Jewish Life after the USSR

Since the late 1980s, one of the world’s largest Jewish populations has faced a unique dilemma: at the very time it has gained unprecedented freedoms, Soviet and post-Soviet Jewry has encountered political uncertainty, economic instability, and resurgent antisemitism. A population teetering simultaneously on the edge of decline and revival, Jews in the former Soviet Union have had to decide whether to take advantage of the new opportunity to revive Jewish life and rebuild Jewish communities, live in the newly established states but disappear as Jews, or abandon their former homes and emigrate to Israel or elsewhere.

Jewish Life after the USSR is the first book to study post-Soviet Jewry in depth. Its careful analyses of demographic, cultural, political, and ethnic processes affecting an important post-Soviet population also give insights into larger developments in the post-Soviet states. A fine-grained snapshot of one of the world’s great Jewish centers, the volume is essential reading for those seeking to understand the past, present, and future of post-Soviet Jewry.

Contributors:
Robert J. Brym, Valery Chervyakov, Alanna Cooper, Theodore H. Friedgut, Zvi Gitelman, Musya Glants, Marshall I. Goldman, Martin Horwitz, Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Mikhail Krutikov, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Yaacov Ro’i, Vladimir Shapiro, Sarai Brachman Shoup, and Mark Tolts.

Since the late 1980s, one of the world's largest Jewish populations has faced a unique dilemma: at the very time it has gained unprecedented freedoms, Soviet and post-Soviet Jewry has encountered political uncertainty, economic instability, and resurgent antisemitism. A population teetering simultaneously on the edge of decline and revival, Jews in the former Soviet Union have had to decide whether to take advantage of the new opportunity to revive Jewish life and rebuild Jewish communities, live in the newly established states but disappear as Jews, or abandon their former homes and emigrate to Israel or elsewhere.

Jewish Life after the USSR is the first book to study post-Soviet Jewry in depth. Its careful analyses of demographic, cultural, political, and ethnic processes affecting an important post-Soviet population also give insights into larger developments in the post-Soviet states. A fine-grained snapshot of one of the world's great Jewish centers, the volume is essential reading for those seeking to understand the past, present, and future of post-Soviet Jewry.

Contributors: Robert J. Brym, Valery Chervyakov, Alanna Cooper, Theodore H. Friedgut, Zvi Gitelman, Musya Glants, Marshall I. Goldman, Martin Horwitz, Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Mikhail Krutikov, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Yaacov Ro'i, Vladimir Shapiro, Sarai Brachman Shoup, and Mark Tolts.

Zvi Gitelman is Professor of Political Science and Preston Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.

Musya Glants, an art historian, is a Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University.

Marshall I. Goldman is Davis Professor of Russian Economics, Emeritus, Wellesley College, and Associate Director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University.