Talk:History of the Jews in Russia/Archive 1

Archive 1 Archive 2

Jews do not mind being called a nationality. After the Holocaust they didnt like being called a race,but Judaism more or less defines itself as a national identity. Alexbmn


I started this article. I'm nowhere near done, however. So don't worry if it seems like just a draft.

I'd also like other user to make some contributions. Though I have some expertise regarding some aspects of Soviet Union, this is not one of them. Perhaps others would like to add chronicles of some poignant episodes, such as expounding on the Doctors Plot. I'm content to stay general, but the more information the better.

172

I will go through this more thoroughly later today, however, there seems to be certain omissions. For 172, two books that immediately come to mind are Veidlinger's Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage, which discusses the Jewish cultural Renaissance and its demise during Soviet times and Rapaport's Stalin's War Against the Jews, which discusses the purges through the Doctor's Plot (I happen to have them both on my desk at work). Attitudes toward Kaganovitch are not, however, indicative of the overall attitude toward the Jewish minority in the Soviet Union, which are more complex than as portrayed in this article. Danny

One comment I will make now is that it seems to over-emphasize the significance of Zionism in the pre-war years. Mention is also due to the Anti-Fascist League, which was prominent in the WW2 era. Danny

I realize that the content of the article heavily focuses on Zionism; this is an important topic nonetheless since Zionism was the second major Jewish movement crushed by Soviet authorities following the breakup of the Jewish Labor Bund under the tutelage of Lenin. And remember that restrictive Soviet emigration policies, particularly with regards to its Jewish population, drew significant amounts of Western criticism during the Cold War. Remember the Jackson-Pollack legislation? It’s also significant in light of the huge proportion of the Jewish population within the former Soviet Union that has emigrated to Israel in recent years. I do realize that this article is heavily weighted toward the pre-war years, but it is a work in progress.

I do apologize, however, for omitting the Anti-Fascist League by mistake. I’m stunned that I left it out somehow. I believe that I did write a paragraph or two on that topic. Perhaps it got lost with all the cutting, pasting, and editing. Oh well, that’s my mistake. I’d appreciate it if you added it. Otherwise, I’ll get around to it.

Your above comments, however, misrepresent the article's contents. The Doctor's Plot is mentioned, but it doesn’t require vast amounts of attention since it is still a matter of idle historical speculation of a crisis averted. Feel free to add content about the Doctor’s Plot, but keep that in mind. I’m familiar with Veidlinger's work as well, but also keep in mind that this is a general historical narrative and the article already deals with Jewish institutions, even ones of an artistic nature.

172

The article is light on concrete specifics, as it is a work in progress, but the framework for addressing what you cited as the gradual persecution of Jews under Stalin is already there. And really that what's needed for the beginning. For instance, at one point I believe that the article briefly states that Soviet Jews were “were the immediate benefactors of, but long-term victims of the Marxist notion that any manifestation of nationalism is "socially retrogressive", a notion threatening to Jewish cultural institutions, the Jewish Labor Bund, Jewish autonomy, and Zionism.” The article thus goes into considerable detail explaining the problems of Marxist internationalism and the national question of the Jewish people. It does make it clear that the Jewish identity is supposed to fade away according to Marx's ideal. It introduces why and when Stalin often contradicted that ideal and when he switched sides on that debate depending on other conditions; and, of course, the recognition of Israel comes to mind along with the founding to the Jewish Autonomous Soviet Socialist Oblast in Birobidzhan. It also goes over how the Soviets were able to get around their ideology (which really doesn't have a framework for dealing with Jews in a socialist society on a theoretical level) by labeling them as an ethnic group, which is deserving of autonomy according to Leninist "self-determination" so long as it has a territorial base. It mentions that upon the disillusion of the USSR that Jews were considered the 11th largest nationality. And this goes to the fundamental question of what is a Jew.

Thus, the article is a framework for future contributions since it addresses the state's ideals and how it dealt with its Jewish population according to these ideals and how it often contradicted these ideals (often to the benefit of the Jewish identity) pragmatically due to other factors.

I’m not sure where the leading scholars of the period and the topic might disagree with certain key aspects of the position in the article either (if it is taking any controversial position for that matter). I haven’t really taken a position on the Doctor’s Plot; I just didn’t go into great detail on it, contented to develop a general narrative that can be expounded by specifics that any contributor can feel free to add.

I think that the brief section on Kaganovich is throwing you off, probably leading you to think that the article was suggestion that everything was great once the Bolsheviks liberated the Jews from the backward-thinking unenlightened Czarist tyrants. It was there not to suggest that the interest of Soviet Jews always coincided with the Soviet state, but just to suggest that there is a difference between the primitive anti-Semitism of the Czarist past and the caviler anti-Semitism of Marxist internationalism which suggests that the Jewish identity will fade a way once the revolution puts an end to the class struggle and rids society of primitive superstitions. So, it gets into the irony that I think you were describing earlier of an ideology that condemns prejudice against individuals of Jewish backgrounds but still manages to suggest that all would be better if the Jewish identity "withered away" through the abandonment of non-universal institutions and religion.

Please be patient with me as well. Despite my Polish Jewish linage, contemporary Jewish history (especially literary, artistic, religious, and cultural developments) is very far from my areas of expertise, which is quite obvious considering the scope of my usual contributions.

The article I posted is more of a framework for discussing broad sociological trends and the relationship between the Marxist-Leninist state and its Jewish population. So please, add as much as possible, especially weak areas like the ones that I’ve mentioned.

172

I'm more than willing to give you all the time you need with it. It will be an interesting addition to the general "Nationality Question in the Soviet Union" issue. Some general points you might consider adding are the number of prominent Jews involved in early Soviet politics (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Sverdlov, Trotsky, Radek, Kaganovich, etc.), Yiddish culture (which flourished pre-WW2--Yiddish was an official language of the Belorussian SSR), and Jewish nationalist samizdatliterature (Zisselman is a good start there--I actually edited the first draft of her book). I'm off for a few days. Waiting to see where it leads. Danny

172 writes "minor NPOVing. We can't state outright that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism."

Sorry; I should have caught that. I do mean to say, however (in a later part of this article) that the Soviet Union used anti-Zionism as a cover for anti-Semitism. Still, this article seems to me to be missing some important elements: the terror that the average Jew in the Soviet union had, living in a regime that would reach out and imprison them without rational reason. This article misses all the conspiracy theory which drove many of the anti-Semitic policies. RK 02:08, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This article by and large is fairly balanced. If anything, it's a little titled on the negative side. For instance, the incredible social mobility and rising living standards enjoyed by Jews after 1917 receives most of its attention in the context of the assimilation that it brought along with it, and the resulting decline of religious and cultural customs. Although I'm mostly responsible for this, one could argue that this is turning a positive into a negative. 172 02:27, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)