Russkaia Druzhba: Russian Friendship in American and Israeli Contexts

Abstract

Conversations with recent immigrants from the Soviet Union' often revolve around the theme of druzhba. In Israel and America alike, Russian-Jewish newcomers wistfully and passionately describe their old circles of friends as involved in absorbing conversations about literature, cinema, and news from abroad. As they reminisce, Soviet Jewish immigrants break into smiles and relate the political jokes and critical anecdotes they heard and told in these circles. They tell too of friends pooling scarce resources to help each other purchase a car, an apartment or summer home, a once-in-a-lifetime find on the black market, or, simply, food. Happily they remember birthday and New Year's parties that just seemed to have happened; they describe festive singing and dancing in joyful gatherings that were never formal or prearranged.