Thinking Beyond the ‘Soviet Jewry’ Narrative. Localism, Diversity, and Subjective Experiences of Jews in the Soviet Republics under Late Socialism.

Organizational Committee
Tatsiana Astrouskaya (HI, Marburg), Thomas Bohn (JLU Giessen), Juliane Fürst (ZZF, Potsdam), Semyon Goldin (Hebrew University Jerusalem), Heidi Hein-Kircher (HI, Marburg), Jannis Panagiotidis (RECET, Vienna), Jakob Stürmann (Dubnow Institute, Leipzig)

Organizers
Tatsiana Astrouskaya, Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, tatsiana [dot] astrouskaya [at] herder-institut [dot] de
Semyon Goldin, Hebrew University Jerusalem, semyon [dot] goldin [at] mail [dot] huji [dot] ac [dot] il

About the Conference
The discursive construct of “Soviet Jewry,” defined as a homogeneous unit, was shaped to a significant extent by the Soviet regime’s centralistic features, including its nationalities policies. The concept of a “Soviet Jewry” was also widely adopted in the West during the Cold War era. It persisted as a trope in scholarship and public discourse, both in East and West, as long as the Soviet Union existed, and it continues to retain retrospective currency even today. Yet, seen subjectively from within the Jewish perspective, the Soviet environment was diverse and heterogeneous, and so were the experiences of Soviet Jews. Other populations, residing in the various (sometimes remote) parts of the Soviet state, similarly experienced life under the Soviet regime in ways fundamentally distinct from the dominant, “central,” Soviet normativity.

The spectrum of Jewish behaviors and experiences, spanning the broad middle ground between conformity to Soviet norms and values, at one end, and the heroic struggle for emigration, at the other end, has yet to receive serious attention. Thinking beyond the familiar narratives of assimilation, state oppression, and radical dissent, we aim to spotlight and examine the ethnic, cultural, and social diversity of Soviet Jews. We also seek to redirect our attention from the center to the Jewish communities at the Soviet “periphery,” in the so-called Soviet “national republics”.
The continuity of Jewish traditions, whether of pre-Soviet origin or having arisen in the wake of Sovietization, was palpable in many places outside Moscow and Leningrad – including Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova, as well as the Baltic, Caucasus, and Central Asian republics. Scholars have, for instance, pointed to the persistence of the Yiddish-speaking culture. Paramount also, was the vivid (whether explicit or tacit) memory of the Holocaust, associated exactly with these places.

We are interested in exploring the porous borders of Soviet (non)Jewishness, and the character and intensity of Jewish-non-Jewish encounters in the Soviet peripheries. Soviet Jews, who were simultaneous ‘insiders and outsiders’, were an integral part of Soviet society that, on the one hand, contributed to its construction and development and, on the other, as some scholars suggest, helped to expedite its unanticipated dissolution. This pericentral and decentralized gaze should facilitate the illumination of oft-overlooked themes and methodological issues in Jewish and Soviet history: everyday living and its effect on the identity of Soviet Jewry; Jewish subjectivity as it evolved under the severe objectivization imposed by the regime; social contacts and networks; gender and age; relationships with others, at the group-level and the micro level; and the convergence as well as divergence of Jewish narratives with the (late)Soviet national narratives. Shifting the focal paradigm by foregrounding multiple local Jewish experiences is also intended to highlight center-periphery relations as they were established in Soviet, East European and Jewish Studies.

Program

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

10:00-10:30 
Conference opening. Welcome words of the Director of the Herder Institute Peter Haslinger and the organizers

10:30-13:45 Panel I. Negotiating Soviet Jewish Identity: Diversity & Localism

10:30-11:45 
Part A. 
Moderation: Thomas Bohn, University of Giessen

Navigating ‘Jewishness’ After Stalinism: Soviet Dimensions of Polish Jewish Identity During the Second Repatriation, 1956-60 
Frankee Lyons, University of Illinois Chicago/ Dubnow Institut Leipzig

Jews in the post-WWII Lithuania: Modernization Without Total Sovietization
Samuel Barnai, Hebrew University, Jerusalem/ Ben-Gurion University, Negev

From Ukrainization to Russification: Vectors of Jewish Acculturation in the Ukrainian SSR
Tobias Wals, LMU München

12:00-13:15
Part B. 
Moderation: Tatsiana Astrouskaya, Herder Institute, Marburg

Soviet Identities and Traditional Modernity: Bukhara. Georgia and Kavkaz Jews. A comparative analysis.
Chen Bram, Hadassah Academic College, and Hebrew University

Religious, National, Cultural or Soviet? Transforming Frameworks of Jewish Identity in Late Soviet Central Asia
Zeev Levin, Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem

Mountain Jews and Local Holocaust Memory: A Case Study of the North Caucasus during Late Socialism
Mateusz Majman, Bar-Ilan University/Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem

13:15-14:15 Lunch

14:15-14:45 “The Story of Mulka Joffe” J-Doc Exhibition Opening

14:45-17:00 Panel II. Jewish Culture and Jewish & Non-Jewish Encounters

14:45-16:00
Part A.
Moderation: Juliane Fürst, The Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam

Aleksandr Lizen and his effort for Yiddish culture in Late Socialism
Jakob Stuermann, Dubnow-Institut, Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture

Vilnius, Year Zero: The Collapse Discourse in Grigorii Kanovich’s „The Jewish Park“
Rafi Tsirkin-Sadan, The Open University of Israel

Michael Zand at the Tajik Academy of Sciences: Literary Translation and the Contours of Jewish Intellectual Life in Soviet Dushanbe
Benjamin Arenstein, University of Chicago

16:10-17:00 Part B. 
Moderation: Dina Fainberg, City University of London

Utesov (i), (ii), (iii): Evolution of Jewish Soviet Celebrity Self-representations during Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev Eras
Viktor Osminin, Heidelberg University

Jews and Jazz. How and Why Jews Played a Key Role in Soviet Jazz Movement.
Alexander Kan, Independent Scholar, London

17:30 – 18:30 
Keynote: Soviet and also Jewish: Jewishness as Secondary and Tertiary Identities
Juliane Fürst

Moderation: Tatsiana Astrouskaya

Thursday, October 10, 2024

09:45-11:25 Panel III. Beyond the Narrative of Resistance
Moderation: Alex Valdman, Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center at Tel Aviv University and the Kaye Academic College of Education

Jewish Life and Resistance in Late Soviet Ukrainian Borderlands: Local Dimension
Julia Elena Grieder, University of Basel

Anatolij Rubin’s “Stranicy perežitogo” (1977): the Construction of a Proper Zionist Autobiography
Uladzimir Valodzin, ELTE Budapest; CEU Budapest

The Cold War’s Invisible Migrants: How Soviet Jews Negotiated Soviet Citizenship, 1960-1990
Irina Nicorici, New Europe College, Bucharest

Soviet Security Agencies Against Jews in Chernivtsi: Policies, Facts, Narratives
Aleksandr Ivanov, Independent Scholar, Dortmund

11:45-13:00 Panel IV. The Variety of Jewish Experiences & Everyday Life
Moderation: Semion Goldin, Leonid Nevzlin Research Centre, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Congress of Jewish Organizations and Communities of the USSR and the Idea of „Soviet Jewry“
Joshua Tapper, Stanford University

Auntie Fira’s Letter: How Material Culture Taught Soviet Jews about Israel
Dina Fainberg, City University of London

Jewish Supply Agents in the Era of “Developed Socialism”: Information Experts, Entrepreneurs, Tricksters (The Case of Soviet Moldova)
Anna Kushkova, Hebrew University Jerusalem (ZOOM)

14:00-15:40 Panel V. Cross-Border Movements, Emigration & Immigration
Moderation: Jannis Panagiotidis, RECET, Vienna

Provincial Encounters: Israeli Visitors, Soviet Jews, and the Conceptualization of the Soviet-Jewish Experience
Alex Valdman, Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center at Tel Aviv University and the Kaye Academic College of Education

Litvak Battle Behind the Iron Curtain: Jewish Travel to Soviet Union and their Human Rights Campaigns, 1966-1982
Odeta Rudling, Lund University

Between Prejudice(s) and Shared Experiences. The Interethnic Relationship Between Post-Soviet Jews and post-Soviet Germans in the Federal Republic of Germany from the 1990s until Today
Alexander Schneidmesser, RECET, Vienna

Multiple Perceptions and Ascriptions of Identities: Jewish (Post) Soviet-Georgian migrants in Germany
Nino Aivazishvili-Gehne, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European studies (IOS), Regensburg

15:40- 16:10 Coffee & Concluding Remarks: Jannis Panagiotidis, Tatsiana Astrouskaya and Semion Goldin