Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine An Uncertain Ethnicity

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1 Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine An Uncertain Ethnicity Before the USSR collapsed, ethnic identities were imposed by the state. After a discussion of concepts of ethnicity and identity, this book analyzes how and why Jews decided what being Jewish meant to them after the state dissolved and describes the historical evolution of Jewish identities, experiences with anti-semitism, politics, and migration. Surveys of more than 6,000 Jews in the early and late 1990s reveal that Russian and Ukrainian Jews have a deep sense of their Jewishness but are uncertain what it means. They see little connection between Judaism and being Jewish. Their attitudes toward Judaism, intermarriage, and Jewish nationhood differ dramatically from those of Jews elsewhere. Many think Jews can believe in Christianity and do not condemn marrying non-jews. This complicates their connections with other Jews and their resettlement in Israel, the United States, and Germany, as well as the rebuilding of public Jewish life in Russia and Ukraine. Nonetheless, some postcommunist Jews are transforming religious-based practices into ethnic traditions and increasingly manifesting their Jewishness in public. is Professor of Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, where he has been director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies and of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies. Gitelman has been awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations; the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton; and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard. He has been a research Fellow at Oxford and a visiting professor at Tel Aviv and Hebrew Universities, Central European University (Budapest), and the Russian State University for the Humanities. Gitelman is a summa cum laude graduate of Columbia University where he also received his doctorate. He is the author or editor of 15 books and more than 100 articles in scholarly journals. His book ACentury of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union since 1881 was translated into Japanese and Russian. His most recent edited volume is Ethnicity or Religion? The Evolution of Jewish Identities. Gitelman is a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council and has been active in many academic and civic organizations.

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3 Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine An Uncertain Ethnicity ZVI GITELMAN University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

4 cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny , usa Information on this title: / C 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gitelman, Zvi Y. Jewish identities in postcommunist Russia and Ukraine : an uncertain ethnicity /. p. cm. Includes index. isbn (hardback) 1. Jews Russia Identity. 2. Jews Ukraine Identity. 3. Jews Russia Politics and government 20th century. 4. Jews Russia Social conditions 20th century. 5. Jews Russia Politics and government 21st century. 6. Jews Russia Social conditions 21st century. 7. Jews Ukraine Politics and government 20th century. 8. Jews Ukraine Social conditions 20th century. 9. Jews Ukraine Politics and government 21st century. 10. Jews Ukraine Social conditions 21st century. 11. Russia Ethnic relations. 12. Ukraine Ethnic relations. I. Title. ds g dc isbn Hardback isbn Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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7 Contents Acknowledgments page ix Introduction 1 1. Ethnicity and Identity The Evolution of Jewish Identities Soviet Policies and the Jewish Nationality Construing Jewishness in Russia and Ukraine Judaism and Jewishness: Religion and Ethnicity in Russia and Ukraine Becoming Soviet Jews: Friendship Patterns Acting Jewish: Jewish Collectivities or Communities? Anti-Semitism and Jewish Identity Identity, Israel, and Immigration Ethnicity and Marriage Politics, Affect, Affiliation, and Alienation 296 Conclusion 326 Appendix A: The Evolution of a Survey 349 Appendix B: Index of Jewishness 354 Index 359 vii

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9 Acknowledgments What began as a chance meeting with two Soviet sociologists in Moscow in late 1989 resulted in the most ambitious and comprehensive surveys of the outlooks of Jews living in Russia and Ukraine in the 1990s. This book is the culmination of my collaboration with Dr. Valeriy Chervyakov and Professor Vladimir Shapiro. Together we designed surveys of Jews in the former Soviet states, and they supervised their implementation during the course of the 1990s. The data were processed in Moscow and we spent a summer in Ann Arbor analyzing them. I am deeply grateful to both of them, and to Irina and Natasha, for their friendship, hospitality, entrepreneurship, and exhilarating collective efforts in turning up the virgin soil of empirical research among post-soviet Jews. Over the years many people and institutions have read parts of our study and have thereby contributed to this book. At the University of Michigan, I learned a great deal from my colleagues in the Department of Political Science, John Jackson and Ashutosh Varshney (now at Brown University), and in History, Todd Endelman and Ronald Suny. My old friends and collaborators, Kenneth Goldstein and Lenore Weitzman read parts of the book, providing constructive criticism and useful comments. I could not have written the book without the data analysis and comments by then-students and now Drs. Su-Feng Kuo, Jae-Jae Spoon, and Vsevolod Gunitskiy. Andrea Jones-Roy, Stephanie Ketchum, and Jennifer Miller were also helpful. Patrick O Mahen, from whom I learned a great deal, did the final data analyses and prepared tables and charts as well as Appendix A. I appreciate the patience, good cheer, and encouragement of all my colleagues who gently guided me into some of the mysteries of data analysis and tactfully suggested that some details of Soviet history and politics, Yiddish linguistics, and arcane rabbinic writings might not be of that much interest to most readers. Over many years an embarrassingly large number of institutions have provided me with time off from teaching, as well as financial support and congenial ix

10 x Acknowledgments settings. They include the Center for Russian and East European Studies, the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, and the Department of Political Science, all at the University of Michigan; the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research; the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies; the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; the Annenberg Center for Advanced Jewish Studies (now Herbert D. Katz Center) at the University of Pennsylvania; the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University; the Budapest Collegium; and the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, Tel Aviv. Our field research was funded in part by the Russian Jewish Congress, Dr. David Egger, the Jewish Community Development Fund, and the Jewish Studies Center, Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences. Many times my wife Marlene patiently awaited my return from several parts of the world and my daily retreats into working on the book. Her support and forbearance are not visible in the text that follows, but without them it could not have been written.