In the early 1990s, more than 1.6 million Jews from the former Soviet Union emigrated to Israel, the United States, Canada, Germany, and other Western countries. Larissa Remennick relates the saga of their encounter with the economic marketplaces, lifestyles, and everyday cultures of their new homelands, drawing on comparative sociological research among Russian-Jewish immigrants.Although citizens of Jewish origin ostensibly left the former Soviet Union to flee persecution and join their co-religionists, Israeli, North American, and German Jews were universally disappointed by the new arrivals' tenuous Jewish identity. In turn, Russian Jews, whose identity had been shaped by seventy years of secular education and assimilation into the Soviet mainstream, hoped to be accepted as ambitious and hard working individuals seeking better lives. These divergent expectations shaped lines of conflict between Russian-speaking Jews and the Jewish communities of the receiving countries.Since her own immigration to Israel from Moscow in 1991, Remennick has been both a participant and an observer of this saga. This is the first attempt to compare resettlement and integration experiences of a single ethnic community (former Soviet Jews) in various global destinations. It also analyzes their emerging transnational lifestyles. Written from an interdisciplinary perspective, this book opens new perspectives for a diverse readership, including sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, historians, Slavic scholars, and Jewish studies specialists.

In the past twenty years almost three quarters of a million Russian Jews have emigrated to the West. Their presence in Israel, Europe and North America and their absence from Russia have left an indelible imprint on these societies. The emigrants themselves as well as those who stayed behind, are in a struggle to establish their own identities and to achieve social and economic security In this volume an international assembly of experts historians, sociologists, demographers and politicians join forces in order to assess the nature and magnitude of the impact created by this emigration and to examine the fate of those Jews who left and those who remained. Their wide-ranging perspectives contribute to creating a variegated and complex picture of the recent Russian Jewish Emigration.

In the past twenty years almost three quarters of a million Russian Jews have emigrated to the West. Their presence in Israel, Europe and North America and their absence from Russia have left an indelible imprint on these societies. The emigrants themselves as well as those who stayed behind, are in a struggle to establish their own identities and to achieve social and economic security In this volume an international assembly of experts historians, sociologists, demographers and politicians join forces in order to assess the nature and magnitude of the impact created by this emigration and to examine the fate of those Jews who left and those who remained. Their wide-ranging perspectives contribute to creating a variegated and complex picture of the recent Russian Jewish Emigration.

These essays address Jewish identity, Jewish survival, and Jewish continuity. The authors account for and analyze trends in Jewish identification and the reciprocal effects of the relationship between the Diaspora and Israel at the end of the twentieth century.Jewish identification in contemporary society is a complex phenomenon. Since the emancipation of Jews in Europe and the major historic events of the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel, there have been substantial changes in the collective Jewish identity. As a result, Jewish identity and the Jewish process of identification had to confront the new realities of an open society, its economic globalization, and the impacts of cultural pluralism. The trends in Jewish identification are toward fewer and weaker points of attachment: fewer Jews who hold religious beliefs with such beliefs held less strongly; less religious ritual observance; attachment to Zionism and Israel becoming diluted; and ethnic communal bonds weakening. Jews are also more involved in the wider society in the Diaspora due to fewer barriers and less overt anti-Semitism. This opens up possibilities for cultural integration and assimilation. In Israel, too, there are signs of greater interest in the modern world culture. The major questions addressed by this volume is whether Jewish civilization will continue to provide the basic social framework and values that will lead Jews into the twenty-first century and ensure their survival as a specific social entity.The book contains special contributions by Professor Julius Gould and Professor Irving Louis Horowitz and chapters on "Sociological Analysis of Jewish Identity"; "Jewish Community Boundaries"; and "Factual Accounts from the Diaspora and Israel."

This collection provides a comprehensive overview of Russian language research in Canada and Russia, with a focus on elements of structure, as well as on language dynamics and change.

After forced migration to a country where immigrants form an ethnic majority, why do some individuals support exclusivist and nationalist political parties while others do not? Based on extensive interviews and an original survey of 1,200 local Serbs and ethnic Serbian refugees fleeing violent conflict in Bosnia and Croatia, The Politics of Social Ties argues that those immigrants who form close interpersonal networks with others who share their experiences, such as the loss of family, friends, and home, in addition to the memory of ethnic violence from past wars, are more likely to vote for nationalist parties. Any political mobilization occurring within these interpersonal networks is not strategic, rather, individuals engage in political discussion with people who have a greater capacity for mutual empathy over the course of discussing other daily concerns. This book adds the dimension of ethnic identity to the analysis of individual political behavior, without treating ethnic groups as homogeneous social categories. It adds valuable insight to the existing literature on political behavior by emphasizing the role of social ties among individuals.

Doubly Chosen provides the first detailed study of a unique cultural and religious phenomenon in post-Stalinist Russia—the conversion of thousands of Russian Jewish intellectuals to Orthodox Christianity, first in the 1960s and later in the 1980s. These time periods correspond to the decades before and after the great exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union. Judith Deutsch Kornblatt contends that the choice of baptism into the Church was an act of moral courage in the face of Soviet persecution, motivated by solidarity with the values espoused by Russian Christian dissidents and intellectuals. Oddly, as Kornblatt shows, these converts to Russian Orthodoxy began to experience their Jewishness in a new and positive way. Working primarily from oral interviews conducted in Russia, Israel, and the United States, Kornblatt underscores the conditions of Soviet life that spurred these conversions: the virtual elimination of Judaism as a viable, widely practiced religion; the transformation of Jews from a religious community to an ethnic one; a longing for spiritual values; the role of the Russian Orthodox Church as a symbol of Russian national culture; and the forging of a new Jewish identity within the context of the Soviet dissident movement.

"Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities makes a unique contribution, building on but not duplicating Sharot's earlier work. There is no comparable work that covers all of these periods and particular cases."---Harriet Hartman, professor of sociology at Rowan University --

Israelis with a Russian accent have been part of Israel's social, cultural and economic landscape for over 20 years. They are found in all walks of life: as controversial politicians, senior physicians and scientists, kibbutz members and religious settlers. Despite lacking personal assets and below-average income, many of them managed to enter Israeli middle class, and some even became part of local elites – an achievement not to be taken for granted for the first-generation immigrants. This collection offers a multi-faceted portrait of the 'Great Russian Aliyah' of the 1990s with the emphasis on socio-political and cultural aspects of its insertion in Israel – based on social research conducted by the scholars most of whom are former-Soviet immigrants themselves. The issues covered include the exploration of Israel as an extension of the post-soviet space; the evolving political culture of Russian Israelis; the prospects for the ethnic media and Russian language continuity; visual tokens of 'domestication' of a major Israeli city by its 'Russian' residents, and mutual influences between Israeli and Russian cinematic traditions. Written in a lively and non-technical manner, most contributions will spark interest among both social scientists and broad readership interested in modern-day Israel and post-Soviet societies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Israel Affairs.

Out of Russia is the first scholarly work to focus on a group of writers who, over the past decade, have formed a distinct phenomenon: immigrants with cultural and linguistic roots in Russia who have chosen to write in the language of their adopted countries. The best known among these are Andreï Makine, who writes in French, Wladimir Kaminer, who writes in German, and Gary Shteyngart, who writes in English. Wanner also addresses the work of emerging immigrant writers active in North America, Germany, and Israel. He argues that it is in part by writing in a language other than their native Russian that these writers have made something of a commodity of their “Russianness.” That many of them also happen to be Jewish adds yet another layer to the questions of identity raised by their work. In situating these writers within broader contexts, Wanner explores such topics as migration, cultural hybrids, and the construction and perception of ethnicity.