Synopses & Reviews
In less than a century, Jews in Russia have survived two world wars, revolution, political and economic turmoil, and persecution by both Nazis and Soviets. Yet they have managed not only to survive, but also transform themselves and emerge as a highly creative, educated entity that has transplanted itself into other countries. Revolution, Repression and Revival: The Soviet Jewish Experience enhances our understanding of the Russian Jewish past by bringing together some of the latest thinking by the leading scholars from the former Soviet Union, Israel and the United States. The book explains the contradictions, ambiguities and anomalies of the Russian Jewish story and helps us understand one of the most complex and unsettled chapters in modern Jewish history. The Soviet Jewish story has had many fits and starts as it transfers from one chapter of Soviet history to another and eventually, from one country to another. Some believe that the chapter of Russian Jewry is coming to a close. Whatever the future of Russian Jewry may be, it has a rich, turbulent past. Revolution, Repression and Revival sheds new light on the past, illustrating the complexities of the present, and gives needed insights into the likely future.
About the Author
\Zvi Gitelman is professor of Judaic studies and political science at the University of Michigan. He is author or editor of 10 books including; Jewish Life After the USSR and A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union. Yaacov Ro'i is professor of history at Tel Aviv University. He is author or editor of 9 books including Russian Jews on Three Continents, Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union, and Jewish Culture and Identity in the Soviet Union.
Table of Contents
The "Jewish battalions" in the Red Army / Oleg Budnitsky -- Zionism in the early Soviet state : between legality and persecution / Ziva Galili -- Jewish agricultural settlement in the interwar period : a balance sheet / Jonathan Dekel-Chen -- The Belorussian shtetl in the 1920s and 1930s / Arkady Zeltser -- The Jews of a Soviet metropolis in the interwar period : the case of Leningrad / Michael Beizer -- Social trends among Jews in the post-Stalin years / Samuel Barnai -- Jewish refugees and evacuees under Soviet rule and German occupation : the North Caucasus / Kiril Feferman -- The genesis of establishment anti-semitism in the USSR : the black years, 1948-1953 / Gennadi Kostyrchenko -- Attitudes toward Jews in post-Soviet Russia and the problem of anti-semitism / Lev Gudkov -- The Jewish national movement and the struggle for community in the late Soviet period / Vladimir (Ze'ev) Khanin -- The problematics of Jewish community development in contemporary Russia / Theodore H. Friedgut -- Putin and the Jewish oligarchs : prejudice or politics? / Marshall I. Goldman -- Post-Soviet Jewish demography, 1989-2004 / Mark Tolts -- The demography of post-Soviet Jewry : global and local contexts / Sergio DellaPergola -- The Russian Aliya in Israel : community and identity in the second decade / Elazar Leshem -- Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in the Israeli population and labor force / Moshe Sicron.