380 SEER, 87, 2, APRIL 200g many sympathisers tended to publicise only positiveinformation while overlooking or suppressing thenegative'(p. 4). Even giventheresults ofher painstaking workin thearchives, it is stillnot entirely clearwhyso many gifted peoplefailedto call fora plagueon theHouse ofStalinas wellas on theHouse ofHitler.Whydid theyassumethattherewas no third, fourth or fifth way?But as we read elsewhere in Shakespeare's tragedy, 'Hang up philosophy! Unlessphilosophy can makea Juliet'. Department ofSlavonic Studies Martin Dewhirst University ofGlasgow Shternshis, Anna. Soviet andKosher: Jewish Popular Culture in theSoviet Union, ig2j-ig2g. Indiana University Press, Bloomingtonand Indianapolis, 2006. xxiii+ 252 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $25.00 (paperback) On 12July1943the New York YiddishdailyForverts publishedan article entitled'The SovietJews and the AmericanJews'. The author,Lazar Fagelman, arguedthatthetwodisparate environments had formed numerous dissimilarities: 'Now we have to understand thatSovietJewsdiffer fromus; their habits, valuesand manners are different; their visionoflifeis different; theyhave a different attitude to people, to the worldand to all political, economicand moralproblems.' Indeed,during thepost-1917 quarterofa century, momentous differences had emerged between themostsocially mobileandurbanized segments ofthe two Jewish groups. Atthesametime,thelifestyle ofbothWestern and Soviet Jewishcity-dwellers significantly diverged fromthemannersoflivingin the Sovietized areasoftheformer Pale ofJewishSettlement. Despitethecentral and local authorities' massiveendeavoursto secularize, industrialize, collectivizeand Birobidzhanize theshtetl, thehabitatofEast EuropeanJewish life endured tillthebeginning ofWorldWarTwo andinsomecaseslivedon even after thewar(see,e.g.,CharlesE. Hoffman, RedShtetl: TheSurvival ofa Jewish Town under Soviet Communism, New York,2002). In hermonograph, Soviet andKosher, AnnaShternshis, Assistant Professor of YiddishLanguageand Literature at theUniversity ofToronto,emphasizes thatJewsfromYiddish-speaking shtetlach had verylittlein commonwith thosewholivedinthebigcitiesnotonlybecausetheyspokeYiddishand not Russianbut also because ofthedifferences in theinformation conveyedto thembytheSovietcultural productions' (p. 182).This useful book,based on Shternshis's 2001 OxfordDPhil thesis, givesthefirst comprehensive insight intoSovietJewishcultural lifeof the 1920sand 1930s,discussing predominantly thefollowing twoproblems:thedeclineor modification of religious traditions, and the propagandist role of state-sponsored formsofJewish culture, in Yiddishand Russian.Significant space is devotedalso to various Sovietcultural products, suchas songsand theatre performances, whichare analysedas reflections ofcontemporaneous eventsand morals. Historians usuallyshunthefrustrating taskofgetting reliableinformation from cascadesofmemories. It is wellknownthatpeople tendto forget and REVIEWS 381 mixup thedetailsofwhatthey weredestined tosee,hearordo manydecades ago. Moreover,theyofteninterpret thoseeventsfromthevantagepointof their contemporary ideological standof,say,Communists turned Zionists and Americanpatriots. In otherwords,in theirrecollections informants reveal their present-day perception oftheperception thatthey had at thetimeofthe events. For all that,Shternshis - whoseresearch projectsoughtto establish how theSovietmachinery ofJewish culture had beenperceived bythepopulation - conducted 225in-depth interviews withpeoplebornon theterritory ofthe SovietUnionno laterthan1930.She metsomeofherinformants in Russia, butthemajority ofthemwereimmigrants livingin Americaand Germany. She knewthattheirstories had to be manytimesfiltered beforefinding a place in herbook.As a result, she is confident that' [c]ross-examination of testimonies witharchival andpublished datagivesusthefullest picture todate ofthedailylivesofSoviet Jewsduring thisperiod'(p.xviii). Methodologically, Soviet andKosher can be seen as an exampleof successful utilization of oral history. The title, Soviet andKosher, reflects themainthesisoftheresearch: Jewish traditions did notdisappear, butweresignificantly transformed in theSoviet environment. Whilein urbansettings acculturation was verystrong and the younger urbanités' Jewish identity was,toborrowthewordsoftheAmerican historianArcadius Kahan [EssaysinJewishSocialandEconomic History, Chicago, IL, 1986,p. 189)'leftonlyas a mythical, almostmystical qualityincomprehensiveto theirenvironment and one thatcould become incomprehensible to themselves', olderpeople did notreplacetheirfaith in God by a faithin Communism. Old-timers had a chanceto preserve theirtraditional lifestyle, especiallyiftheychose to stayput in the shtetl.Meanwhile,the younger generation was takenin bytheKremlin'spropagandaand underwent rapid Sovietization. Still,the generationinterviewed by Shternshis could speak Yiddishand remembered songs,sayings, legendsand otherelements ofEast EuropeanJewish lore. Thanksto thiswell-written and informative study, the Soviet-and-kosher population appearslessenigmatic. In anycase,one can easierunderstand the problems ofgauging the(post-) Soviet Jewish identity byapplying toitWestern yardsticks ofJewishness. Skirball Department ofHebrew and Judaic Studies G. Estraikh NewYork University Bernstein, Frances Lee. TheDictatorship ofSex:Ltfestyle Advice for theSoviet Masses.NorthernIllinoisUniversity Press,DeKalb, IL, 2007. xvii + 246 pp. Illustrations. Notes.Bibliography. Index.$42.00. Frances Lee Bernstein'sTheDictatorship ofSexcontinues thehistorical investigation ofRussia'smedicalprofession by NancyFriedenand Laura Engelstein ,as wellas thatofRussiansexuality by IgorKon, Engelstein and Eric Naiman. By comparisonto these other scholars,Bernsteindraws more overtly upon Foucaultto explainhow the earlySovietmedicalprofession ...