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Matzo Hussars & Creative (Anti)Semitism: Jewishness & Popular Culture in Post-Communist Hungary
Author(s): Manchin, Anna B.
Date: 2016
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Culture, Jewish Revival, Attitudes to Jews
Abstract: This article argues that a new understanding of “Jewishness” is emerging in post-communist Hungary, most clearly and visibly in the realm of popular culture. Global images of “Jewishness” and their local interpretations, which have become part of public culture since the fall of communism and especially with wider access to the internet, have shaped both popular discussions of “Jewishness” and Hungarian Jewish self-representations. These, in turn, are challenging the traditional Hungarian understanding of the meaning and place of “Jewishness” in Hungarian public life. Following a brief historical outline to help situate the current debate, I analyze four interpretations of “Jewishness” in contemporary Hungarian popular culture: an animated film, a blog, and two restaurants. I argue that they break with long-standing Hungarian discursive and political traditions and suggest a new, more open take on “Jewishness” based on the notion of “ethnic culture.”
Jewish Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Promise and Reality of the Language Rights Protection Regime
Author(s): Abramac, Gabi
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Ladino, Language, Jewish Revival, Sephardi Jews, Yiddish
Abstract: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992) seeks to protect and promote regional and minority languages in Europe. The objectives and principles defined by the Charter include the recognition of regional and minority languages as cultural assets. The Charter also commits the signatories to promote the study of, and research on, regional and minority languages. Bosnia and Herzegovina signed the Charter in 2005 and officially ratified it in 2010, applying it to seventeen regional and minority languages including Ladino and Yiddish. This paper examines the disparity between the obligations entered into and the actual state of affairs. It also investigates the linguistic repertoire and language ideologies of the Jewish community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the extent and nature of its interest in revitalizing Ladino.
Jewish Assimilation and Jewish Politics in Modern Hungary
Author(s): Kovács, András
Editor(s): Kovács, András; Andor, Eszter
Date: 2000
Topics: Jewish Revival, Post-1989, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Assimilation
Reconstructing Jewish Communities and Jewish Identities in PostCommunist East Central Europe
Author(s): Gitelman, Zvi
Editor(s): Kovács, András; Andor, Eszter
Date: 2000
Topics: Jewish Revival, Jewish Renewal, Post-1989, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community
Евреи Беларуси: общий обзор
Translated Title: Jews of Belarus – a Current Picture
Author(s): Sheveliov, Dymitry
Date: 2018
Topics: Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Revival
Abstract: На протяжении почти 30 лет, прошедших после распада СССР в 1991 году, численность еврейского населения Беларуси постоянно сокращалась вследствие ассимиляции, естественной убыли (депопуляции) и особенно ‑ эмиграции из страны. Еврейские общинные организации оценивают численность еврейского населения республики на сегодняшний момент либо 9-15, либо 30-40 тысяч человек. Тем не менее, в стране действует разветвленная сеть городских, религиозных, культурных и других еврейских организаций, объединенных в три, иногда соперничающие друг с другом «зонтичные» структуры. Лоббистские возможности еврейских организаций, которые в Беларуси, в отличие от иных постсоветских республик, не находятся под опекой крупного частного бизнеса или межрегиональных еврейских объединений, ограничены и потому фактически зависят от личных связей отдельных общинных лидеров с представителями власти. Интерес широкой публики к еврейской истории и культуре; желание властей превратить еврейскую историю Беларуси в дипломатический и политический бренд и продвижение, в рамках политики развития туризма в стране, идеи международного еврейского паломничества к «сакральным иудейским объектам», по аналогии с паломничеством иудеев на Украину в период осенних праздников ‑ перспективы общинной жизни Беларуси в ближайшие годы.
Еврейская автономная область России – важный символ или пережиток прошлого?
Translated Title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast’ (Province) of Russia: an Important Symbol or a Historical Relict?
Author(s): Бреннер, Иосиф
Date: 2019
Topics: Jewish Culture, Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community
Abstract: Идущий в России очередной виток дискуссии о ликвидации ряда «дотационных» национальных автономий путем их слияния с более состоятельными в хозяйственном и бюджетном смысле соседними регионами страны, напрямую касается и возможного изменения статуса основанной в мае 1934 года Еврейской автономной области. Хотя мотивы данного шага преимущественно финансово-экономические, лишение ЕАО, единственного оставшегося в мире примера, пусть на декларативном уровне, реализации «территориалистской» модели национального самоопределения еврейского народа, нанесет немалый символический и содержательный ущерб российской еврейской общине и стране в целом. Особенно, если принять во внимание идущий в последние десятилетия в области процесс возрождения еврейской культурной жизни и то, что сама по себе ЕАО, как бренд, может в долгосрочной перспективе оказаться экономически эффективен.
Идиш возвращается в Лемберг
Translated Title: Yiddish Revived in Lemberg
Author(s): Сикорская, Оксана; Москалец, Владислава
Date: 2019
Topics: Jewish Organisations, Jewish Culture, Yiddish, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Revival
Abstract: Традиционный язык ашкеназского еврейства – идиш ‑ почти исчез в качестве средства живого общения на просторах Восточной Европы и постсоветских стран в связи с культурной ассимиляцией в советское время и массовой эмиграцией его последних носителей в 90-е гг. прошлого века. Но он был одним из важнейших символов еврейского возрождения в 1988-1992 годах, то есть накануне распада СССР и в ранний постсоветский период. Именно вокруг идеи восстановления и развития идишской культуры строилась деятельность возникших в те годы Обществ еврейской культуры, первое из которых в Украине (оно же ‑ второе по счету в СССР) было основано во Львове. Однако в последующие годы этот фактор ушел на периферию идентичности местного еврейства. После перерыва в четверть века интерес к данной теме вновь возрождается, но уже как к академической дисциплине, причем в основном усилиями нееврейских интеллектуалов и деятелей местной культуры. Сам по себе этот процесс можно только приветствовать, однако одновременно еврейским общественным лидерам имеет смысл задаться вопросом, что стоит за этот тенденцией. Общая либерализация гуманитарного знания, попытка ответственно взглянуть на историю своих народов в свете судеб их еврейских соседей или характерная для ряда стран Восточной Европы попытка превращения еврейской культуры в приватизированную местным нееврейским обществом «единицу памяти»?
Jewish ethnic autonomy: the case of contemporary Moldova
Translated Title: Опыт еврейской национальной автономии в современной Молдове
Author(s): Shevelev, Dmitry
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Jewish Revival, Nationalism
Abstract: In the 1990s–2000s, Moldova granted its Jews national-cultural autonomy. It happened as a result of the civil war in Moldavia in the late 1980s – early 1990s and pro-European policy of the moderate political wing that came to power by the mid-1990s. Jewish autonomy was shaped by special laws which formed system of that autonomy – the languages (Yiddish and Hebrew), schooling, and fulfilment of religious and cultural needs. Until now, Jews have enjoyed these advantages. The Jewish autonomy, as well as state support of Jewish scholarship and financial support to community projects from local entrepreneurs are the facts which proved the thesis on Jewish revival in Moldova in the 1990s‑2000s. We may conclude that the ultra-nationalist policy of the Right is the key obstacle to national autonomies, including the Jewish one.
Jewish Communal Service in Romania and Poland 1986-2006: Partnership, Challenges, and Transitions
Author(s): Feine, Zvi
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Revival, Care and Welfare, Community Development, Charity / Tzedakah, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Jewish Organisations
Abstract: Dr. Zvi Feine served the Jewish communities of Romania and Poland as country director for the Joint Distribution Community during those two countries respective transitions from Communist rule. This memoir of his work under the constraints of communism, through the violent December 1989 revolution in Romania and the more peaceful transition in Poland, and in the aftermath of transition to democracy describes the challenges of effective communal service in turbulent times. The mission of the JDC was to support and partner with the Jewish communities that remained after the devastation of the Holocaust, sustaining the Jews of Eastern Europe with material and communal assistance. Dr. Feine relates poignant and harrowing memories of working under the constant surveillance of the Securitate secret service agency and dealing with the aftermath of the revolution and the resistance to change, all the while navigating a complex and delicate web of history, religious and cultural mores, personalities, ideals, and hopes. Illustrated here are numerous principles of communal work, including the importance of understanding the cultural context, resource and leadership development, and the crucial role that lay leaders can play. Communal workers in the Jewish community and beyond will benefit from Dr. Feine's accumulated wisdom over a lifetime of community service in positions all over the globe.
The Revival of Jewish Life in Kraków?
Translated Title: Odrodzenie życia żydowskiego w Krakowie?
Author(s): Duch-Dyngosz, Marta
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Culture, Jewish Revival
Abstract: Many readers may be taken aback by the eponymous question. The “reconstruction”, “renaissance”, or “revitalization” of Jewish life has usually been referred to in the affirmative, not necessarily denoting one and the same notion of that phenomenon in each case. It may be worthwhile setting out to explore this issue by establishing in the first place what “Jewish life” consists of, where “the Jewish” and “the non -Jewish” have their dividing line, and what criteria should be assumed if the choice were between the objective and the subjective ones. More questions arise from such deliberations, pertaining to the definition of Jewish culture, Judaism, Jewish space, and Jewish identity; should these concepts be looked at from the perspective of essentialism or constructivism? or may be a new perspective is to be sought, one that sits somewhere at the junction of these two extremes? Every community obviously faces problems caused by the designata of collective categories; however, the contemporary Jewish community seems to be particularly affected by these in Poland. It is beyond doubt that the principal reason for that situation stems from the Holocaust – the experience and aftermath of that tragic event.
Odrodzenie życia żydowskiego w Krakowie?
Translated Title: The Revival of Jewish Life in Kraków?
Author(s): Duch-Dyngosz, Marta
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Culture, Jewish Revival
Contemporary Jewish Writing in Europe: A Guide
Editor(s): Liska, Vivian; Nolden, Thomas
Date: 2007
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Literature, Jewish Culture, Jewish Revival
Abstract: With contributions from a dozen American and European scholars, this volume presents an overview of Jewish writing in post–World War II Europe. Striking a balance between close readings of individual texts and general surveys of larger movements and underlying themes, the essays portray Jewish authors across Europe as writers and intellectuals of multiple affiliations and hybrid identities. Aimed at a general readership and guided by the idea of constructing bridges across national cultures, this book maps for English-speaking readers the productivity and diversity of Jewish writers and writing that has marked a revitalization of Jewish culture in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and Russia.

Introduction Thomas Nolden and Vivian Liska
1. Secret Affinities: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Austria Vivian Liska
2. Writing against Reconciliation: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Germany Stephan Braese
3. Remembering or Inventing the Past: Second-Generation Jewish Writers in the Netherlands Elrud Ibsch
4. Bonds with a Vanished Past: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Scandinavia Eva Ekselius
5. Imagined Communities: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Great Britain Bryan Cheyette
6. A la recherche du Judaïsme perdu: Contemporary Jewish Writing in France Thomas Nolden
7. Ital'Yah Letteraria: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Italy Christoph Miething
8. Writing along Borders: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Hungary Péter Varga with Thomas Nolden
9. Making Up for Lost Time: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Poland Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska
10. De-Centered Writing: Aspects of Contemporary Jewish Writing in Russia Rainer Grübel and Vladimir Novikov
Opening the Drawer: The Hidden Identities of Polish Jews
Author(s): Cohen, Barry
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Interviews, Photography, Oral History and Biography, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust Survivors: Children of, Jewish Revival, Communism, Post-1989
Abstract: For the first time in a single volume, Opening the Drawer brings together illustrated profiles of three generations of Poles who discovered their hidden Jewish identity in often surprising ways. Drawing on interviews with child survivors of the Holocaust; the post-war second generation; and the post-Communist third generation, these voyages of discovery are not simply variations on a theme, but memorable depictions of unearthing long-buried family histories and secrets. They include the stories of an outstanding Catholic priest, a former anti-Semitic football hooligan, students, academics and renowned writers. Each generation has confronted a specific Polish environment which shaped their lives. The profiles reveal the particular Polish contradictions in coming to terms with their upbringing. Although not all embraced some form of Jewish identity, some merely sought the secrets of their past while retaining their previous identity. In a sharp departure from the past, many Poles are expressing a deep, sympathetic interest in the phenomenon of emerging Jews by flocking to Jewish museums and cultural festivals. Until recently, Poland was regarded as a tragic land of ghosts where Jewish life had ceased to exist. But these wide-ranging profiles reflect a growing spectrum of communal activities that paint a different picture.
Why We Stayed: Poland's Remaining Jews’ Experiences, Identities, and Reasons for not Emigrating, 1939-2018
Author(s): Mazurczak, Filip
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Oral History and Biography, Interviews, Post-1989, Post-War Jewish History, Jewish Revival
Abstract: In the 1980s, it seemed to most observers that Poland's Jewish community was on the way out. Of a prewar Jewish population of 3.3 million, it had been reduced to just 5,000 mostly elderly Holocaust survivors. After the fall of communism in 1989, a revival of Jewish life occurred in Poland. Suddenly, it turned out that there were many more Polish Jews than anyone had previously thought. Why did some Polish Jews stay in Poland while many others emigrated, especially after two major waves of Jewish emigration (immediately after the war and in 1967-1968)? In this oral history MA thesis, I interviewed five Polish Jews, Holocaust survivors who had never left Poland, for their answers to this question.
Jüdisch, jung und jetzt: Identitäten und Lebenswelten junger Juden in München
Translated Title: Jewish, young and now: identities and life worlds of young Jews in Munich
Author(s): Kleiner, Piritta
Date: 2010
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Youth, Jewish Revival, Age and Generational Issues, Jewish Space, Ethnography
Abstract: Über Juden in München wurde bereits viel geschrieben. Der Blick richtete sich dabei meist in die Vergangenheit. Aber was heisst Jüdischsein eigentlich gegenwärtig? Momentan vollzieht sich in Deutschland der Übergang von den Überlebenden der Shoah zu einer teilweise in Nachkriegsdeutschland geborenen und aufgewachsenen oder aber zugewanderten neuen jüdischen Generation. Die Arbeit nimmt die in den Medien immer wieder diskutierte Frage nach einem "neuen jüdischen Selbstbewusstsein" auf und beschreibt die pluralen Lebenswelten und Identifikationen junger jüdischer Menschen in München. In biografischen Portraits wird gezeigt, wie die Akteure mit ihrer jüdischen Identität umgehen, welchen Stellenwert unterschiedlich ausgerichtete religiöse Bindungen, kulturelle Traditionen, aber auch neuere Entwürfe von Jüdischsein sowie soziale Netzwerke für das Selbstbild haben. Die dicht beschriebenen Portraits sind eingebettet in einen Streifzug durch jüdische Räume in München, wie beispielsweise das Jüdische Museum, jüdische Vereine und Organisationen.
Beit Warszawa, Jewish Music, and Shabbes
Author(s): Beliak, Haim
Date: 2013
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Music, Synagogues, Prayer, Religious Observance and Practice, Shabbat, Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, Jewish Revival
Leigazoltam a zsidókhoz -- (A "társadalmi zsidó" identitás kialakulásának élettörténeti gyökereiről)
Translated Title: I have a certificate of not being an anti-Semite.
Author(s): Kovács, Éva; Vajda, Júlia
Date: 1994
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Schools, Jewish Revival, Assimilation, Jewish Identity, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations
Abstract: Being non-Jewish in a Jewish community on the one hand, and being referred to as a „Jew" outside it is a tricky situation, in which the non-Jewish children sent to the newly founded Jewish elementary schools find themselves. Why do parents do that to their children? The answer lies in their individual life stories. The article demonstrates an individual
case of a father who struggles against his burdening family-past and unconscious anti-Semitism by becoming a „quasi-Jew" through sacrificing his daughter by sending her to a Jewish school
Возрождение иудейской общины Перми в 1990-е гг.: соотношение этнических и религиозных мотивов
Translated Title: "Revival" of The Jewish Community of Perm in 1990s: The Correlation of Ethnic and Eeligious Motives
Author(s): Шишигина, Мария
Date: 2018
Topics: Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Revival, Synagogues
Abstract: The article considers the features of the correlation of ethnic and religious identifiers in the process of “revival” of the activities of the Jewish community of Perm in the post-Soviet period. Both types of identifiers which due to the specificity of Judaism as a nationally oriented religion analyzed as significant in the process of defining of phenomenon of the community. The main problem is that the cultural component of Judaism is the most important consolidating factor in the construction of the Jewish community. At the 1990’s. the community was a consolidated group, where Judaism is the connecting element. The cultural component of this system comes to the fore, and activities in this area contribute to the position of the community in the intercultural and urban space. Mass public events attested relevance of the cultural component of Judaism. Social and cultural activity had due to enter the Jewish community into the social space of the city, legitimizing its activity. Change of eras of the turn of the 1990s has contributed rise of appeal to the cultural component of the Jewish tradition. At the same time, cultural identity did not always fully coincide with the confessional one. Interviews with members of the community confirmed that the “revival” took place in Jewish cultural life, and the religious component played the role of an external occasion for the consolidation of the community. The emergence of religion from the “social ghetto” facilitated the observance of rites and norms of cult practice, accelerated the process of legitimizing the ethno-confessional community. The cultural component of Judaism is also a factor of internal communication in the community. The number of Jews who visited religious events and do not attend prayers, indicates the relevance of events that emphasize national identity. Getting a free meal by the older generation is also an economic factor that contributes to the consolidation of the community. The cultural activities of the community described by the respondents testify to the inclusion of Judaism in the inter-confessional sphere of the city. Project activity gives an opportunity to familiarize the population with Jewish culture, contributes to the regulation of interethnic relations within the society, and the formation of tolerant attitudes towards representatives of different faiths. Members and representatives of the Jewish community actively participate in religious events, which take place both in the walls of the synagogue and on city sites. The development and implementation of projects aimed at increasing the religious literacy of the population contributes to the formation of a tolerant society.
Is There a Place for Yiddish in Poland's Jewish Revival?
Author(s): Adamczyk-Garbowska, Monika
Editor(s): Estraikh, Gennady; Krutikov, Mikhail
Date: 1999
Topics: Yiddish, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
Coming Out Jewish and Marrano No More
Author(s): Studemund-Halévy, Michael
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Anusim / Crypto-Jews / Marranos, Jewish Revival, Outreach, Jewish Heritage, Conversion, Messianic Jews
Abstract: Seitdem messianische Juden in der portugiesischen Provinzstadt Bel-monte die Rückkehr zum Judentum propagieren und für den Tourismus vermark-ten, sind die »geheimen Riten« öffentlich, und das marranische Judentum mit seinen Riten und Traditionen zwischen Christus und Moses ist nicht mehr die wahre Religion.
To Hear the Voices Still Heard: On Synagogue Restoration in Eastern Europe
Author(s): Bohlman, Philip V.
Editor(s): Berdahl, Daphne; Bunzl, Matti; Lampland, Martha
Date: 2000
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Synagogues, Ethnography, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
The Music of Jewish Europe: The Paradoxical Presence of a Non-minority Minority
Author(s): Bohlman, Philip V.
Editor(s): Clausen, Bernd; Hemetek, Ursula; Sæther, Eva; European Music Council
Date: 2009
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Music, Jewish Revival, Klezmer, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations
Progressive Judaism and Eastern Europe
Author(s): Finkelstein, Ludwig
Date: 2007
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
Abstract: Eastern Europe was until recently, for Jews in the rest of the world, an area of memories of disaster and oppression. It was a region that was wiped from the Jewish world and from which Jews fled. Dramatic developments and rapid change have altered the picture. Eastern Europe now presents us with glimmers of opportunity and challenges that must be met. This brief paper outlines these challenges and opportunities. It does not propose solutions. It is intended to be a starting point and basis for discussion.
Moldova: The Holocaust as Political Pawn. The Awkward Treatment of Jewish Heritage
Author(s): Dumitru, Diana
Date: 2008
Topics: Memory, Jewish Heritage, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Holocaust Commemoration, Jewish Revival
Abstract: Moldova is having a hard time in finding an appropriate way to acknowledge
the Jewish heritage of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transnistria. It is
even more difficult to enshrine the remembrance of the victims of the
Shoah in the country’s collective memory, as an analysis of school books
shows. Commemoration of the Holocaust has become a political pawn in
a dispute over history and the politics of identity. Politicians and historians
are arguing over “Moldovanism” and “Romanianism”. Behind this is a
struggle over Moldova’s political orientation. Reviving Jewish community
life seems easier than working through the past and remembrance.
Integration and Self-Assertion: The Jewish Community of Russia
Author(s): Charnyi, Semen
Date: 2008
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Renewal, Jewish Revival
Abstract: After decades of discrimination, it has been possible to observe a renaissance of Jewish life in Russia since Perestroika. Despite the large-scale emigration of Jews, there is an active community life with schools, media, cultural facilities, and associations that look after Jewish interests. State antisemitism belongs to the past.
Jewish identity construction in contemporary Poland: Influences and alternatives in ethnic renewal
Author(s): Rosenson, Claire Ann
Date: 1997
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Jewish Revival, Ethnicity
Abstract: In many parts of the world today, ethnic identity is not merely the product of socialization, but is the result of conscious choice on the part of the individual. Nowhere is this more evident than in the countries of the former East Bloc, where sweeping political changes have removed many barriers to the expression of ethnic sentiment. The present work represents an attempt to build a generalizable model of ethnic identity construction by identifying the major influences on group conceptions of ethnic identity and describing the process by which those conceptions change over time. The primary case study focuses on the construction of ethnic identity among Polish Jews born after World War II. Conclusions are based primarily on data collected in interviews with members of that community. Traditionally, theories of ethnicity have posited a unity of beliefs, values or behaviors within an ethnic group. In contrast to traditional theories, the model proposed here focuses on major areas of conflict within groups, positing that conflict over issues deemed relevant in some degree to all members of the group is the driving force behind ethnic change. In choosing to identify, members of ethnic groups are presented with a set of issues, which are both important and controversial for the group, on which they feel obligated to take a position. The set of controversial issues relevant to a given group at a given time, the model posits, is determined by three factors: differences between cohorts arising from their formative experiences; differences between subgroups arising from conflicts between communal institutions; and differences between subgroups arising from their varied responses to input from outside groups. Whereas works on ethnicity in the field of political science have tended to focus on nationalism, or the pursuit of statehood by ethnic groups, this model treats nationalism and organized political behavior in general as a potential outgrowth of ethnicity, but not as its necessary byproduct.
A New Song: Emerging Sephardic Music in Serbia
Author(s): Wiens, Kathleen Ruth
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Music, Sephardi Jews, Jewish Revival
Abstract: A unique moment in Sephardic music is emerging in the Republic of Serbia. Since 2000, a small but vibrant Sephardic music scene has been formed through the efforts of a small group of individuals. The scene keeps alive a repertoire that has survived many upheavals: the Holocaust and the near-total extermination of Sephardic sacred music practitioners from the region; a half-century of religious suppression under the Yugoslav government; and the political turmoil of the 1990s and the establishment of the Republic of Serbia from what was once Yugoslavia. Each of these major socio-political shifts had an impact on how today's musicians learned and contributed to the creation of Sephardic music. Since 2000, the maintenance and reworking of the Sephardic music scene in Belgrade has taken place almost entirely because of small group individuals. The Sephardic music scene that has emerged is now made up of one concert stage ensemble, Shira u’tfila [Song and Prayer], and a collection of synagogue singers. Though the scene comprises only a small number of musicians, these individuals exercise considerable power in determining how broader categories like Sephardic and Jewish are represented and contribute to the civic, state, and international public imagination.

The expression of being Serbian, Sephardic, and Jewish is shaped and transmitted by this small group of musicians as they actively engage in a variety of discourses. These discourses concern the role of technology in the transmission of their practice, historical consciousness and nostalgia, and personal and social identities. By looking at how musical and social domains are established and promoted through performance, I show how personal taste and individual creativity play a role in representing Jewish culture in Serbia and Serbian-Jewish culture to an international audience. Ultimately, Shira u’tfila helps redefine ideas of Serbian Jewishness, and articulates an understanding of music in Jewish life as behavior that embraces both sacred and
secular, both Jewish and non-Jewish, repertoire.
A Serbian Jewish Perspective on Media and Musical Transmission
Author(s): Wiens, Kathleen
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Music, Liturgy, Synagogues, Sephardi Jews, Ethnomusicology, Ethnography, Education, Jewish Revival
Abstract: This study of the intersections of media and musical transmission spotlights the activities of Sephardic Jewish synagogue prayer leaders in Belgrade, Serbia. The essay traces the reconstruction of Jewish synagogue singing in the past 50 years and outlines motivations for utilising media as an addition to, or replacement for, person-to-person transmission. Music, as a crucial element of weekly synagogue services, played a significant role in the reconstruction of observance. By tracing the narrative of reconstruction, I demonstrate that the meeting of music and media is a dynamic nexus situated within social experience. It was not until the 1970s that a small group of people in Belgrade began a process of reconstructing religious Jewish observance after the near-extermination of local Jewish life between 1941 and 1942. From that time until the present, prayer leaders altered methods of musical transmission as a response to shifting political circumstances. By choice or necessity, print, audio and Internet-based media now play essential roles in teaching and learning Jewish synagogue singing in Belgrade and media-based methods of transmission have transcended person-to-person learning. Over the course of this narrative, I describe both how musicians perceive certain methods of learning as aids or hindrances, and those musical changes that resulted from transition in method.
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
Bringing the Dark Past to Light The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe
Editor(s): Himka, John-Paul; Michlic, Joanna Beata
Date: 2013
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, National Identity, Antisemitism, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust Commemoration, Jewish Revival, Post-1989, Communism, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations
Abstract: Despite the Holocaust’s profound impact on the history of Eastern Europe, the communist regimes successfully repressed public discourse about and memory of this tragedy. Since the collapse of communism in 1989, however, this has changed. Not only has a wealth of archival sources become available, but there have also been oral history projects and interviews recording the testimonies of eyewitnesses who experienced the Holocaust as children and young adults. Recent political, social, and cultural developments have facilitated a more nuanced and complex understanding of the continuities and discontinuities in representations of the Holocaust. People are beginning to realize the significant role that memory of Holocaust plays in contemporary discussions of national identity in Eastern Europe.

This volume of original essays explores the memory of the Holocaust and the Jewish past in postcommunist Eastern Europe. Devoting space to every postcommunist country, the essays in Bringing the Dark Past to Light explore how the memory of the “dark pasts” of Eastern European nations is being recollected and reworked. In addition, it examines how this memory shapes the collective identities and the social identity of ethnic and national minorities. Memory of the Holocaust has practical implications regarding the current development of national cultures and international relationships.

Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
John-Paul Himka and Joanna Beata Michlic
1. "Our Conscience Is Clean": Albanian Elites and the Memory of the Holocaust in Postsocialist Albania
Daniel Perez
2. The Invisible Genocide: The Holocaust in Belarus
Per Anders Rudling
3. Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Francine Friedman
4. Debating the Fate of Bulgarian Jews during World War II
Joseph Benatov
5. Representations of the Holocaust and Historical Debates in Croatia since 1989
Mark Biondich
6. The Sheep of Lidice: The Holocaust and the Construction of Czech National History
Michal Frankl
7. Victim of History: Perceptions of the Holocaust in Estonia
Anton Weiss-Wendt
8. Holocaust Remembrance in the German Democratic Republic--and Beyond
Peter Monteath
9. The Memory of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Hungary
Part 1: The Politics of Holocaust Memory
Paul Hanebrink
Part 2: Cinematic Memory of the Holocaust
Catherine Portuges
10. The Transformation of Holocaust Memory in Post-Soviet Latvia
Bella Zisere
11. Conflicting Memories: The Reception of the Holocaust in Lithuania
Saulius Sužied<edot>lis and Šarūnas Liekis
12. The Combined Legacies of the "Jewish Question" and the "Macedonian Question"
Holly Case
13. Public Discourses on the Holocaust in Moldova: Justification, Instrumentalization, and Mourning
Vladimir Solonari
14. The Memory of the Holocaust in Post-1989 Poland: Renewal--Its Accomplishments and Its Powerlessness
Joanna B. Michlic and Małgorzata Melchior
15. Public Perceptions of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Romania
Felicia Waldman and Mihai Chioveanu
16. The Reception of the Holocaust in Russia: Silence, Conspiracy, and Glimpses of Light
Klas-Göran Karlsson
17. Between Marginalization and Instrumentalization: Holocaust Memory in Serbia since the Late 1980s
Jovan Byford
18. The "Unmasterable Past"? The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Slovakia
Nina Paulovičová
19. On the Periphery: Jews, Slovenes, and the Memory of the Holocaust
Gregor Joseph Kranjc
20. The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Ukraine
John-Paul Himka
Conclusion
Omer Bartov
Contributors
Index
Хроника эволюции «национальной идеи» Украины и евреи. 1987–2016 годы. Книга документальной публицистики
Translated Title: A Chronicle of the Evolution of Ukraine's “National Idea” and the Jews. 1987-2016. A Book of Documentary Journalism
Author(s): Бураковский, Александр
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Politics, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
Abstract: Представленная книга документированных исследований А. Бураковского исторически охватывает 30-летний период развития социально-политической жизни Украины начиная с распада СССР и до 2016 года включительно. Книга содержит 10 глав и соответствуещее теме книги вступительное слово профессора истории Ивана Химки (John-Paul Himka). События в ней разворачиваются на фоне всех «майданов», начиная от первого — НРУ, и заканчивая «евромайданом», при президентах Л. Кравчуке, Л. Кучме, В. Ющенко, В. Януковиче — вплоть до революционного перехода власти в независимой Украине к ее 5-му президенту П.Порошенко. Все события в книге разворачиваются на фоне эволюции развития как украинского, так и еврейского возрождения, и их жесткого взаимовлияния. При этом автор, будучи долгое время в центре тех и других событий, большое внимание уделяет трансформации еврейско-украинских отношений, главным образом, уже в независимой Украине.
Repopulating Jewish Poland – In Wood
Author(s): Lehrer, Erica
Editor(s): Steinlauf, Michael C.; Polonsky, Antony
Date: 2003
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Heritage, Tourism, Memory, Jewish Arts, Jewish Culture, Jewish Revival
Klezmer in Kraków: Kitsch, or catharsis for poles?
Author(s): Saxonberg, Steven; Waligórska, Magdalena
Date: 2006
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Music, Klezmer, Jewish Revival, Tourism, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Neighbourhoods
Religion, Religious Tradition, and Nationalism: Jewish Revival in Poland and “Religious Heritage” in Québec
Author(s): Zubrzycki, Geneviève
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Culture, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Revival, Nationalism, Diversity, Pluralism
Abstract: This article uses and develops Martin Riesebrodt's distinction between religion and religious tradition to shed light on the making of various articulations of religious identities and political projects. Based on extensive research on the Polish and Québécois cases, I show how social and state actors in these societies reactivate past religious traditions to respond to current social transformations and articulate societal projects and advance political agendas in the present. In both cases, religion and religious tradition are juxtaposed to articulate new national identities or fortify older ones, and to respond more specifically to the challenges posed by “pluralism.” I suggest that sociologists who work at the intersection of religion and politics can contribute to our understanding of the various registers through which religion, religious action, and religious tradition are rendered meaningful to social actors, used for different goals (religious and not) and transformed in the process.
The Jewish Revival in Moldova (A Survey of the Jewish Life in Moldova in the 1990-2000)
Author(s): Sheveliov, Dymitry
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Revival, Post-1989, Jewish Community, Chabad-Lubavitch
Abstract: The article reveals several aspects, unknown before, of the Jewish life in Moldova in the 1990–2000s. Based on the records and personal observations, the author of the article proves that the Jewish renaissance took place
in Moldova in the 1990–2000s. he author presents evidence in favor of good prospects of the Jewish community
in Moldova: the state policy which allowed creating cultural national autonomies, the activity of CHABAD,
support of the community life provided by the local small businessmen, as well as the use of Yiddish.
The shtetl in the museum: representing Jews in the eras of Stalin and Putin
Author(s): Yalen, Deborah
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Communism, Soviet Jewry
Abstract: This article considers the representation of the shtetl in two museum narratives devoted to Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The first, the state-funded 1939 exhibit “The Jews in Tsarist Russia and the USSR” was organized by the Jewish Section of the State Museum of Ethnography in Leningrad and remained on display to the Soviet public until the Nazi invasion in June 1941. The second is the privately funded Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, which opened in 2012. Though conceived under radically different ideological and political circumstances, each exhibition conveys a significant message about the place of Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet society, respectively, and each positions the shtetl as a formative arena for Jewish civic identity vis-à-vis the Russian homeland. Across the chasm of over seventy years, these two museum projects raise strikingly similar questions about how and why cultural institutions are mobilized to define the relationship of Ashkenazi Jews and the state. In both cases, the shtetl plays a significant role in narrating this unequal relationship.
The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow: Judaism for the masses
Author(s): Gershenson, Olga
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education
Abstract: In 2012, a new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened in Moscow – an event unthinkable during the Soviet regime. Financed at the level of $50 million, created by an international crew of academics and museum designers, and located in a landmark building, the museum immediately rose to a position of cultural prominence in the Russian museum scene. Using interactive technology and multimedia, the museum's core exhibition presents several centuries of complex local Jewish history, including the Second World War period. Naturally, the Holocaust is an important part of the story. Olga Gershenson's essay analyzes the museum's relationship to Holocaust history and memory in the post-Soviet context. She describes the museum's struggle to reconcile a Soviet understanding of the “Great Patriotic War” with a dominant Western narrative of the Holocaust, while also bringing the Holocaust in the Soviet Union to a broader audience via the museum. Through recorded testimonies, period documents, and film, the museum's display narrates the events of the Holocaust on Soviet soil. This is a significant revision of the Soviet-era discourse, which universalized and externalized the Holocaust. But this important revision is limited by the museum's choice to avoid the subject of local collaborators and bystanders. The museum shies away from the most pernicious aspect of the Holocaust history on Soviet soil, missing an opportunity to take historic responsibility and confront the difficult past.
Introduction: New Jewish museums in post-communist Europe
Author(s): Gershenson, Olga; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration
Yiddish: Identity and Language Politics in the Post-Soviet Ukrainian Jewish Community
Author(s): Khanin, Vladimir (Zeev)
Editor(s): Petrovsky-Shtern, Yohanan; Polonsky, Antony
Date: 2013
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Yiddish, Language, Jewish Revival
Abstract: Revival of Jewish national and cultural life and its organizational
structure has been highly significant in the post-Soviet environment of
the recent decades. Attempts to institutionalize Jewish communities in the countries of the former Soviet Union—post-Soviet Jews, no matter where they live today, need to resolve a plethora of problems similar in nature but different in scope. The search for cultural, national, and linguistic identity remains a firm objective. It is only natural that in such circumstances the language problem is a key identifying factor. The article looks at the contemporary role and status of Yiddish taking the example of Ukraine, where the tradition of this language, has never been broken despite the hardships and troubles of the past century.
The constructed Jew. A pragmatic approach for defining a collective Central European image of Jews
Author(s): Gantner, Eszter B.; Kovács, Mátyás
Editor(s): Šiaučiunaitė-Verbickiene, Jurgita; Lempertienė, Larisa
Date: 2007
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Culture, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Museums, Klezmer, Jewish Music, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
Jewish Studies in Germany
Author(s): Benkert, Volker
Date: 2013
Topics: Jewish Revival, Jewish Studies, Universities / Higher Education, Jewish Education, Main Topic: Education, Holocaust Education, Interfaith Dialogue, Post-1989
Abstract: Jewish Studies in Germany reflects the tremendous demographic transformations of
the Jewish community since 1990. Yet, this article also posits that non-Jewish Germans too have
changed substantially due to immigration and new generational views on the legacy of the Holocaust.
As such, Jewish Studies has to communicate the history of the German Jewry to Jews and
Gentiles mostly unfamiliar with its rich legacy. It needs to comment on Holocaust memorialization
to educate new generations of Gentiles as well as Jewish immigrants, for whom the end of
the Cold War bears more significance than the Holocaust. Finally, it needs to be part of new conversations
between Christians and Jews that also includes the large Muslim minority in Germany.
While the changing audiences in Germany dictate a focus on Jews in Germany, Jewish Studies
also needs to embrace a more European perspective reflective of the more comparative and transdisciplinary
scholarship abroad. Despite the significant growth of Jewish Studies in Germany over
the last two decades, these challenges call for even greater efforts.
Jewish Studies in Contemporary St. Petersburg: A Response to Andrew Reed
Author(s): Clay, J. Eugene Clay
Date: 2013
Topics: Jewish Revival, Jewish Organisations, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Jewish Studies, Universities / Higher Education, Jewish Education, Main Topic: Education, Outreach
Abstract: Despite the drastic decline in the Jewish population of St. Petersburg, Russia, Jewish
studies is undergoing a renaissance thanks to the dedication of activists, scholars, and specialists.
Convergent Aims: The revival of Jewish Studies in St. Petersburg and the search for Russia’s “unaffiliated Jews”
Author(s): Reed, Andrew C.
Date: 2013
Topics: Assimilation, Jewish Revival, Jewish Organisations, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Affiliation and Belonging, Jewish Studies, Universities / Higher Education, Jewish Education, Main Topic: Education, Outreach
Abstract: Twentieth-century events in Russia and Eastern Europe resulted in complex definitions of Jewish identity and communal relations. When the Soviet Union disbanded, foreign agencies pushed funds and resources to rebuild Jewish communities and institutions. One of the avenues for this funding is the creation and support of academic research centers responsible for training students and scholars. Organizations interested in Russia’s “unaffiliated Jews” and the research centers responsible for the revival of Jewish Studies form unique partnerships that bridge academic and public arenas. Reclaiming Jews who do not identify with Judaism or Jewish culture (unaffiliated Jews) in Russia is a significant goal of some Jewish funding agencies in the United States and Israel. An examination of mission statements by these philanthropic agencies reveals narrow definitions of “Jews” that ignore major contributions from Jewish Studies scholars focused on understanding a diverse population with disparate self-understandings.
Haunting images: stereotypes of Jewishness among Russian Jewish immigrants in Germany
Author(s): Roberman, Sveta
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Russian-Speaking Jews, Jewish Revival, Jewish Identity, Jewish Organisations, Immigration, Jewish Continuity, Gemeinden, Jewish Space, Stereotypes
Abstract: Glancing at the Jewish spaces in contemporary Germany, an occasional observer would probably be startled. Since the Russian Jewish migration of the 1990s, Germany's Jewish community has come to be the third-largest in Europe. Synagogues, Jewish community centres, and Jewish cultural events have burgeoned. There is even talk about a “Jewish renaissance” in Germany. However, many immigrants claim that the resurrection of Jewish life in Germany is “only a myth,” “an illusion.” This paper is part of a project exploring the processes of the reconstruction of Jewish identities and Jewish communal life by Russian Jewish immigrants in Germany. The focus of this paper is on the stereotypes of Jews and Jewishness evident in immigrants' perceptions and imaginings of their physical gathering spaces – the Jewish community centres (Gemeinden). Focusing on the images that haunt a particular place, I seek to shed light upon the difficulties of re/creating Jewish identity and life among the Russian Jewish immigrants in contemporary Germany.
Impostors of Themselves: Performing Jewishness and Revitalizing Jewish Life among Russian-Jewish Immigrants in Contemporary Germany
Author(s): Roberman, Sveta
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Anthropology, Russian Emigration, Russian-Speaking Jews, Immigration, Jewish Revival
Abstract: In the early 1990s, Germany officially opened its gates to the immigration of Russian Jews as part of the politics of repentance and restitution for the Holocaust. The immigration of Russian Jews seemed to offer an opportunity to strengthen and revitalize Jewish life in the country, even to restore it to its pre-war scale and condition. For the Russian-Jewish immigrants, that task has proven a difficult challenge. Tracking the stumbling blocks and difficulties of the project of revitalization and recreation of Jewish life, this article moves through different arenas of the immigrants' performance of Jewishness – artistic, ritual, and mundane, individual as well as communal. It examines the situation in which role-playing or ‘passing’ as Jews fails to be perceived as credible and is interpreted as ‘imposture.’
Counting as one: Moral encounters and criteria of affinity in a Polish Jewish congregation
Translated Title: En être: enjeux moraux et critères d’affinité dans une congrégation juive polonaise
Author(s): Lorenz, Jan
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Revival, Jewish Community, Ethnography, Synagogues, Jewish Peoplehood, Jewish Communal Politics
Abstract: The resurgence and transformation of Poland’s Jewish communal institutions and religious life in the last twenty years has inspired debate concerning the criteria for being and becoming Jewish. The voices in that discussion come not only from different generations, but also from different geographies of Jewish life. Drawing on fieldwork in a contemporary Jewish congregation in Poland, this article discusses ethics in the context of different rationalities of affinity. Poland’s “Jewish revival” confronted values and affects grounded in intergenerational experiences of the post-Holocaust era with categories of belonging and religious conversion enabled by new laws, transnational programs of education and socialization, and the impact of religious leaders from abroad. The apparent incommensurability of these standpoints, and the taxing attempts at their reconciliation, invite us to reconceptualize the notion of moral tradition.
Jewish Peoplehood in Hungary: a Challenge and an Opportunity
Author(s): Balazs, Gabor; Cernov, Mircea
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Leadership, Jewish Community, Jewish Revival, Jewish Peoplehood, Jewish Organisations
Abstract:

The lack of leadership in the Jewish community in Hungary prevents an obstacle to the promotion of Jewish peoplehood as a focal point for developing the community of tomorrow. The Hungarian Jewish community suffers from a weak and ineffective structure and a lack of leadership. Nevertheless, the last decade has witnessed a revival of Jewish life in Hungary, with a particular focus on Jewish peoplehood. This focus is both a challenge and an opportunity for the Jewish community in Hungary.
Do Jewish Schools Make A Difference in the Former Soviet Union
Author(s): Gitelman, Zvi
Date: 2007
Topics: Jewish Schools, Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Education
The Mountain Jews in Post-Soviet Caucasus: Reconstructing Ethnic Identification and Political Orientation
Author(s): Grebennikov, Marat
Date: 2015
Topics: Mountain Jews, Jewish Revival, Ethnicity, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Even though the ethnic factor played a significant role in Soviet and post-Soviet politics in the Caucasus and contributed to the rapid transformation of the ethnic organizations into political movements and parties, one ethnic group, the Mountain Jews, stands out as an exception. Unlike other ethnic groups, no community of Mountain Jews in the Caucasus has ever mobilized politically to get official acknowledgment on the basis of its ethic and religious identity. Why? The answer to this question lies in explanation of certain aspects of ethnic identification and political orientation of the Mountain Jews discussed in this paper. The paper concludes that the political culture and historical experience of Mountain Jews delegitimizes the very idea of ethnic mobilization in regional politics regardless of their official status within political regime. The Mountain Jews have never relinquished their national identity and ethno-cultural affiliation with their brethren beyond the Caucasian mountains. Nor have they ever abandoned the Jewish faith.
Non-Traditional Ways of Joining the Jewish Collective: The FSU Experience
Author(s): Lorenz, Jan
Editor(s): Fisher, Netanel; Parfitt, Tudor
Date: 2016
Topics: Conversion, Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Identity and Community