Jews and Russians from Imperial to Soviet Times

Abstract

Jews and Russians from Imperial to Soviet Times Theodore R. Weeks (bio) Yuli Kosharovsky, “We Are Jews Again”: Jewish Activism in the Soviet Union. Translated by Stefani Hoffman. 420 pp. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2017. ISBN-13 9780815654001. $39.95. Vassili Schedrin, Jewish Souls, Bureaucratic Minds: Jewish Bureaucracy and Policymaking in Late Imperial Russia, 1850–1917. 292 pp., illus. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2016. ISBN-13 978-0814340424. $49.99. Anna Shternshis, When Sonia Met Boris: An Oral History of Jewish Life under Stalin. 247 pp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN-13 978-0190223106. $34.95. Andrew Sloin, The Jewish Revolution in Belorussia: Economy, Race, and Bolshevik Power. 329 pp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017. ISBN-13 978-0253024664. $39.00. The field of Jewish history in Russia continues to show vitality and to produce exciting new works. Among these are the four books under review here. Examining topics as diverse as Jewish chinovniki, Jews in one Soviet republic in the first years after 1917, an intimate portrait of Jews under Stalin, and the recovery of Jewish identity in the final decades of the USSR, all of these books make significant contributions to topics that “we already know.” That is, we know a little—this is a richly researched field—but at times what we know is not very accurate, and nearly always it is partial and insufficient. In particular, we know quite little on everyday life of Russian Jews, family life, and practical [End Page 133] issues of Jewish identity in the USSR. These books help deepen and problematize important aspects—in particular private life and identity—of one of the most vibrant fields of Russian-Jewish history (I should say, “Jewish history in Russia/USSR”). ________ “Russian” history for some time now has looked not just at the experience of ethnic Russians, but at all subjects of the tsar/gensek. There are a number of reasons that Jews figure very prominently among Russian/Soviet nationalities. For one thing, Jews were the only non-Christian minority that lived in large numbers among Slavic peoples in the western part of the empire, making up a majority of the population in many small towns of what are now Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine—and a very significant percentage in major cities like Warsaw, Łódź, Odessa, Vilnius/Vilna, and Minsk.1 Imperial officials were well aware that a future European war could well be fought precisely in this region and had grave doubts—with some reason—as to the loyalty of the Jewish population here. Government officials in the Russian Empire—and the tsar himself—frequently harbored stereotypical views of the “Jewish menace,” merging old-fashioned Christian Judeophobia with the (at least partially correct) perception that the revolutionary movement attracted young Jews to its ranks in disproportionate numbers.2 The Jews were—and to some extent still are—a unique “nationality.” The very use of that word will seem strange to Central and Western Europeans who counter that Jews are a religious congregation, nothing more. But in the context of Eastern Europe in the 19th century, Jews did represent a nationality, with their own languages, customs, daily life, calendar, and so on. While assimilationists (and liberals—sometimes but not always the same group) vociferously denied the possibility of a “Jewish nationality” (joined here by such luminaries as Iosif Stalin and Lev Trotskii), the very vehemence of their argumentation indicates that the question was, at best, complicated and highly disputed. One indication that this complication continued well into the Soviet period is reflected in Kosharovsky’s book, many of whose “heroes” admitted freely that they knew nothing about Judaism as a religion, nor [End Page 134] Jewish languages, nor Jewish customs before they were drawn into the movement to become “Jews again.”3 In the 19th century, however, the distinction between “Jew” and “Russian” was stark and even legally defined (and, of course, Jewish nationality also became enshrined in Soviet identity through the “fifth point” in passports from the 1930s onward). An individual born into the Jewish community (and religion was a legal reality—unlike “nationality”) could exit that community only by conversion.4 After the Great Reforms (1860s–70s), however...