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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
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.
The Israeli Diaspora in Berlin: Back to Being Jewish?
Author(s): Remennick, Larissa
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Israeli Expatriates, Diaspora, Ethnography, Emigration, Immigration
Abstract: In this ethnographic essay, I reflect on the origins and present condition of the new (post-2010) Israeli diaspora in Berlin. Based on 10 months of participant observation, I map out the main sub-streams of this emigration; elicit the economic, professional, and political reasons for leaving Israel; and explore these émigrés’ initial encounter with German society. My observations suggest that many Israeli residents of Berlin (mostly secular) rediscover their Jewishness along diasporic lines and forge ties with the local religious and community organizations. Being a small minority in the German-speaking milieu, Israelis invest in building their own Hebrew-based community networks, including media outlets and cultural and educational institutions. Lastly, I explore these émigrés’ ties with Israel and conclude that many Israelis in Berlin are sojourners rather than immigrants and that Berlin is but one phase in their life journey.
Jewishness and psychoanalysis - the relationship to identity, trauma and exile. An interview study
Author(s): Johansson, Per Magnus; Punzi, Elisabeth
Date: 2019
Topics: Diaspora, Emigration, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Psychotherapy / Psychoanalysis, Refugees, Interviews, Ageing and the Elderly
Abstract: The relationship between psychoanalysis and Jewishness has been debated for over one hundred years and the derogatory term ”Jewish science” has been used to describe psychoanalysis. Because of the Nazi regime both Jewish and non-Jewish psychoanalysts left their homelands. In this study, aging Jewish individuals born in Central Europe and forced into exile were interviewed concerning their perceptions of psychoanalysis and Jewishness, of Jewish identity and exile. Anti-Semitism had influenced their perceptions of their work in the psychoanalytic field. The findings are discussed in relation to the current position of psychoanalysis as well as to questions of trauma and exile.
The Crisis in Ukraine: Attitudes of the Russian and Ukrainian Jewish Communities
Author(s): Feferman, Kiril
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Politics, Jewish Politics, Jewish Communal Politics, Diaspora, Diaspora Relations
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.
Powroty krakowskich Żydow do rodzinnego miasta w świetle literatury dokumentu osobistego
Translated Title: The returns of Krakow’s jews to their home townin the light of personal document literature
Author(s): Stępień, Monika
Editor(s): Gąsiorowskiego, Stefana; Ruty, Magdaleny
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Memory, Diaspora, Oral History and Biography, Tourism
Abstract: Krakow's Jews, scattered around the world, reminisce about their hometown. The main reasons for returning to Krakow are recurring images of the past and the urge to see their life story as a coherent whole. The returnees rediscover their hometown through their own traces of memory, although there are shared stops on the way. These are the places associated with their childhood and their family history, but also with the heritage of Krakow's Jews and the Holocaust. Such diverse stops on the trail of memories show dual identity of the city – the city of a once glorious past but also stigmatised by blood, murder and loss. The absence of the families of the murdered Jewish community is equivalent to the lack of natural environment of commemoration. Those returning are looking for a new commemorative milieu, and everyone who remembers will also become part of it (e.g. their school friends, teachers, neighbours etc.). Finally, the returnees are coming back home – to the house where they were born, but one that is not home anymore.
Perpetual Diaspora, Changing Homelands: The Construction of Russian-Speaking Jews as a Diaspora of Both Israel and Russia
Author(s): Ben-Porat, Illa
Date: 2011
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Diaspora, Nationalism, National Identity
Abstract: This article considers the interrelationship between a homeland and its diasporic communities from the point of view of the homeland. In particular, it examines the policies adopted by Russia and Israel toward the same group; that is, the Russian-speaking Jews who have immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union. The article demonstrates how the construction of this migrant population as diasporic community of the “homeland” gives rise to unexpected challenges to the symbolic definition of the “nation.” These challenges add a new perspective in this regard, rendering tenuous the claim of the nation to primordiality, constancy, and coherence.
Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging
Author(s): Leite, Naomi
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Diaspora, Anusim / Crypto-Jews / Marranos, Ethnography, Memory, Tourism
Abstract: How are local understandings of identity, relatedness, and belonging transformed in a global era? How does international tourism affect possibilities for who one can become?

In urban Portugal today, hundreds of individuals trace their ancestry to 15th century Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism, and many now seek to rejoin the Jewish people as a whole. For the most part, however, these self-titled Marranos ("hidden Jews") lack any direct experience of Jews or Judaism, and Portugal's tiny, tightly knit Jewish community offers no clear path of entry. According to Jewish law, to be recognized as a Jew one must be born to a Jewish mother or pursue religious conversion, an anathema to those who feel their ancestors' Judaism was cruelly stolen from them. After centuries of familial Catholicism, and having been refused inclusion locally, how will these self-declared ancestral Jews find belonging among "the Jewish family," writ large? How, that is, can people rejected as strangers face-to-face become members of a global imagined community - not only rhetorically, but experientially?

Leite addresses this question through intimate portraits of the lives and experiences of a network of urban Marranos who sought contact with foreign Jewish tourists and outreach workers as a means of gaining educational and moral support in their quest. Exploring mutual imaginings and direct encounters between Marranos, Portuguese Jews, and foreign Jewish visitors, Unorthodox Kin deftly tracks how visions of self and kin evolve over time and across social spaces, ending in an unexpected path to belonging. In the process, the analysis weaves together a diverse set of current anthropological themes, from intersubjectivity to international tourism, class structures to the construction of identity, cultural logics of relatedness to transcultural communication.

A compelling evocation of how ideas of ancestry shape the present, how feelings of kinship arise among far-flung strangers, and how some find mystical connection in a world said to be disenchanted, Unorthodox Kin will appeal to a wide audience interested in anthropology, sociology, Jewish studies, and religious studies. Its accessible, narrative-driven style makes it especially well suited for introductory and advanced courses in general cultural anthropology, ethnography, theories of identity and social categorization, and the study of globalization, kinship, tourism, and religion.
When the Local Is Transnational: Time-Space, Conflict and Community (Re)construction Within Polish-Jewish Emigres' Diaspora
Author(s): Starnawski, Marcin
Editor(s): Fragoso, António; Kurantowicz, Ewa; Lucio Villegas Ramos, Emilio
Date: 2008
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Interviews, Emigration, Diaspora, Oral History and Biography, Jewish Community
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.
Of Jews, Turks and Armenians: entangled memories—a personal recollection
Author(s): Benhabib, Seyla
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Sephardi Jews, Memory, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Diaspora
Abstract: This article is an autobiographical contribution recounting the entanglement of Turkish, Jewish and Armenian memories in contemporary Turkey. The ‘special friendship’ between Turkey and the Sephardic Jews, who were given refuge by the Ottoman Empire after escaping the Inquisition in Spain in 1492, has always been used as evidence of the generosity and toleration of Ottoman and subsequent Turkish rule. Recent historical research shows that these claims are both historically inaccurate and politically instrumental. Nevertheless, the Sephardic-Jewish sense of gratitude towards their Turkish protectors, as well as their continuing sense of vulnerability, is acute. Particularly in the year of the centenary of the Armenian Genocide (2015), the tangled memories of Jews, Turks and Armenians have been on display with official commemorations of the tragedy of the vessel Struma carrying Jewish refugees from Romania to Palestine (1942) and the battle over Gallipoli (1915). The Battle of Gallipoli is presented by the Turkish authorities as the beginning of the Turkish war of independence (1919–23) against imperial powers, thus emphasizing that the Armenian Genocide was part of a complex history, the purpose of which was to liberate Turkey from foreign domination. The article analyses the symbolic connections among these events and concludes by looking at the geopolitics of contemporary Turkish–Israeli relations and their impact on Armenian Genocide recognition attempts in the USA.
Negotiating A Diasporic Identity: The Jews In Thessaloniki
Author(s): Sidiropoulou, Maria Ch.
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Diaspora, Sephardi Jews
Abstract: Since the ancient times, Jews used to be in a diasporic situation. While embracing new elements,
being in and out of their borders, in and out of their communities and regarding social, political and
economical factors of the place they lived in, the Jewish people were reconsidering and reconstructing
their ethnoreligious and cultural identity. In this paper, the contemporary Jewish identity will be
explored, —both individually and collectively— in the context of the pluralistic city of Thessaloniki,
Greece. Which are the components that their identity is compromised of? On the one hand, how
does the factor of their recent Sephardic (Judeo-Spanish) origin influence their identitarian reference?
On the other hand, how does the current state of Israel remodel and form new identitarian aspects
of them? And finally, how does the Greek context affect their personal, communal and national
identity? Living in a Greek secular state, where the majority of its citizens regard themselves as
Orthodox Christian believers, what relations might be shaped between the non Jews and the Jews?
How do the Jews perceive their self identity? By using empirical data of fieldwork, the writer will
endeavor to attribute the diasporic paths of the long term indigenous, Greek, Jewish identity —both
national and religious— in the geographical place of the city of Thessaloniki.
Forgotten Memory The Jews of Vilne in the Diaspora
Author(s): Lipphardt, Anna
Date: 2008
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Jewish Heritage, Diaspora
Abstract: The way East European Jews are remembered is subject to increasing examination, but very little is known about how East European Jews remember. Most Holocaust survivors did not return to their hometowns and villages, but settled around the world. Jewish hometown associations, or landsmanshaftn, kept alive the memory of the places they had left behind, and the Holocaust. This is seen in the case of the Jews of Vilnius, or Vilne as it is called in Yiddish. The way they view the past differs fundamentally from the way Jews still living in Vilnius see it. This contains the potential for conflict over cultural heritage and the interpretation of history, as evidenced in the dispute over materials from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
The Israeli-European Diaspora: A survey about Israelis living in Europe
Translated Title: התפוצה הישראלית-אירופית סקר על ישראלים החיים באירופה
Author(s): Dimentstein, Marcelo; Kaplan, Reut
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Israeli Expatriates, Diaspora, Immigration, Surveys
Abstract: Conducted in partnership with Machon Kehilot, a grass-roots organization established by Israelis living in Europe, the survey examined degrees of participation of Israelis living in Europe within their own networks and in local Jewish communities. What are the characteristics of the networks and communal frameworks set up by Israelis living in Europe? What kind of relationships do respondents have regarding local Jewish life? How do they perceive themselves in terms of Jewish identity? What are the main lessons for Jewish communities and organizations?

In total, 2,125 responses were collected, of which 890 full responses were taken for further analysis. The survey sample spans 27 European countries.

The report is available in English and in Hebrew.
Global Neighborhoods: Jewish Quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin
Author(s): Laguerre, Michel S.
Date: 2008
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Space, Globalisation, Jewish Neighbourhoods, Diaspora
Abstract: Global Neighborhoods analyzes the organization of everyday life and the social integration of contemporary Jewish neighborhoods in Paris, London, and Berlin. Concentrating on the post-Holocaust era, Michel S. Laguerre explains how each urban diasporic site has followed a different path of development influenced by the local milieu in which it is incorporated. He also considers how technology has enabled extraterritorial relations with Israel and other diasporic enclaves inside and outside the hostland.

Shifting the frame of reference from assimilation theory to globalization theory and the information technology revolution, Laguerre argues that Jewish neighborhoods are not simply transnational social formations, but are fundamentally transglobal entities. Connected to multiple overseas diasporic sites, their interactions reach beyond their homelands, and they develop the logic of their social interactions inside this larger network of relationships. As with all transglobal communities, there is constant movement of people, goods, communications, ideas, images, and capital that sustains and adds vibrancy to everyday life. Since all are connected through the network, Laguerre contends that the variable shape of the local is affected by and affects the global.

Table of Contents

List of Figures, Tables, and Maps
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Neighborhood Globalization

2. Paris’s Jewish Quarter: Unmade, Remade, and Transformed

3. Berlin’s Jewish Quarter: The Local History of the Global

4. London’s Jewish Neighborhoods: Nodes of Global Networks

5. Residential Districts Versus Business Districts

6. The Jewish Quarter as a Global Chronopolis

7. Paris’s City Hall and the Jewish Quarter

8. Heritage Tourism: The Jewish Quarter as a Theme Park

9. The Jewish Quarter, Other Diasporic Sites, and Israel

10. Information Technology and the Jewish Neighborhood

11. Neighborhoods of Globalization

Conclusion: Global Neighborhoods in the Global Metropolis

Notes
References
Index
Kleznetworks: the transcontinental and the local dimension of Jewish culture festivals
Author(s): Waligórska, Magdalena
Editor(s): Ernst, Petra; Lamprecht, Gerald
Date: 2010
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Music, Klezmer, Globalisation, Diaspora, Jewish Revival
Media, politics, and Jewish migration from East Europe amid the military crisis in Ukraine, 2014–2015
Author(s): Bagno-Moldavsky, Olena
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Diaspora, Conflict, Politics, Russian-Speaking Jews, Jewish Identity, National Identity, Internet
Abstract: Over the course of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the identity of the global Russian-speaking Jewish community was put to the test. The conflict in Ukraine marked the first time in the history of Russian-speaking Jews that every expression, blog or Twitter post, and opinion article were recorded on the World Wide Web. This readily available data enables us to reconstruct the information climate that surrounded Russian-speaking Jews. The present article explores the sway of this climate on the political discourse of Jewish elites in Ukraine, Russia, and Jewish Russian-speaking diasporas between 2014 and 2015. Our findings suggest that identities of these groups are multilayered, but not hierarchical. Moreover, the elites’ common ethno-cultural Jewish identity coexists with distinct political affiliations. The allegiance of minorities to host societies is a well-known phenomenon. However, its mechanisms have yet to command sufficient research interest. Is it fear, prudence, genuine attachment to the country of residence, or other factors that stand behind the minorities’ commitment? This paper fuses thematic maps with content analysis to show that the “infosphere” is a key to understanding the position of Jews toward host regimes and their co-ethnics in other nation-states.
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.
Europe will be Stunned: Visualization of Jewish Return
Author(s): Almog, Yael
Editor(s): Eshel, Amir; Seelig, Rachel
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Diaspora, Israeli Expatriates, Jewish Film, Jewish Arts, Jewish Culture
Abstract: This article seeks to trace how visions of a “Jewish return to Europe” inform contemporary cultural production. I am particularly interested in asking how the presence of Israeli émigrés in Germany, a dramatic instance of such a “return,” challenges the country’s memorial culture due to the “exportation” of dispositions relating to the Holocaust construed in Israel. I view this dislocation of memo-rial practices, a new instance of Hebrew-German exchange, as embedded in a broader discourse on migration, integration and xenophobic violence. At the core of my argument is the 2007–2011 film trilogy
And Europe Will Be Stunned,
directed by Israeli artist Yael Bartana, who is based in Berlin and Amsterdam. The trilogy presents a fictional national movement that advocates the return of 3,300,000 Jews to Poland, with the claim that Poland’s ethnic and religious homogeneity is a deficiency that could be corrected with the renewal of Jewish life in the country. Wearing the form of an enthusiastic political manifesto, the trilogy mirrors early Zionist images and motifs in articulating the vision of the return to the homeland. The trilogy’s end reveals this endeavor as a failure, to which the assassination of the movement’s leader, Slawek, attests.
Israeli Jews in the New Berlin: From Shoah Memories to Middle Eastern Encounters
Author(s): Cohen, Hadas; Kranz, Dani
Editor(s): Bauer, Karin; Hosek, Jennifer Ruth
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Diaspora, Israeli Expatriates
Who Are These "Mountain Jews"?
Author(s): Chelnov, Mikhail A.
Date: 2009
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Mountain Jews, Rural and Small Town, Diaspora
Abstract: Mikhail Chlenov, secretary general of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, introduces the classic volume Mountain Jews, edited by Iosef Begun and Valerii Dymshits. This essay presents the significance of the group as well as the book. Mountain or "Highland" Jews have cultural roots in the history of a far-flung Persian Jewish archipelago. Many Jews from mountainous villages in Dagestan and Azerbaijan in the post-Soviet period have fled long-established rural communities, often landing in Moscow as outsiders within an already "outsider" group.
Les Juifs africains et antillais en région parisienne
Translated Title: African and Antillais Jews in the Paris region
Author(s): Mokoko Gampiot, Aurélien
Editor(s): Kaouès, Fatiha; Vanel, Chrystal; Vilmain, Vincent; Fauches, Aurélien
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Diaspora, Ethnicity, Race, Jewish Identity, Religion
Abstract: The contemporary evolution of Judaism is marked by a dynamic diaspora whose transnational nature may be perceived in the variety of origins of Jewish believers. The diversity of Jewish communities includes an African, Caribbean, and even African American component, whose actual or alleged Jewish identity has led scholars to investigate into the intersection of race and religion in contemporary Judaism. The present study aims to contribute in the observation of this phenomenon, by focusing on the intersection of religion and ethnicity within Black Judaism in particular black Jews in France? After four years among blacks Jews in Paris area. How does one live as a Black Jew? How do these believers define themselves as Jews and Blacks? How is the notion of Jewishness implemented among them? How do they express their relation to the global Jewish world, and to both their religious communities and the wider French society?
Caucasus Jews and their Neighbors: Social Network in a Multi-Ethnic Society
Author(s): Bram, Chen
Editor(s): Özgür, Ergün
Date: 2009
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Diaspora, Mountain Jews, Language, Networks, Jewish Identity, National Identity, Ethnicity, Ethnography, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Jewish - Muslim Relations
The Jewish Diaspora and the Russian- Ukrainian crisis
Author(s): Bagno-Moldavsky, Elena
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Diaspora, Politics, Conflict, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Nationalism, National Identity
Abstract: Two questions arise when the role of a diaspora in crisis is considered. Do diasporas embody an internal threat to the security of the nation state? And why do some efforts to use diasporas as a tool of international politics succeed while others fail? In this paper, the Ukrainian 2014-2015 crisis involving Russia is analyzed in order to suggest answers to these questions. I examine the political reactions of the Jewish political Diasporas in Ukraine and Russia toward the crisis.
Global Diaspora, European Jewish Consciousness: Reflections on German Jewry and the Postmodern Debate
Author(s): Bodemann, Y. Michal
Editor(s): Eder, Klaus; Spohn, Willfried
Date: 2005
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Diaspora, Postmodernity
Израильская диаспора в Украине: структура, динамика и идентичность / The Israeli Diaspora in Ukraine: Structure, Dynamics, and Identity
Author(s): Khanin, Vladimir (Zeev)
Date: 2017
Topics: Israeli Expatriates, Interviews, Diaspora, Russian-Speaking Jews, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: Одной из примет нашего времени стало по­явление так называемых «новых этнических диаспор», которые стали итогом массовых межгосударственных миграций – как прямых, так и возвратных – особенно интенсивных после Второй мировой войны. Члены этих диаспор, в отличие от мигрантов предыдущего поколения, не спешат растворять­ся в социокультурной среде принимающих сообществ, а достаточно долго, иногда на протяжении поколений, сохраняют многообразные социальные, культурные, идентификационные и даже политические связи со странами исхода.

Еврейский мир также не остался в стороне от этих процессов. Важным со­бытием последних десятилетий стало появление двух новых транснациональ­ных еврейских диаспор: израильской и русско-еврейской. Обе эти группы, не­сомненно, стали заметным фактором современной еврейской жизни и важным элементом многокультурной мозаики внутри еврейских коллективов стран пребывания и их обществ в целом.

При том, что еврейской эмиграции из Израиля и возникшей за его преде­лами «израильской диаспоре» (термин, который в научный оборот ввел Стивен Гольд) посвящена довольно обширная научная литература, а «всемирное рус­ско-еврейское сообщество» также стало объектом ряда фундаментальных работ3, общий компонент этих диаспор – эмигрантские сообщества русскоязычных израильтян – пока очень малоизучен.

Речь идет как о тех уроженцах (бывшего) СССР, которые в составе изра­ильской миграции оказались в странах Запада, так и в особенности об участни­ках «возвратной миграции» на постсоветское пространство. В академической литературе существует некоторое количество информации о русскоязычных израильтянах в разных странах Запада, и крайне немного – об израильтя­нах в странах бывшего СССР. Что же касается украинского сегмента этой диаспоры, то его до недавнего времени исследователи почти вообще не изуча­ли. (Единственным известным нам исключением является исследование изра­ильтян в Одессе, которое провела украино-британский антрополог Марина Са­прицкая.) Исследование, которое легло в основу этой статьи, было призвано заполнить этот пробел.

Его совместно провели Центр еврейского образования в диаспоре им. Лук­штейна (Университет Бар-Илан, Израиль) и Институт иудаики НаУКМА при поддержке Министерства алии и абсорбции Израиля и Евроазиатского еврей­ского конгресса. В ходе этого исследования в два «раунда» (в начале 2009 и в конце 2011 гг.) методом стандартизированного интервью было опрошено соо­тветственно 167 и 147 респондентов из числа израильтян, с разной степенью по­стоянства живущих в Украине6. При этом нам представлялось верным сравнить сообщества русскоязычных израильтян в Украине с сопоставимыми с ними по базовым параметрам контрольными группами, прежде всего – с израильтяна­ми, живущими и/или работающими в России.


One of the distinctive features of our times is the appearance of the so-called “new ethnic diasporas” resulting from mass state migrations—both direct and reverse—which especially intensified after the Second World War. Unlike previous generations of migrants, the members of these diasporas are not in a hurry to assimilate into the socio-cultural environment of the receiving societies. Instead, they continue to maintain—sometimes for several generations—a multifarious social and cultural identity and even political ties with their countries of origin.

The Jewish world did not remain on the sidelines of this process. An important development in recent decades is the appearance of two new transnational Jewish diasporas: Israeli and Russian-Jewish. Both these groups undoubtedly became a noticeable factor of contemporary Jewish life and an important element in the multicultural mosaic within Jewish communities of the host countries and within host societies at large.

Although the Jewish emigration from Israel and the “Israeli diaspora” (a term introduced by Steven Gold) has received considerable attention in the scholarly literature and the “global Russian-Jewish community” has become the subject of a series of fundamental works, the common component of these diasporas—Russian-speaking Israelis—remains understudied.

The reference points here are both natives of the former USSR who came to the West as part of the emigration from Israel and participants of the “reverse migration” to the post-Soviet states. The academic literature contains a certain amount of information about Israelis in the countries of the West and very little about Israelis in the countries of the former USSR. The Ukrainian segment of this diaspora was practically ignored by scholars until recently. The only exception we are aware of is the research project on Israelis in Odessa carried out by the Ukrainian-British anthropologist Marina Sapritsky. The research on which this article is based aimed to fill this important gap.

The project was implemented by the Lukshtein Center of Jewish Education in the Diaspora (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) and the Judaica Institute of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine) with the support from the Ministry of Aliyah and Absorption and the Eurasian Jewish Congress. In the course of this study, researchers held two rounds of interviews in 2009 and 2011 with 167 and 147 respondents from among Israelis who reside in Ukraine more or less permanently. We wanted in this process to compare the communities of Russian-speaking Israelis in Ukraine with similar control groups, primarily with Israelis working and living in Russia.
Anthropological Structure of the Jewish People in the Light of Polish Analyses
Author(s): Czekanowski, Jan (Professor)
Date: 1960
Topics: Anthropology, Race, Diaspora
Demography of the Contemporary Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora
Author(s): Tolts, Mark
Date: 2011
Topics: Aliyah, Demography, Russian 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.
Les fétes et célébrations comme reflet de l’identité sociale: L’exemple des juifs lettons postsoviétiques en lettonie, en israël et aux états-unis
Translated Title: Holidays and celebrations as a reflection of social identity: Latvian Jews in post-Soviet Latvia, Israel and the United States
Author(s): Zisere, Bella
Date: 2013
Topics: Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Diaspora, Jewish Community, Festivals, Festivals and Holidays, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: La chute de l’Empire soviétique et l’indépendance de la Lettonie à la fin des années 1980 ont entraîné de nombreux changements politiques à l’intérieur de ce pays qui, dans une large mesure, ont concerné la communauté juive. Cette période a été marquée par une émigration massive des Juifs, en particulier en Israël et aux États-Unis, ainsi que par l’émergence d’une vie communautaire, interdite à l’époque soviétique. L’étude s’efforce de répondre à la question de la transformation de l’auto-identification chez les Juifs lettons postsoviétiques dans de nouvelles sociétés, à savoir la Lettonie indépendante, l’État d’Israël et les États-Unis avec, comme principal indicateur, les fêtes et les célébrations religieuses et civiles, traditionnelles ou adoptées par cette population après l’effondrement de l’URSS.
The New Jewish Diaspora: Russian-Speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel, and Germany
Editor(s): Gitelman, Zvi
Date: 2016
Topics: Russian Jews, Immigration, Aliyah, Diaspora, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: In 1900 over five million Jews lived in the Russian empire; today, there are four times as many Russian-speaking Jews residing outside the former Soviet Union than there are in that region. The New Jewish Diaspora is the first English-language study of the Russian-speaking Jewish diaspora. This migration has made deep marks on the social, cultural, and political terrain of many countries, in particular the United States, Israel, and Germany. The contributors examine the varied ways these immigrants have adapted to new environments, while identifying the common cultural bonds that continue to unite them.

Assembling an international array of experts on the Soviet and post-Soviet Jewish diaspora, the book makes room for a wide range of scholarly approaches, allowing readers to appreciate the significance of this migration from many different angles. Some chapters offer data-driven analyses that seek to quantify the impact Russian-speaking Jewish populations are making in their adoptive countries and their adaptations there. Others take a more ethnographic approach, using interviews and observations to determine how these immigrants integrate their old traditions and affiliations into their new identities. Further chapters examine how, despite the oceans separating them, members of this diaspora form imagined communities within cyberspace and through literature, enabling them to keep their shared culture alive.

Above all, the scholars in The New Jewish Diaspora place the migration of Russian-speaking Jews in its historical and social contexts, showing where it fits within the larger historic saga of the Jewish diaspora, exploring its dynamic engagement with the contemporary world, and pointing to future paths these immigrants and their descendants might follow.

Introduction: Homelands, Diasporas, and the Islands in Between
Zvi Gitelman
Part I Demography: Who Are the Migrants and Where Have They Gone?
Chapter 1 Demography of the Contemporary Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora
Mark Tolts
Chapter 2 The Russian-Speaking Israeli Diaspora in the FSU, Europe, and North America: Jewish Identification and Attachment to Israel
Uzi Rebhun
Chapter 3 Home in the Diaspora? Jewish Returnees and Transmigrants in Ukraine
Marina Sapritsky
Part II Transnationalism and Diasporas
Chapter 4 Rethinking Boundaries in the Jewish Diaspora from the FSU
Jonathan Dekel-Chen
Chapter 5 Diaspora from the Inside Out: Litvaks in Lithuania Today
Hannah Pollin-Galay
Chapter 6 Russian-Speaking Jews and Israeli Emigrants in the United States: A Comparison of Migrant Populations
Steven J. Gold
Part III Political and Economic Change
Chapter 7 Political Newborns: Immigrants in Israel and Germany
Olena Bagno-Moldavski
Chapter 8 The Move from Russia/the Soviet Union to Israel: A Transformation of Jewish Culture and Identity
Yaacov Ro’i
Chapter 9 The Economic Integration of Soviet Jewish Immigrants in Israel
Gur Ofer
Part IV Resocialization and the Malleability of Ethnicity
Chapter 10 Russian-Speaking Jews in Germany
Eliezer Ben-Rafael
Chapter 11 Performing Jewishness and Questioning the Civic Subject among Russian-Jewish Migrants in Germany
Sveta Roberman
Chapter 12 Inventing a “New Jew”: The Transformation of Jewish Identity in Post-Soviet Russia
Elena Nosenko-Shtein
Part V Migration and Religious Change
Chapter 13 Post-Soviet Immigrant Religiosity: Beyond the Israeli National Religion
Nelly Elias and Julia Lerner
Chapter 14 Virtual Village in a Real World: The Russian Jewish Diaspora Online
Anna Shternshis
Part VI Diaspora Russian Literature
Chapter 15 Four Voices from the Last Soviet Generation: Evgeny Steiner, Alexander Goldstein, Oleg Yuryev, and Alexander Ilichevsky
Mikhail Krutikov
Chapter 16 Poets and Poetry in Today’s Diaspora: On Being “Marginally Jewish”
Stephanie Sandler
Chapter 17 Triple Identities: Russian-Speaking Jews as German, American, and Israeli Writers
Adrian Wanner
Afterword: The Future of a Diaspora
Zvi Gitelman
We Are Few: Folklore and Ethnic Identity of the Jewish Community of Ioannina, Greece
Author(s): Fromm, Annette B.
Date: 2007
Topics: Ethnography, Memory, Diaspora, Ethnicity, Folklore, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The Jewish community of Ioannina, in Northwestern Greece, traces its roots to Byzantine times if not earlier. In the early 20th century, at least half of the community's population emigrated to settle in Athens, Israel, and the United States because of economic and religious reasons. The cataclysm of the Holocaust dramatically decimated the community. This steady outward movement created an abrupt rupture of their patterns of traditional culture.

We are Few brings this unique community to life in a series of ethnographic sketches of history and traditional culture in order to understand its intense allegiance to ethnic identity. Dr. Annette Fromm explores the decreasing inventory of cultural traditions from the patterns of daily life to the rituals and customs associated with life cycle events and holiday celebrations. Through the periodic return of individuals associated with the Jews of Ioannina, pilgrims, a new avenue of the expression of ethnic identity has been created. These visits reassure residents that the Jewish community of Ioannina still exists no matter how dispersed.
Russisch-jüdische Gegenwart in Deutschland: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf eine Diaspora im Wandel
Translated Title: Russian-Jewish presence in Germany: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Changing Diaspora
Editor(s): Körber, Karen
Date: 2015
Topics: Russian Jews, Diaspora, Immigration, Russian Emigration, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: Die Migration russischsprachiger Juden aus der Sowjetunion und den Nachfolgestaaten nach 1989 hat die jüdische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland von Grund auf verändert. Der vorliegende Band unternimmt den Versuch, Dimensionen dieses Wandels nachzuzeichnen.

Beiträge aus der Soziologie und den Kulturwissenschaften schildern die unterschiedlichen Narrative, den Bedeutungswandel von Religion und die neuen Formen von Vergemeinschaftung, die kennzeichnend für die jüdische Gegenwart sind. Die interdisziplinären Beiträge erforschen die Bedeutung von Mobilität und Migration und zeigen auf, wie sich Identitäten und kulturelle Praktiken pluralisiert haben. Es entsteht das facettenreiche Portrait einer sich neu formierenden jüdischen Diaspora, deren Sinnbezüge und Organisationsformen nicht nur in Deutschland liegen.

Inhalt:
Einleitung

Karen Körber: Zäsur, Wandel oder Neubeginn? Russischsprachige Juden in Deutschland zwischen Recht, Repräsentation und Realität

Melanie Eulitz: Die jüdisch-liberale Bewegung in Deutschland nach 1990. Eine Gemeindeanalyse

Alina Gromova: Jüdische Vergemeinschaftung als Praxis der Distinktionen. Auf den Spuren der kulturellen Praktiken und sozialen Positionierungen in der Migrationsgesellschaft

Victoria Hegner: »I am what I am...« Identitätskonzepte junger russischsprachiger Juden in Chicago

Darja Klingenberg: Komische Leute. Selbstverständnisse und Erfahrungen von Rassismus
und Antisemitismus russisch-jüdischer Migrant_innen im scherzhaften Gespräch

Julia Bernstein: »Dichte und Dichtung der neuen Lebenswelten: Das Bolschoi-Theater in der Aldi-Tüte«

Dmitrij Belkin: Wir könnten Avantgarde sein. Die Zukunft des Patchwork-Judentums
Is there an ‘Israeli Diaspora’? Jewish Israelis negotiating national identity between Zionist ideology and diasporic reality
Author(s): Moshkovitz, Yuval
Date: 2013
Topics: Israeli expats, Israel-Diaspora Relations, National Identity, Zionism, Interviews, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Diaspora, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Given the centrality of the ‘Negation of Exile’ in the construction of political Zionist ideology and the continued dominance of this world-view within the Jewish-Israeli imagined community and Israeli public space, the essay discusses the viability of an ‘Israeli–British diaspora’ – an intermediate space which is neither Israeli not British – that potentially troubles Zionist notions on nationality, belonging and Jewishness. The paper draws on interview material of Jewish Israelis who live in Britain, and examines the interplay between hegemonic Zionist discourses of nationality and counter-hegemonic discourses of diaspora, as subjects construct their personal narratives of ‘Israeliness abroad’.
What do we talk about when we talk about 'national identity'? : Jewish-Israelis in Britain negotiating 'national identity' between Zionist ideology and diasporic reality
Author(s): Moshkovitz, Yuval
Date: 2014
Topics: Israeli expats, Israel-Diaspora Relations, National Identity, Zionism, Interviews, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Diaspora, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: This is a psychosocial research project investigating ‘national identity’ amongst middle class Jewish-Israelis in Britain. Its aim is to map key contents and highlight social categories that subjects draw on in their construction of ‘national identity’ and to study how they negotiate these categories and contents when narrating a story of ‘who they are’ as Israelis in Britain. The first part of the thesis provides historical and theoretical background to the study of national identities, with a focus on Jewish-Israeli identity in the context of Zionism. An empirical study is then presented, in which twelve Israelis living in London were interviewed in depth about their views on Israeli national identity, what it meant personally to them to be ‘an Israeli’, and what it meant to be ‘an Israeli in London’. Interviews were transcribed and a critical narrative approach was used to analyze the resulting texts, taking account of reflexive interview processes as well as exploring links with the broader cultural and political context. The findings reveal the elasticity and fluidity of ‘Israeli identity’. Subjects drew on a shared cultural reservoir - Zionist images, preconceptions and signifiers - to describe their personalized experience of belonging to or alienation from an acceptable notion of ‘Israeliness’ while living abroad. ‘Israeli identity’ was constructed against stereotypical images of ‘the others’ which, at times, applied racist discourse. Subjects constructed ‘Israeliness’ differently depending on the context they referred to (e.g. Israeli or British society). Each context had its distinct ‘others’. Within the British context Israeliness was constructed against the images of ‘the local Jews’, the ‘English’ and the ‘local Arabs and Muslims’. Constructing an Israeli identity was also influenced by the social position that subjects were implicated in, in relation to their class, ethnicity, gender, or occupation. This also shaped their experience of dislocation in Britain. Most of the participants conformed with a mainstream perspective on Israeli nationalism and refrained from criticizing it. This was interpreted as a discourse reflecting their privileged socio-cultural position in Israel and their commitment to a Zionist ethos which condemns emigration. Such a portrayal of Israeliness both initiated and contributed to a sense of unsettledness characteristic of this middle-class group. Subjects moved back and forth between two identificatory positions (‘Ha’aretz’ and ‘Israel’) as their points of identification constantly changed. The research contributes to the analysis of nationalism phenomena and associated concepts such as diaspora and belonging among a middle class group of migrants. It outlines cultural, material and political forces that sustain nationalism yet also demonstrates ways through which subjects negotiate or resist the discourses and social categories offered to them for the construction of a ‘national identity’.
The Dynamics of Diaspora: The Transformation of British Jewish Identity
Author(s): Cesarani, David
Date: 2001
Topics: Diaspora, Jewish-Non-Jewish Relations, Assimilation, Integration, Jewish History, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The classic model of diaspora constructs the process of population change as spatial, along a horizontal axis, and sequential, with one wave following another. Taking the history of the Jews in modern Britain as a case study, this article argues that we need to take account of the multi-layered character of diasporas, the possibility that vertical alignments are as important as horizontal ones, and that ideological currents may sweep through the different layers of a diaspora simultaneously. The differentiation between types of diaspora is crucial for understanding the internal dynamics of Jewish history and Jewish/non-Jewish relations. Each type engenders a different sort of identity and entails different relations with the ‘host society’.
The third way: German–Russian–European Jewish identity in a global Jewish world
Author(s): Shneer, David
Editor(s): Gelbin, Cathy; Gilman, Sander L.
Date: 2014
Topics: Jewish Identity, Globalisation, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Diaspora
Juifs D’égypte En France: Un Patrimoine En Survie?
Author(s): Baussant, Michèle
Editor(s): Bordes-Benayoun, Chantal
Date: 2015
Topics: North African Jewry, Diaspora, Jewish Heritage, Immigration, Memory, Main Topic: Other
The Dialectics of Diaspora in Contemporary Modernity
Author(s): Dencik, Lars
Editor(s): Ben-Rafael, Eliezer; Bokser Liwerant, Judit; Gorny, Yosef
Date: 2014
Topics: Antisemitism, Attitudes to Israel, Surveys, Diaspora
How Antisemitism, Obsessive Criticism of Israel, and Do-Gooders Complicate Jewish Life in Germany
Author(s): Schoeps, Julius H.
Editor(s): Ben-Rafael, Eliezer; Bokser Liwerant, Judit; Gorny, Yosef
Date: 2014
Topics: Antisemitism, Attitudes to Israel, Surveys, Diaspora, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Retrospective and Afterological Considerations of the Contemporary Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora: Whence and Whither?
Author(s): Markowitz, Fran
Date: 2009
Topics: Russian 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.
Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora
Author(s): Tye, Larry
Date: 2001
Topics: Jewish Community, Diaspora, Globalisation, Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Comparative Studies
Abstract: From Publishers Weekly review:

The new Jewish diaspora of a "heterogeneous people who thrive in secular societies" is here to stay, asserts Boston Globe journalist Tye (The Father of Spin). As these diverse Jewish communities have become not merely way stations but enduring homes, they have begun to remake Judaism itself. Tye tells this intriguing story through sketches of people and of life in seven cities. In Dsseldorf, he finds an Orthodox rabbi invoking a more pluralistic Judaism to educate Russian refugees. In Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, a fervent Lubavitcher Hasidic rabbi has energized a dormant community. In Buenos Aires, a Jewish polity fragmented by economic setbacks and anti-Semitic attacks has begun to revive with new models of worship and organization. In Paris, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews have forged ties that could serve as a model for their fractious brethren in Israel. Tye's chapter on Dublin, where the Jewish community is dying, may at first seem anomalous, but, he argues, their determination to reestablish their "Gaelic brand of Judaism" elsewhere is a testament to the ability of Jews to survive wherever they may be. His two American chapters focus on Boston, where the Jewish community has fused learning, spirituality and social justice, and Atlanta, where rival denominations work with considerable amity. Yet Tye's optimism might have been better contextualized by a broader survey. Though the author understandably had to winnow his examples from many compelling possibilities, readers may wonder about Jewish communities in such places as Melbourne, Montreal and Johannesburg. While not a breakout book, Tye's presentation of a new diaspora may intrigue a broad Jewish audience.
Introduction: Turning the Kaleidoscope: Perspectives on European Jewry
Author(s): Lustig, Sandra H.; Leveson, Ian
Editor(s): Leveson, Ian; Lustig, Sandra H.
Date: 2006
Topics: Jewish Identity, Diaspora, Globalisation, Jewish Community, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Main Topic: Other
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.
Judeo-Greek in the era of globalization
Author(s): Krivoruchko, Julia G.
Date: 2011
Topics: Romaniote Jews, Judeo-Greek, Language, Diaspora, Globalisation, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: This article presents a picture of the state and status of Judeo-Greek language varieties (JGLVs) in the post-modern period throughout the regions in which they are/were used, i.e. Greece, Israel and the USA. The paper gives historical background and weighs in on the methodological and theoretical controversies connected with the JGLVs and their place in the broader Greek-speaking realm. Special emphasis is placed on the sociological context of the emergence and use of JGLVs, including the postvernacular varieties brought forward by imagined Greek identities in Israel and the USA.
The meaning of Ladino: The semiotics of an online speech community
Author(s): Brink-Danan, Marcy
Date: 2011
Topics: Ladino, Language, Internet, Diaspora, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: This article shows how the semiotics of a language, that is, what a language signifies, is a negotiated process observable by following online debates. Indeed, the adoption of new media seems to instigate, if not intensify and revitalize, these debates. I analyze an electronically mediated discussion group stating its goals as the maintenance, revitalization and standardization of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). Employing theories from linguistic anthropology, I show how language ideologies map out the boundaries of what I call “Ladinoland” by insisting on particular meanings of Ladino. Group members assign the language these meanings through debates about Ladino’s glottonym, recursive boundary marking between Ladino native and novice users, and erasures of linguistic elements perceived to be non-standard.
Dangerous Cosmopolitanism: Erasing Difference in Istanbul
Author(s): Brink-Danan, Marcy
Date: 2011
Topics: Jewish Identity, Diversity, Diaspora, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: If, as is widely argued, we live in a cosmopolitan moment, the processes of cosmopolitanization are sometimes fraught with danger. Describing contexts in which cosmopolitanism is censored, this article considers recursive erasures of difference in Turkish-Jewish architecture, bodily marking, and language that highlight this sense of dangerous cosmopolitanism. This scenario complicates the popular notion that cosmopolitanism requires public nomination of difference; instead, cosmopolitanism is sometimes observable only by accounting for knowledge of what should be kept private. Without a fundamental examination of the production and interpretation of knowledge of difference, reckonings of lived cosmopolitanism are incomplete.
If It Smells Muslim: Lemon Cologne, Hebrew Lessons and Turkish Identity
Author(s): Brink-Danan, Marcy
Date: 2012
Topics: Diaspora, Jewish-Muslim Relations, Ethnography, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The author uses the prevalent lemon cologne scent ubiquitous in Turkey to demonstrate the complicated identity associations between being Turkish, Muslim, and Jewish.