OSCE countries, albeit subject to certain limitations in terms of methodology, which are noted in the report’s appendices.
Pedagogies and Practice: How Religious Diversification Impacts Seminaries and Clergy
Author(s): Tiffany, Austin
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Rabbis, Interfaith Relations, Interfaith Dialogue, Diversity
Abstract: This thesis considers how religious diversification has shaped the roles of clergy and seminaries. The focus of this qualitative, interview-based study is seminaries and clergy affiliated with various denominations of Judaism and Protestant Christianity in greater London and New York City. Religiously diversifying societies in the US and England have brought forth new challenges for clergy and seminaries, prompting new questions about how or why a faith community should or should not engage with diversity in the public square. This study investigates how seminaries and individual members of the clergy, as sources of religious authority, are responding to religious diversification in different ways – the former sluggish to recognise the impact of religious diversification in curriculum and pedagogical structures and the latter seeing it as a resource for social action initiatives, local networks, and political activism. This has created a gap between training and practice whereby clergy have assumed greater religious authority in religious life. Beyond contributing to the field of sociology of religion, this thesis concludes by allowing the experience of clergy in interreligious engagement to inform appropriate pedagogies that could be employed by seminaries.
Conversions au judaïsme et institutionnalité juive : une sociologie comparée du pluralisme religieux dans le judaïsme contemporain (Israël, France, Argentine, Etats-Unis)
Translated Title: Conversions to judaism and jewish institutionality: A compared sociology of religious pluralism in contemporary judaism (Israel, France, Argentina and United States)
Author(s): Tank-Storper, Sébastien
Date: 2003
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Organisations, Conversion, Intermarriage, Pluralism
Abstract: Environ 90% des demandes de conversion adressées aujourd'hui aux institutions juives émanent de conjoints non juifs de "couples mixtes" désirant homogénéiser religieusement leur famille. Cela pose un double problème aux institutions: tout d'abord, selon la Halakha, ne peut être accepté qu'un candidat qui ne désire pas se convertir pour obtenir un bénéfice de sa conversion. Ensuite, cela pose la question de la réponse institutionnelle à la transgression: l'exogamie étant interdite par le judaïsme, faut-il repousser les déviants en refusant de régulariser a posteriori leur situation en convertissant le conjoint ou au contraire opter pour plus de tolérance et les intégrer? Ce dossier permet ainsi d'interroger les modalités de construction de l'autorité rabbinique et des institutions dans un contexte où ces derniers peinent de plus en plus à imposer leurs normes à des fidèles revendiquant leur autonomie.
Faire communauté et consolider la filiation par le patrimoine musical. Un regard transnational sur le monde judéo-espagnol
Translated Title: Making Community and Consolidating Descent through Musical Heritage. A Transnational View on the Judaeo-Spanish World
Author(s): Roda, Jessica
Date: 2016
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Sephardi Jews, Jewish Music, Globalisation, Jewish Heritage, Migration
Abstract: À Paris, Tel-Aviv, Istanbul ou Los Angeles, on entend et chante les fameux standards judéo-espagnols. Ce partage de connaissances est le résultat d’une patrimonialisation qui a commencé dès les années 1950 dans un espace transnational à la suite de l’éclatement géographique des Judéo-Espagnols de l’Empire ottoman. Cet article expose les différentes étapes de ce processus, tant dans la diachronie que dans la synchronie, à partir d’un terrain multisite mené en France, aux États-Unis et sur le cyberespace. On découvrira que la construction du patrimoine à travers l’expérience de la migration peut être envisagée comme un mouvement de reterritorialisation permettant aux Judéo-Espagnols de faire communauté, de reconsolider la filiation judéo-espagnole dans l’espace familial et ainsi, de constituer un territoire historique fédérateur incarné par le patrimoine. Au-delà de ce cas spécifique, l’article montre comment le patrimoine musical, en raison de son statut d’objet immatériel facilement transportable, peut nous conduire à repenser la patrimonialisation au-delà du territoire et à l’envisager comme un processus de consolidation et de création de liens entre des individus et des groupes d’individus partageant un sentiment d’appartenance.
Former Soviet Jews in Israel and in the West: Integration, Exclusion and Transnationalism
Translated Title: Бывшие советские иммигранты в Израиле и на Западе: интеграция, изоляция и транснационализм / יהודי ברה''מ לשעבר בישראל ובמערב: השתלבות, דחייה וטרנס-לאומיות
Author(s): Remennick, Larissa
Date: 2007
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Immigration, Russian Emigration, Russian-Speaking Jews, Diaspora, Globalisation, Integration
Abstract: Theoretical focus of the paper is the relationship between transnationalism and immigrant incorporation in the host country’s labor market and social system. It is shown that due to its timing and composition, Russian immigration of the 1990s was readily transnational at the outset, but the expression of diasporic interests and activities depends both on geographic location and modes of integration in the new homelands. Russian Jews in Israel and Germany display stronger diasporic tendencies than those who resettled in the USA and Canada. Across the New Diaspora, transnational activities among Russian Jews grow ‘from below’ (i.e. from individual initiative rather than institutional action) and are largely limited to the socio-cultural domain. The reliance on co-ethnic networks within and outside of the host country may be a mixed blessing, both empowering the weaker segments of the immigrants and thwarting their integration by creating an alternative social space.
The Limmud Impact Study: Exploring volunteers’ Jewish journeys
Author(s): Kahn-Harris, Keith
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Surveys, Focus Groups, Limmud, Jewish Organisations, Evaluation, Volunteering, Jewish Education
Abstract: The Limmud Impact Study looks at how successful Limmud has been in taking people ‘one step further on their Jewish journeys’, what these journeys consist of and their wider impact on Jewish communities.

The study focuses on Limmud volunteers and draws on a survey of ten Limmud volunteer communities in eight countries - UK, USA, South Africa, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, Israel and Argentina - together with focus groups conducted with Limmud volunteers from around the world.

The findings provide clear evidence that Limmud advances the majority of its volunteers on their Jewish journeys, and for a significant proportion it takes them ‘further’ towards greater interest in and commitment to Jewish life.

Limmud’s principle impact on its volunteers lies in making new friends and contacts, encountering different kinds of Jews and enhancing a sense of connection to the Jewish people. For many Limmud volunteers, their experience has increased their Jewish
knowledge, their leadership skills and their involvement in the wider Jewish community. Involvement in Limmud therefore enhances both the desire to take further steps on their Jewish journeys, and the tools for doing so.

Limmud impacts equally on Jews regardless of denominationand religious practice. The younger the volunteers and the less committed they are when they begin their Limmud journeys, the further Limmud takes them. Those with more senior levels of involvement in Limmud report higher levels of impact on their Jewish journeys than other volunteers, as do those who had received a subsidy or training from Limmud.

Limmud volunteers often have difficult experiences and risk burnout and
exhaustion. While volunteers generally view the gains as worth the cost, Limmud
needs to pay attention to this issue and provide further support.
The Holocaust is a Foreign Country: Comparing Representations of Place in Lithuanian Jewish Testimony
Author(s): Pollin-Galay, Hannah
Date: 2013
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust, Oral History and Biography, Interviews, Geography, Diaspora, Yiddish
Abstract: This article explores discourse on the Holocaust as a ‘placeless’ event. Analyzing survivor testimony delivered in different cultural contexts, I ask whether or not the idea of strange or vanished places is culturally specific or universal to memories of Holocaust victimhood. As a case study, I analyze the testimony of Lithuanian Jewish Holocaust survivors. I compare the more commonly heard testimonies of survivors living in North America and Israel to the lesser known voices of survivors who have remained in Lithuania—witnesses who live and testify ‘on the scene of the crime.’ I demonstrate how important the idea of estranged geography figures in the testimony of émigré witnesses. By contrast, the survivors who have remained in Lithuania draw a different narrative map of the country, one in which past and present interact on the same sites. Their home landscape, however, also has black holes, dark places that they consider untouchable in everyday life. The article thus points to a tension between contextual particularities and universal challenges in depicting Holocaust places.
“Not Us, but You Have Changed!” Discourses of Difference and Belonging among Haredi Women
Author(s): Longman, Chia
Date: 2007
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Gender, Jewish Women, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Baal Teshuvah
Abstract: Feminist research into the position and participation of women in contemporary fundamentalist and traditionalist identity movements shows how essentialist ideologies of sexual difference are often deployed in critique of western secular liberal feminism. In this article the author draws a comparison between discourses of belonging according to studies of ba'alot teshuvahin the USA (female “returnees” to an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle), and her own interviews with “frumfrom birth” women (raised as haredi) in the strictly Orthodox Jewish community of Antwerp, Belgium. Whereas for the former, a rhetoric of choice, essentialism, and religious ideologies of female superiority appeared important, for the frum-born women, gender is more a question of orthopraxis and religious role equivalence. Nevertheless, the author argues that for the strictly Orthodox Jewish diasporic community in question, an increase in gender conservatism, with particular notions of female sexuality and modesty, goes hand in hand with isolationism vis-à-vis the surrounding secular society.
Demography of the Contemporary Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora
Author(s): Tolts, Mark
Date: 2011
Topics: Aliyah, Demography, Russian-Speaking Jews, Russian Emigration, Diaspora, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract:

This paper is a study of the demography of the contemporary post-Soviet Jewish Diaspora based on various statistical sources collected from many countries where these Jews live. It examines (post-) Soviet Jewish resettlement, and the demographic transformation of FSU Jews in the wake of the recent mass migration, especially in Israel. Based on this analysis, an update for 2010 of the number of the 'core' Jews (by self-identity) originating from the FSU by country was presented, and the total number of people belonging to the post-Soviet Jewish Diaspora worldwide and their distribution was estimated.
Hybride jüdische Identitäten: Gemischte Familien und patrilineare Juden
Translated Title: Hybrid Jewish identities: Mixed families and patrilineal Jews
Editor(s): Wohl von Haselberg, Lea
Date: 2015
Topics: Intermarriage, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Family and Household, Intermarriage: Children of Intermarried Couples
Abstract: Viele Jüdinnen und Juden lieben nichtjüdische Partner_innen, leben und haben Kinder mit ihnen. Die Vorstellung von ‚Juden‘ und ‚Nichtjuden‘ als klar unterscheidbaren Gruppen ist überholt. ‚Gemischte‘ Familien und Partnerschaften sind stattdessen Teil der zeitgenössischen Lebensrealität im deutschsprachigen Raum und darüber hinaus.

Der nicht unumstrittene Begriff des Hybriden, ursprünglich aus Botanik und Biologie entlehnt und im 19. Jahrhundert in die Rassenlehre übernommen, wo er negativ besetzt wurde, findet seit einigen Jahren in diversen Bereichen der Geistes-, Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften wieder Verwendung. Dort richtet sich das Interesse auf Begegnungen, Vermischungen, Übergänge, Übersetzungen und Neuschöpfungen. Daraus entstehen Fragen nach Inklusion und Exklusion, welche Formen ‚Vermischungen‘ oder ‚Hybridisierungen‘ in konkreten Kontexten annehmen und in welchen kulturellen Praktiken und Identitätskonstruktionen sich diese äußern. Solche Fragen stellen sich auch für zeitgenössische jüdische Lebensentwürfe: Versteht man Identitäten als reflexive Prozesse des Selbstverstehens, des Entwickelns von sich immer in Veränderung befindlichen Selbstbildern und als eine Beziehung, zeigt sich, wie bedeutsam der Kontakt mit anderen und das Erfahren von Fremdwahrnehmung durch andere ist. Widersprüchliche Definitionen von Jüdischsein führen hier zu Herausforderungen für gemischte Familien. Die Komplexität resultiert u.a. aus den verschiedenen Ebenen zeitgenössischer jüdischer Identität, wie der kulturellen, der religiösen und nach der Shoah der historischen Ebene der Familien- und Verfolgungsgeschichte.

Der Band Hybride jüdische Identitäten versammelt die Vorträge der gleichnamigen internationalen Tagung, die im November 2012 am Erziehungswissenschaftlichen Institut der Universität Zürich stattgefunden hat. Die Autor_innen bringen nicht nur Perspektiven unterschiedlicher wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen, wie der Psychologie, der Soziologie, der Kultur- und Literaturwissenschaft sowie der Psychoanalyse zusammen, sondern untersuchen auch unterschiedliche nationale Zusammenhänge und Spezifika. Der Sammelband bündelt damit erstmalig Forschungen zu gemischt jüdisch-nichtjüdischen Familien und deren Selbstverständnissen und Erfahrungen.

Inhalt:

Lea Wohl von Haselberg: Einleitung 7
Micha Brumlik: Matrilinearität im Judentum. Ein religionshistorischer Essay19
Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim: Juden, Nichtjuden und die dazwischen. Im Dschungel der Orientierungsversuche 35
Christina von Braun: Virtuelle Genealogien 49
Christa Wohl: Patrilineare in Deutschland: Jüdisch oder nicht? Eine psychologische Untersuchung 65
Birgitta Scherhans: Jüdisch-christliche ‚Mischehen‘ in Deutschland nach 1945 83
Madeleine Dreyfus: ‚Mischehe‘ und Übertritt. Elemente jüdischer Identitätskonstruktionen am Beispiel der deutschen Schweiz 103
Catherine Grandsard: Approximate Answers to Baffling Problems. Issues of Identity in Mixed Jewish-Christian Families in France 121
Adrian Wójcik/Michał Bilewicz: Beyond Ethnicity. The Role of the Mixed-Origin Family for Jewish Identity: A Polish Case Study 133
Pearl Beck: The Relationship between Intermarriage and Jewish Identity in the United States. An Examination of Overall Trends and Specific Research Findings 147
Joela Jacobs: Die Frage nach dem Bindestrich. Deutsch-jüdische Identitäten und Literatur 169
Symbolic Spaces of Difference: Contesting the Eruv in Barnet, London and Tenafly, New Jersey
Author(s): Watson, Sophie
Date: 2005
Topics: Jewish Neighbourhoods, North African Jewry, Cities and Suburbs, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: In this paper I explore discourses and resistances mobilized around the construction of an Orthodox Jewish symbolic and material concrete space, the ‘eruv’, in two localities (one in the United Kingdom, one in the USA) where it has been at the center of heated debate and contestation. Conflicts around the reordering and redefining of this public space expose some of the limits of living with difference and normative versions of multiculturalism in the city. Through a detailed examination of two case studies in the United Kingdom and the United States I conclude that the multicultural city necessitates a recognition of symbolic as well as material spaces—and the interconnections between these—and that the notion of public space warrants interrogation as to how it is imagined, read, and experienced in multiple ways.
Between the Red and Yellow Stars: Ethnic and Religious Identity of Soviet Jewish World War II Veterans in New York, Toronto, and Berlin
Author(s): Shternshis, Anna
Date: 2011
Topics: Ageing and the Elderly, Russian-Speaking Jews, Communism, Military Service, Interviews, Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
A few days after arriving in New York during the spring of 1990, Anatolii S. (born in 1920, Ukraine), put on his jacket, decorated with the numerous military medals that he had earned during his service in the Soviet Army during World War II, and went into a nearby synagogue, hoping to find out about the benefits available to him as a Jewish veteran of the war that "helped to save America from fascism." He showed his documents to the local clerk, who only gestured for him to put his hat back on and to pray with the prayer book. Unable to open the book correctly, and most importantly, unwilling to pray, Anatolii realized that neither his participation in the war, nor his knowledge of Yiddish, made him a true member of this community. Being accustomed to displays of public respect and economic benefits from his status as a war veteran, Anatolii now had to embrace his new status in a society that did not regard him any differently from any other non-English speaking, elderly Jewish immigrant from Russia.

Anatolii, like the other approximately 26,000 Soviet Jewish veterans who migrated to Germany, Israel, Canada, and the United States in the 1990s, was certainly welcome to attend synagogues and Jewish community centers in his new country, but his understanding of what it meant to be a Jew differed profoundly from the majority of members in these communities. Anatolii and his peers (Soviet veterans) regarded their participation in the war as the most important part of their Jewish identity, and they were often shocked to find out how little the war meant to the Jewish identity of the local populations they encountered. Unsatisfied with the status quo, many Soviet veterans launched their own organizations, where being Jewish and proud of Soviet accomplishments did not seem contradictory. Moreover, the definitions of "Soviet" and "Jewish" shifted, merged, and eventually formed the foundation of a specific culture, with its own leaders, traditions, rituals, and language.

In this article, I look into the modes of survival of Soviet language and ideology among veterans, and analyze what these modes tell us about the patterns of immigrant adaptation. I concentrate on three centers of veterans' activities: New York, Toronto, and Berlin, and discuss similarities and differences in the adaptations of veterans in these communities. I will discuss how the culture of each city and country influenced what the veterans select from Soviet rhetoric to describe their present lives.

The second goal of this study is to challenge existing scholarship, which treats elderly migrants as passive and apathetic. Nursing Studies and Gerontology dominate research in this area (rather than the field of immigrant studies) and as a result we know much more about cases of extreme isolation, deprivation, and depression among elderly immigrants in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Western Europe than about the contribution elderly migrants make to the social and cultural systems in their new societies. While the vulnerability of this group is undeniable, I perceive studying foreign retirees solely as victims or disadvantaged entities as an "ageism" bias which denies proper recognition and acceptance of the achievements and life experiences of the elderly, as it sees them solely through the prism of their ailing bodies. Soviet Jewish veterans, as a group, serve as an ideal case study of how elderly immigrants fight such perceptions, both consciously and subconsciously, not only by creating their own organizations, but also by establishing an awareness of their legacies in their new home countries.

Data and Methodology
This study is based on 233 in-depth interviews with Soviet veterans of World War II conducted between 1999 and 2007 in Toronto, Berlin, and New York. I used a snowball sample, where the initial respondents—located through veterans' organizations and ads placed in Russian-language media—suggested other potential interviewees. The interviews consisted of open-ended questions about respondents' experiences throughout their lives. Russian-language newspaper articles published in immigrant papers also served as useful sources for public expressions of veterans' opinions about political, cultural, and social issues in their new countries.
Retrospective and Afterological Considerations of the Contemporary Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora: Whence and Whither?
Author(s): Markowitz, Fran
Date: 2009
Topics: Russian-Speaking Jews, Russian Emigration, Diaspora, Globalisation, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: This article reviews the transformations undergone by Russian speaking Jews over the past half century, and how these have been portrayed in key scholarly texts. It analyzes the representation of Soviet Jews first as a people of silence, then as new immigrants in Israel and North America, and, most recently, as a globalized community or worldwide diaspora. But rather than accepting these identity transformations as a fait accompli, the article problematizes their present meanings and ponders future trends.
Ритуалы в состоянии перемен: сватовство и брак у бухарских евреев
Translated Title: Rituals in Flux: Courtship and Marriage among Bukharan Jews
Author(s): Купер, Аланна Э.
Date: 2015
Topics: Bukharian Jews, Ethnography, Ritual, Marriage, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Свадебные ритуалы бухарских евреев описываются в статье по материалам полевых исследований автора, проведенных в Узбекистане, Израиле и СȀА в период с 1991 года. Автор предлагает не столько законченный и самодостаточный монтаж, сколько многоплановые кадры из частной жизни, указывая на пересечения между социальной структурой и человеческой деятельностью, между унаследованными традициями и новаторскими изменениями. Рассматриваются шесть празд- неств из серии бухарско-еврейских свадебных практик: ши-ринхори - поедание сладостей, олицетворяющее помолвку; утвержденная советской властью гражданская свадебная цере-мония в ЗАГСе; кош-чинон - празднество, когда родственники невесты принимают участие в отдалении, пока происходит приведение в порядок волосков на ее лице; праздники кудо- бини и домот-дророн, которые проводятся во внутреннем дворе родительского дома невесты и означают приветствие жениха и его семьи в доме невесты; кидуш - религиозная свадебная церемония. Автор приходит к выводу, что не существует статичной базовой формы бухарско-еврейской культуры, отклонения от которой или изменения внутри которой могут быть опознаны.
Rituals in Flux: Courtship and Marriage among Bukharan Jews
Author(s): Cooper, Alanna E.
Editor(s): Baldauf, Ingeborg; Gammer, Moshe; Loy, Thomas
Date: 2008
Topics: Bukharian Jews, Ritual, Marriage, Diaspora, Ethnography, Main Topic: Other
The Bukharan Jewish Diaspora at the Beginning of the 21st Century
Author(s): Kaganovitch, Albert
Editor(s): Baldauf, Ingeborg; Gammer, Moshe; Loy, Thomas
Date: 2008
Topics: Diaspora, Bukharian Jews, Main Topic: Other
Russian Jews on Three Continents: Identity, Integration, and Conflict
Author(s): Remennick, Larissa
Date: 2012
Topics: Diaspora, Russian Emigration, Aliyah, Immigration, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: In the early 1990s, more than 1.6 million Jews from the former Soviet Union emigrated to Israel, the United States, Canada, Germany, and other Western countries. Larissa Remennick relates the saga of their encounter with the economic marketplaces, lifestyles, and everyday cultures of their new homelands, drawing on comparative sociological research among Russian-Jewish immigrants. Although citizens of Jewish origin ostensibly left the former Soviet Union to flee persecution and join their co-religionists, Israeli, North American, and German Jews were universally disappointed by the new arrivals' tenuous Jewish identity. In turn, Russian Jews, whose identity had been shaped by seventy years of secular education and assimilation into the Soviet mainstream, hoped to be accepted as ambitious and hard working individuals seeking better lives. These divergent expectations shaped lines of conflict between Russian-speaking Jews and the Jewish communities of the receiving countries. Since her own immigration to Israel from Moscow in 1991, Remennick has been both a participant and an observer of this saga. This is the first attempt to compare resettlement and integration experiences of a single ethnic community (former Soviet Jews) in various global destinations. It also analyzes their emerging transnational lifestyles.
Foreigners or Jews? The Soviet Jewish refugee populations in Germany and the United States
Author(s): Tress, Madelaine
Date: 1997
Topics: Soviet Jewry, Russian-Speaking Jews, Immigration, Refugees, Main Topic: Other
Gelebte Selbstbilder. Gemeinden russisch-jüdischer Migranten in Chicago und Berlin
Author(s): Hegner, Victoria
Date: 2008
Topics: Diaspora, Jewish Community, Immigration, Russian-Speaking Jews, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Seit 1987 haben rund zwei Millionen russische Juden die frühere Sowjetunion verlassen. Außer nach Israel wanderten sie vor allem in die USA und nach Deutschland aus – hier besonders in Großstädte. Victoria Hegner vergleicht diese beiden Migrationsströme am Beispiel der Städte Berlin und Chicago. Was bedeutet es, sich als Jude in diesen Ländern und Städten niederzulassen? Welche Formen jüdischen Selbstverständnisses wurden den Zuwanderern in Deutschland und den USA geboten? Der Vergleich lässt nicht nur nationale Besonderheiten hervortreten. Er zeigt auch, wie sehr die jeweilige Stadt das Lebensgefühl russischer Juden prägt.