Jewish Life in Belarus

The Final Decade of the Stalin Regime, 1944-1953

Inbunden, Engelska, 2014

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Jewish life in Belarus in the years after World War II was long an enigma. Officially it was held to be as being non-existent, and in the ideological atmosphere of the time research on the matter was impossible. Jewish community life had been wiped out by the Nazis, and information on its revival was suppressed by the communists. For more than half a century the truth about Jewish life during this period was sealed in inaccessible archives. The Jews of Belarus preferred to keep silent rather than expose themselves to the animosity of the authorities. Although the fate of Belarusian Jews before and during the war has now been amply studied, this book is one of the first attempts to study Jewish life in Belarus during the last decade of Stalin's rule. In addition to archival materials, the present research is based on a questionnaire submitted to former residents of Belarus in Israel, as well as information from periodicals, collections of documents, statistical reports and monographs.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2014-07-20
Mått152 x 229 x 24 mm
Vikt800 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor346
FörlagCentral European University Press
ISBN9789633860250

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Sociala grupper och identitet inom Samhälle och politik

List of Abbreviations, List of Tables, Preface, Introduction: Belarusian Jewry Prior to the Revolution and Until World War II, 1 The Demography of the Jews of Belarus, 2 Soviet Policy Toward the Practice of Judaism in the Postwar Period, 3 The Decline of the Synagogue, 4 Religious Life, 5 In the Aftermath of the Holocaust, 6 Cultural Life, 7 Jews in the Reconstruction of the Economy and Cultural Life, 8 International Contacts, 9 The Policy of State Anti-Semitism, Conclusion, Appendix 1: Documents, Appendix 2: Tables, Glossary, Bibliography, Index

"For many years, historians largely assumed that the Jews who survived the war either sought complete assimilation into Soviet society or were too cowed by governmental persecution to assert their Jewish identities. Only a few brave refuseniks and dissidents continued to identify as Jews. Newer research, however, has shown that at least outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, ordinary Soviet citizens of Jewish heritage continued to express their Jewish identities in the decades after the war in a variety of ways. Smilovitsky’s book adds to our understanding of how Jews presented themselves in postwar Belarus. The book is a useful resource for scholars of Eastern European Jewish life."