Jewish fearless speech: towards a definition of Soviet Jewish nonconformism

ABSTRACT

The article proposes a model for analyzing the utterances of Jewish nonconformism in the late-Soviet Russian literature, based on Michel Foucault’s theory of fearless speech and Eric Gans’ theory of the origins of culture. The utterances of nonconformism transform an asymmetrical conflict into symmetrical nonvictimary relations, in which a new, supposedly real identity of a figure is revealed and mobilized for protest. These new relations are based on mutual recodification of different discursive configurations – political, moral, social, aesthetical, metaphysical, or mystical. The discussion will focus on the selected novels of Fridrikh Gorenshtein, Felix Roziner, and, in greater detail, David Shrayer-Petrov.     

犹太传统在犹太文学中的具体特征化——论犹太作家创作手法上的特质

本文试图以三位犹太作家贝娄、马拉默德和辛格的短篇小说作品为对象,探讨在犹太民族特有的文化传统和悲惨历史遭遇的衬托下,三位文人各自创作的民族特点以及他们所共有的文学特质,从而对犹太文学中人物形象的多种塑造手法进行分析和讨论,进一步阐释犹太文学潜在内涵之所在。     

Jewish emigration from Israel

Issues raised by the emigration of Jews from Israel are discussed. The primary focus is on the debate within Israel concerning what measures could be taken to reduce emigration levels or to induce emigrants to return to Israel.     

Jewish Mothering in Japan

Jewish and Japanese child rearing are compared as examples of patterns that produce highly successful, achievement-oriented children. Mothers are notably devoted and nurturant, and also fairly sophisticated and antonomous individuals, with considerable authority at home. Fathers have high prestige, but are somewhat distant. Achievement is also motivated by the child's feelings of guilt over the mother's pain and suffering caused by his failure to live up to her high expectations.     

Identifying Jewish names in Russia

SOVIET SAGA OF A JEWISH FAMILY

TYAZHELY PESOK (Heavy Sand),* by Anatoly Rybakov, in Oktyabr, nos. 7, 8, 9, 1978.

JEWS, DETENTE AND DISSENT

EXIT VISA. DETENTE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE JEWISH EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN THE USSR, by Colin Shindler. London, Bachman &; Turner, 1978. 291 pp. Illus. Appendices. Bibl. Index. £7.50.

AN INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT

NASTOLNY IUDEYSKY KALENDAR NA 5739 god (Jewish Religious Calendar for 5739/1978–79), edited by S. L. Kleynman. Moscow Religious Society, 1978. 200 pp.

MINORITY NATIONALITIES IN THE USSR

L'EMPIRE ECLATE: LA REVOLTE DES NATIONS EN URSS, by Helene Carrere d'Encausse. Paris. Flammarion, 1978. 314 pp. Graphs and Tables.     

Jewish trade unionists in Glasgow

This article attempts briefly to look critically at the literature on Glasgow Jewry, show the settlement and work patterns of Jews in the West of Scotland and the early attitudes of trade unions to them. The major part attempts to examine some experiences, up to the 1920s, of Jewish trade unionists in Glasgow, and whether the evidence fits into the pattern found in other centres. It maintains that in the sector for which records have been found, there was harsh and bitter class struggle between Jewish employees and Jewish and Gentile employers. Thus, the ethnic model of studying the Jewish community, prevalent amongst Jewish historians, can no longer suffice as a necessary method.     

The election of Jewish deputies in Vilna in 1818: government projects and Jewish claims

This article focuses on the election of the so-called deputies of the Jewish people in Vil'na (Vilnius) in 1818. At the time, the Russian government perceived Jewish society as a “state within a state” with its own secret government. Russian rule tried to legalise and control that imagined government or to neutralise and repress it. The Jewish elite used these mental constructs of the Russian ruling circles and positioned themselves as the holders of the “Jewish rule,” demanding the usual prerogatives of nobility.     

A New Approach to Jewish Divorce

The traditional Jewish law of divorce, which permits a husband to divorce his wife, but does not sanction the wife's divorcing him, has created hardship for Jewish women for centuries. In view of the new attitudes toward the equality of women, the rabbis of the Reconstructionist Movement in Judaism have innovated an egalitarian "get" (divorce), a bold effort to prevent Jewish women from becoming agunot (abandoned wives.) By means of the new type of divorce, the Jewish woman takes the initiative and divorces the husband.     

British response to the involvement of the American Jewish joint distribution committee in illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine

Following the end of the Second World War Britain conducted a comprehensive campaign against the illegal immigration of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe to displaced persons’ camps in Germany and Austria, and to Palestine. British inquiries at the time revealed that the American Jewish philanthropic agency known as the ‘Joint’ was assisting the illegal movement. The British government failed to bring this assistance to an end. British failure in this regard was primarily a consequence of the concern of the American administration for the situation of Jewish displaced persons, an attitude which was accounted for by Washington's assessment of the political power of American Jews.     

The interrelationship of Jewish communities in shanghai

1938 was a year of despair for the Jews of Austria and Germany. In July, the delegates from 32 nations who met at Evian‐les‐Bains, France, to identify refugee havens for the victims of Nazi persecution, made it clear that the world would not accept large numbers of refugees.1 Shanghai being an open port was one of the few exceptions.2 At that time there were already two Jewish communities in this remote corner of the world and their interaction with each other and with the refugees from Nazi oppression is the subject of this article. My main focus will be on the first Jewish community which was made up of Jews from Baghdad.