Showing papers in "East European Jewish Affairs in 2015"
TL;DR: The reception of the core exception of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which opened in Warsaw on 28 October 2014, is the focus of this essay as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The reception of the core exception of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which opened in Warsaw on 28 October 2014, is the focus of this essay. While eschewing a master narrative, the exhibition is guided by metahistorical principles and a distinctive approach to mode of narration. Both have proven controversial as evidenced by answers to the following questions. What is the difference between a history of Polish Jews and a history of Polish Jewish relations? What is the most important period in the history of Polish Jews? Can visitors be trusted to draw the proper conclusions from a multi-voiced narrative based largely on quotations from primary sources, supported with scholarly commentary? Is a museum whose core exhibition features relatively few original objects a museum? What is the role of intangible heritage in such a museum?
12 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Shanes' study of diaspora nationalism in Galicia is a contribution to a modern version of Jewish historiography and the rise of the Jewish national idea is not interpreted within...
Abstract: Joshua Shanes’ study of diaspora nationalism in Galicia is a contribution to a modern version of Jewish historiography. In this book, the rise of the Jewish national idea is not interpreted within ...
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the debates in the Polish Second Republic (1918 to 1939) from the perspective of the organized animal welfare movement, and argues that animal welfarists both supplied and reinforced antisemitic arguments for banning ritual slaughter; Poland partially banned the Jewish rite in 1936.
Abstract: This articles examines the ritual slaughter debates in the Polish Second Republic (1918 to 1939) from the perspective of the organized animal welfare movement, and argues that animal welfarists both supplied and reinforced antisemitic arguments for banning ritual slaughter; Poland partially banned the Jewish rite in 1936. Animal protectionists in Poland subscribed to the view that the level of civilization reached by a people was best measured by their attitudes towards animals, the most defenseless of living creatures; compassion and humanitarianism, they believed, were defining feature of modern civility. Animal protectionists understood ritual slaughter to be unusually cruel, and as such they saw it as violating the imperatives of the modern and rational era. Given that Jews were the ones who practiced ritual slaughter, they in turn were described as a cruel anachronism that jeopardized animal protectionists' goal of establishing Poland's place in a civilized Europe.
7 citations
6 citations
TL;DR: Odessa was imperial Russia's largest commercial port and attracted the attention of contemporary observers and travelers from different countries as mentioned in this paper. But it was not suitable for large numbers of tourists.
Abstract: Odessa was imperial Russia's largest commercial port. Situated on the northern shores of the Black Sea, this multiethnic city attracted the attention of contemporary observers and travelers from th...
6 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the way three contemporary Hungarian museums, the House of Terror Museum, the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Memorial and Documentation Center, represent the history of the Holocaust and the history history of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, arguing that Hungarian public discourse has yet to come to terms with the meaning and place of "Jewishness" in modern Hungarian history.
Abstract: The article examines the way three contemporary Hungarian museums–the House of Terror Museum, the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Memorial and Documentation Center–represent the history of the Holocaust and the history of Jewish/non-Jewish relations. Reflecting different political agendas, each of the three museums offers a different interpretation of how the Holocaust fits into the larger narrative of Hungary's 20th century history. The article argues that post-communist public memory has been constructed through debates about these histories. By analyzing the three museums' displays, narratives and the debates surrounding them, the article argues that Hungarian public discourse has yet to come to terms with the meaning and place of “Jewishness” (and the way it has informed “Hungarianness”) in modern Hungarian history. Despite the centrality of Jews and Jewish-non-Jewish relations to the museums' narratives, none are able to offer a clear definition of what “Jewishness” means and how it functioned at dif...
5 citations
TL;DR: In the second half of the 1960s, the Jewish underground movement in the Soviet Union produced literature that became a part of the counterculture of Soviet dissent for the first time in decades, Russian Jews identified to a significant degree, as people of the Galut (Jewish Diaspora) as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The Jewish underground movement in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1960s produced literature that became a part of the counterculture of Soviet dissent For the first time in decades, Russian Jews identified, to a significant degree, as people of the galut (Jewish Diaspora) The battle for the return to Israel and the new Jewish renaissance in the intellectual sphere of the unofficial led to the emergence of new topographical concepts, which were inspired primarily by the Jewish cultural tradition In fact, the exodus texts written in the 1960s–1980s represented a new, late Soviet shaping of Zionist prose They relate to the symbol of the Promised Land as a fundamental projection of aspirations Late Soviet Zionist texts share the traditional Jewish vision of Israel as an imagined topos of the original homeland that is both retrospective (with reference to the biblical promise of the land and the seizure of Canaan) and prospective (return and redemption) The Exodus story contained in Sefer She
4 citations
TL;DR: The Museum of Russian Jewry in Russia as discussed by the authors is a state-of-the-art museum dedicated to Russian Jewish culture and history, which was built by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FOCUS).
Abstract: “Amuseum of Russian Jewry in Russia.” The idea was born on the eve of the First World War, in the form of an ethnographic exhibit, and became a reality nearly a century later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the initiative of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, an umbrella organization dominated by representatives of Chabad – and with major financial backing from a handful of Russian-Jewish oligarchs along with vital support from the Kremlin a 92,000 square-foot Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened its doors on Novosushchevskii Street in Moscow in November 2012. Work on the museum began in 2008, when the Federation hired the well-known museum design firm Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA) to fashion a state-of-theart, interactive exhibition. RAA in turn hired an international group of scholars to form what it called its “content committee,” consisting of the authors of these short essays. Our job was to produce a coherent narrative of Jewish experience across imperial Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet history, identifying key stories, individuals, ideas, and images with which to animate the journey. The initial challenge, to my mind, was to produce a museum whose content, notwithstanding its cutting-edge technology, would not feel like a foreign import product. While much of the outside world has traditionally regarded Russian Jewry as victims of their host society, many Russians have been accustomed to thinking of Jews as among Russia’s most privileged beneficiaries. The committee decided to approach this issue honestly by showing graphic evidence of anti-Jewish discrimination and pogrom violence as well as the extraordinary rise of Jews into higher education, entrepreneurship, elite culture, and for a time, the halls of political and military power. We were also determined to illustrate the extraordinary flowering of Jewish collective movements and cultural idioms, developments nourished in part by the push and pull of the surrounding society. Needless to say, the “lesson” of this dual-edged narrative did not lend itself in any straightforward way to a message of tolerance. While the museum’s Tolerance Center broadcasts an important moral value, it remains distinct, conceptually and substantively, from the rest of the museum, mandated by the Russian government and designed by a different committee with whom we had no contact. Our goals for the museum’s
4 citations
Abstract: The text refers to the space around the Nathan Rapoport’s Monument to the Fighters and Martyrs of the Ghetto and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN in Warsaw (Poland). The site of death – at the heart of the former Warsaw Ghetto – has now become a site overloaded with other symbolic messages. Two main symbolic centers (the 1948 Monument and the 2013 Museum) are today encircled by ten other, additional memorials. The message emerging from the content as well as the proportion of commemorations is that Polish solidarity with the Jews was a fact and it stood the test of terror and death brought by the Germans. Although it does not undermine the veracity of the few and isolated exceptions, such a version of events is drastically different from the actual facts. Both symbolic centers are perceived as emblems of Jewish minority narrative. Additional artefacts are a message formulated by the Polish majority. They constitute a kind of symbolic encirclement, block. Emphasizing the dominant majority’s v...
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reveal that the discussion regarding institutions and private care reflected a desire to provide effective and efficient services but was also a sign of the institutional immaturity of the organisations that had emerged to address the needs of children.
Abstract: After World War I Jewish community leaders in Poland addressed the increasing number of orphans due to the war and continued violence by placing children in foster care and building orphanages run by local non-governmental organisations. The care of children in private homes was seen as the most practical solution to the crisis and a real alternative to the establishment of institutions. The records of these non-governmental organisations and the writings of Jewish community leaders reveal that the discussion regarding institutions and private care reflected a desire to provide effective and efficient services but was also a sign of the institutional immaturity of the organisations that had emerged to address the needs of children. Proponents of both institutions and private care advocated greater supervision of these services and, if not institutionalisation, more organisation of those working in child welfare and of children's lives. Believing that such supervision would make the children under their ca...
4 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the first media outlets to publish photographs of the Nazi mass murder of Jews and others were Soviet newspapers and magazines, and they were considered unreliable from a Western standpoint, because unlike in the West, which perceived a clear ideological differentiation of art from photojournalism, Soviet photography blurred that distinction.
Abstract: During World War II, the first media outlets to publish photographs of the Nazi mass murder of Jews and others were Soviet newspapers and magazines. The problem with Soviet photographs was that the Soviet media were considered unreliable from a Western standpoint, because unlike in the West, which perceived a clear ideological differentiation of art from photojournalism, Soviet photography blurred that distinction. According to Western standards of evidence, Soviet photography could never be taken seriously as photojournalism, precisely because the photographer was always metaphorically present. Since Soviet photojournalism failed the test of the documentary imperative, it rarely convinced people of the truth of its subject matter. In this epistemological context when photographs might fail to convince, the act of physically bearing witness, of seeing with one's own eyes, became the most important way of proving to a disbelieving public the veracity of Nazi atrocities.
TL;DR: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe is an all-encompassing, seven-hundred-page long anthology focusing on how the old and new states of the form...
Abstract: Bringing the Dark Past to Light—: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe is an all-encompassing, seven-hundred-page long anthology focusing on how the old and new states of the form...
TL;DR: In 2012, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened in Moscow as discussed by the authors, an event unthinkable during the Soviet regime, and the museum's core exhibition presents several centuries of complex local Jewish history, including the Second World War period.
Abstract: In 2012, a new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened in Moscow – an event unthinkable during the Soviet regime. Financed at the level of $50 million, created by an international crew of academics and museum designers, and located in a landmark building, the museum immediately rose to a position of cultural prominence in the Russian museum scene. Using interactive technology and multimedia, the museum's core exhibition presents several centuries of complex local Jewish history, including the Second World War period. Naturally, the Holocaust is an important part of the story. Olga Gershenson's essay analyzes the museum's relationship to Holocaust history and memory in the post-Soviet context. She describes the museum's struggle to reconcile a Soviet understanding of the “Great Patriotic War” with a dominant Western narrative of the Holocaust, while also bringing the Holocaust in the Soviet Union to a broader audience via the museum. Through recorded testimonies, period documents, and film, the museum's ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the representation of the shtetl in two museum narratives devoted to Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, respectively, and propose a formative arena for Jewish civic identity vis-a-vis the Russian homeland.
Abstract: This article considers the representation of the shtetl in two museum narratives devoted to Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The first, the state-funded 1939 exhibit “The Jews in Tsarist Russia and the USSR” was organized by the Jewish Section of the State Museum of Ethnography in Leningrad and remained on display to the Soviet public until the Nazi invasion in June 1941. The second is the privately funded Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, which opened in 2012. Though conceived under radically different ideological and political circumstances, each exhibition conveys a significant message about the place of Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet society, respectively, and each positions the shtetl as a formative arena for Jewish civic identity vis-a-vis the Russian homeland. Across the chasm of over seventy years, these two museum projects raise strikingly similar questions about how and why cultural institutions are mobilized to define the relationship of Ashkenazi Jews and the state. In both c...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the institutional development of Jewish museums in Prague, Budapest, and Bratislava from 1989 to the present, with special reference to their role as agents of cultural memory.
Abstract: This article examines the institutional development of Jewish museums in Prague, Budapest, and Bratislava from 1989 to the present, with special reference to their role as agents of cultural memory. I consider how these museums contribute to the formation of Jewish identities in post-communist societies, which are themselves struggling to form collective identities. After analyzing the institutional structures and exhibition concepts of these museums in relation to shifts in the politics of representation, I propose a core area on which each museum could base its future development.
TL;DR: The Bukharan-Jewish Museum in Samarkand opened in 2008 as discussed by the authors and was not registered as an independent museum, but was created within the framework of the SAMARKand Museum of Regional Studies (Samarqand V...
Abstract: The Bukharan-Jewish Museum in Samarkand opened in 2008. It was not registered as an independent museum, but was created within the framework of the Samarkand Museum of Regional Studies (Samarqand V...
TL;DR: In 2013, Latzman, a young Israeli artist, held an art residency in Vilnius, the city known as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania,” was once her family's home as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In 2013 Tamar Latzman, a young Israeli artist, held an art residency in Vilnius. The city, known as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania,” was once her family's home. Although she went to the city as an art...
TL;DR: In this article, a collection of essays demonstrates the remarkable diversity of new scholarship on memory studies in Eastern Europe and highlights the divisive nature of historical memories in the region and the importance of historical memory in political memory.
Abstract: This collection of essays demonstrates the remarkable diversity of new scholarship on memory studies in Eastern Europe. It highlights the divisive nature of historical memories in the region and th...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight that despite the general interest of the Romanian society in Judaism and the Jewish communities, there are only about half a dozen Jewish museums, most of them being rather unknown and modest community exhibitions, dusty and decrepit.
Abstract: After the proclamation of the People's Republic of Romania, at the end of 1947, until 1988, about 300,000 Jews have left Romania. Currently, in Romania, the Jewish population is around 12,000–15,000, generally aging. Despite the general interest of the Romanian society in Judaism and the Jewish communities, as the article highlights, there are only about half a dozen Jewish museums, most of them being rather unknown and modest community exhibitions, dusty and decrepit. The article focuses on these particular museums and their collections, but trying to point out the resources and real potential of the Jewish heritage in Romania, envisaging that it is high time to experience new Jewish museums.
TL;DR: Hornstein this article discusses what it means to Jewish culture and history to weave together architecture, memory, and place, and suggests that even though the examples were mainly related to a Jewish example, they nonetheless reverberate for others and become sparks for deep, personal reflection.
Abstract: “Jewish memory, or what it means to Jewish culture and history to weave together architecture, memory and place” (8). She explains this selection by means of her involvement in previous and ongoing research rather than a result of deliberation and suggests that “even though the examples were mainly – though not always – related to a Jewish example, they nonetheless reverberate for others and become sparks for deep, personal reflection” (8). Although the desire to reach out to a wider audience is understandable, I felt this to be a missed opportunity for a serious, in-depth meditation on the rarely deliberated subject of “Jewish architecture” or “Jewish space.” Woven into the essays, Hornstein makes interesting observations about Jewish notions of space throughout that I hope they will be expanded upon in future publications. A lack of cohesiveness characterizes many aspects of the book, particularly the choice of wildly eclectic case studies. This is both its weakness and strength. Readers are challenged to form their own links between the various examples presented and the wide array of questions raised through them. Although at times making these connections constitutes a long leap of faith, readers will be awarded by encountering a profound, original and fresh understanding of memory, site and their interactions.
TL;DR: Dekel-Chen et al. as discussed by the authors presented a survey of the most relevant and recent scholarly works on Jewish agricultural settlements and their connections to the formation of the State of Israel.
Abstract: concise and differentiated overview of Soviet and post-Soviet Jewish migrations to modern Israel. He questions the statement that no other “nation and culture... [has] influenced Israel” more than Russia (19). The Russian Empire, of course, constituted not a nation, but rather, a diverse range of partly overlapping and conflicting cultural, ethnic, religious, and political traditions and movements. Gitelman emphasizes that Israel’s political system owes much to interwar Poland, where several influential leaders of Israel first were exposed to politics. His succinct description of the different Soviet and post-Soviet migrations to Israel is particularly useful. Gitelman concludes his essay with observations about the political behavior and assimilation of Soviet and post-Soviet migrants in Israel. In an excellent essay, Jonathan Dekel-Chen critiques traditional Zionist historiography by highlighting the close connections between Zionist agricultural settlements in mandate Palestine and Jewish agricultural colonization efforts in the early Soviet Union, the United States, and Argentina. This essay is particularly useful because it is well argued, provides a concise and valuable overview of a still fragmented field, and surveys the most relevant and recent scholarly works on Jewish agricultural settlements. Overall, the disparate grouping of the essays and their narrow focus somewhat reduce the volume’s appeal to a broader audience. The collection will most likely be of interest to scholars working on the evolution of Zionism in Russia and the Soviet Union before (rather than after) the founding of the state of Israel.
TL;DR: Janicka's Festung Warschau as mentioned in this paper is written in the vein of Pierre Nora's Lieux de memoire, realms of memory and Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak's work on the Warsaw ghetto.
Abstract: Elzbieta Janicka's Festung Warschau is written in the vein of Pierre Nora's Lieux de memoire, realms of memory1 and Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak's work on the Warsaw ghetto.2 That is to say,...
TL;DR: Muranow is a neighborhood in the northern part of central Warsaw, where The Museum of History of Polish Jews "Polin" is located, as well as the majority of the city's memorials dedicated to t...
Abstract: Today Muranow is a neighborhood in the northern part of central Warsaw, where The Museum of History of Polish Jews “Polin” is located, as well as the majority of the city's memorials dedicated to t...
TL;DR: The 10 Stars project as mentioned in this paper is a linked network of restored or re-restored historic synagogues, associated buildings, and exhibitions in 10 towns around the Czech Republic, which is the most ambitious single Jewish heritage project to be carried out in the Czech Czech Republic since the fall of communism.
Abstract: The 10 Stars project, a linked network of restored or re-restored historic synagogues, associated buildings, and exhibitions in 10 towns around the Czech Republic, is the most ambitious single Jewish heritage project to be carried out in the Czech Republic since the fall of communism. Inaugurated in 2014, it falls within (and is the culmination of) a multifaceted program for Jewish heritage preservation and promotion in that country that was already being implemented in the early 1990s, thanks to the strategic vision of Jewish communal leaders and the active involvement and participation of municipalities, NGOs and others. As a result, in the past quarter century, the Czech Republic has seen the restoration of more than 65 synagogues, as well as the creation of regional Jewish museums and the installation of many local exhibits on Jewish history and heritage. This essay examines elements of the strategic process that achieved these results and shows how the various stages of its implementation led up to t...
TL;DR: Kalinin this article argues that the current and ongoing transformation of the Russian historical past into a vital symbolic resource in the struggle over the politics and policies of memory is a dangerous trajectory for Russian historians and for Russian democracy as a whole.
Abstract: intellectually and morally troubling exploitation by professional Russian historians and cultural elite who follow the official vision of Putin’s Russia. Kalinin shows that the current and ongoing transformation of the Russian historical past into a vital symbolic resource in the struggle over the politics and policies of memory is a dangerous trajectory for Russian historians and for Russian democracy as a whole. Many chapters in the volume suggest that the divisive and contradictory memories of the bloody twentieth century (and earlier collective past) are still fully utilized in the current politics and policies of memory in Eastern Europe. For that reason Holocaust memory has been a particularly thorny subject, and Western theoretical perspectives on the Holocaust as a transnational memory may not have been an adequate analytical tool to discuss memory practices in the region. However, new memory practices of some cultural and political elites suggest the emergence of dialogue and empathy for the victims of the Holocaust and other mass crimes in the respective national pasts in the region.
TL;DR: In this article, the architectural conversion of the historical Gliwice Pre-Burial House into the Museum of Upper Silesian Jews is discussed, and a discussion of the conceptual framework of the design is given to reveal the continuity of unformatted architectural memory.
Abstract: This article discusses the architectural conversion of the historical Gliwice Pre-Burial House into the Museum of Upper Silesian Jews. It describes the former function of the building in the context of the specific history of Upper Silesian Jews, the Haskalah movement, and funeral rites in Judaism. The main part of the paper is devoted to the presentation of the architectural design and the functional division of the planned museum as proposed by the architectural collective that the author is part of. Special attention is given to a discussion of the conceptual framework of the design which tries to reveal the continuity of unformatted architectural memory. The features of proposed design, such as the central installation of The Cloud, merge commemorative aspects with new functions related to hosting public events and historical display. In this way, the design negotiates between remembrance of the Jewish community and the needs of the new inhabitants and users of the space. Thus, the paper contributes t...
TL;DR: A firsthand account by the former chair of the Council of Nationalities of the Popular Movement of Ukraine as discussed by the authors describes the interplay from 1989 to 1993 between the aspirations of Rukh, i.e., respect and friendship among ethnic and national groups and the development of deep understanding between them.
Abstract: By circumstances of history The Popular Movement of Ukraine, more frequently referred to simply as Rukh, became a critical part of the effort to consolidate Ukraine's early independence. A broad, grassroots coalition established in 1989 to support Gorbachev's policies to revitalize Soviet society, Rukh's original appeal called for respect and friendship among ethnic and national groups and the development of deep understanding between them, values that guided the work of Rukh's Council of Nationalities. This account focuses particular attention on the Council's involvement with the nascent Jewish revival in Ukraine. The original strength of Rukh was its emphasis on inclusion. However, competing interests intervened and Rukh was transformed from a popular coalition into a center-right political party. By 1993, the Council of Nationalities had ceased to exit. This firsthand account by the former chair of the Council of Nationalities recounts the interplay from 1989 to 1993 between the aspirations of Rukh, i...