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Yizkor, 1943 by Rachel Auerbach

In the piece entitled “Yizkor, 1943”, the author Rachel Auerbach presents a moving piece on the theme of remembrance of the numerous Jewish victims who perished in the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis. “Yizkor” proceeds to capture in as much detail as possible the individuality of the groups that were targeted. As opposed to the Nazis’ aim which was to target the Jewish people as a group, only regarding them as a collective based on their Jewishness, the message of this piece is that the people who were targeted were babies, children, teenagers, women, men, who had their own individual identities.

The destruction of an entire people is introduced in this piece through a parallel. The piece starts with a description of a tragedy that occurs in nature, a flood in the mountains that carries away wooden huts along with men, women, and children. It shows the uncontrollable way in which nature affects the lives of people. The people who are faced with this flood are helpless, and they’re compared to “a tangle of arms waving from the roof like branches blowing in the wind waving desperately towards heaven, towards the river banks for help. At a distance, one could see mouths gaping, but one could not hear the cries because the roar of the waters drowned out everything”. This description serves as an analogy to introduce the tragedy of the victims who perished in the Holocaust, “And that’s how the Jewish masses flowed to their destruction at the time of the deportations. Sinking as helplessly into the deluge of destruction.” The piece proceeds to describe in detail the hopelessness and endless pain that the masses that are doomed to being murdered underwent with the purpose of remembering these peoples and conveying individuality to those who perished. Furthermore, the author describes those who are helpless and powerless, as “such low branches…the lowly plants of the world….the sorts of people who would have lived out their lives without ever picking a quarrel…” and yet, they are the ones who are doomed to destruction.

The piece asks a series of questions for the reader to ponder, “How could such people have been prepared to die in a gas chamber? The sorts of people who were terrified of a dentist’s chair; who turned pale at the pulling of a tooth.” The author proceeds to describe the little children, who regardless of how small they were, and in spite of all their innocence, were murdered, then continues to include the many people that were doomed for destruction, such as “the two-  and three-year-olds who seemed like newly hatched chicks tottering about on their weak legs….five year olds, and six year olds. And those who were older still…” Auerbach further identifies “boys who, in their games, were readying themselves for achievements yet to come. Girls who still nursed their dolls off in corners…Girls who eleven, twelve, thirteen with the faces of angels (…) The Rivkas, the Rebbeccas, the Leahs of the Bible, their names recast into Polish.” After the imagery of those who perished, the author notes that, “it was these, and such as these, who went into the abyss—our beautiful daughters”. She then proceeds to describe the Jewish young men, many who were ”tortured in camps even before the mass murder began”, then the religious folks, the “pious Jews in black gabardines (…) Jews who were Rabbis, teachers who wanted to transform our earthly life…and then there are other groups such as “Artisans, workers. Wagon drivers, porters….”. The message of the author is to point out that there is a long list of people who can be identified in many ways, who carry an identity, who existed. Then, the author shifts attention towards the elderly, the “grandfathers and grandmothers with an abundance of grandchildren. With hands like withered leaves (…) They were not destined to decline wearily into their graves like rest-seeking souls (..) like they would get to see the destruction of all that they had begotten; of all they had built.” She wants to stress out the point that they were all killed only because they were Jewish. The author elicits empathy also for groups that otherwise would be forgotten like the beggars who were “the first to be rounded up”. The last to be described are her own relatives who also perished. She writes “I have so many names to recall”, people who were “killed on the spot” in the gas chambers. 

The purpose of this piece is to remember those who perished, the message being that “Each of them hurts me individually, the way one feels pain when parts of the body have been surgically removed”.  The  piece ends with a call to God to remember” the “souls of those who passed away from this world horribly, dying strange deaths before their time”.

The title of this piece Yizkor is the name of the memorial prayer service that is recited four times a year in remembrance of those who passed away. This piece ends with the location of where this may have been written, “Aryan Side of Warsaw. November 1943”. The message of this piece is to bring to light the atrocities that have taken place during the Nazi times, and to recall as much as possible those who perished “because they were Jews”. The author hopes that the victims would be recalled individually and remembered, as their remembrance is a way for others to learn that tragedies like this are not to be repeated. This piece can also be characterized a form of resistance against the perpetrators who committed the ultimate crimes, and who may want to hide their atrocious crimes they committed.

Divan by Pearl Gluck

The movie entitled “Divan” is directed by Pearl Gluck who is also the narrator. In this movie, Gluck delineates her trip back to Hungary, in search for a couch where Hassidic Rabbis used to sleep on. The search for this couch is symbolic of Pearl Gluck’s search for her own heritage and her desire to adhere to the identity she chose for herself in spite of the fact that those in her surroundings try to shape her identity to determine her to come “back to the fold”. Though she was born in Brooklyn in 1972, in the milieu of a Hassidic community, Gluck left the community and became less religious and more secular in her outlook and observance. As she leaves to Hungary, she interacts with various characters. Some of these characters are more religious than her and they do not agree with the path she has chosen for herself, to be secular, as opposed to her very religious Hassidic father. She also presents in the movie the perspectives of other Jews like herself who chose to leave the fold and be less religious, and more involved with the outside world. In certain places in Hungary, she interacts with Hassidim and she is not allowed to film the surroundings, and at times, she interacts with individuals who point out to her she is not adhering to the strict dress code of ultra-Orthodox tradition. When she is finally able to bring back the couch home, she only brings back a replica of the original couch, and not the real couch. She informs her audience that one of these reasons is that her family back in Hungary would not entrust her with the original couch because she is not as religious as expected, and their desire for her is to get married to a Hassid and settle down.

 

The Refuseniks and The Party Line on Soviet Jewry *Documentaries*

The documentary Refuseniks appeared in 2008, directed by Laura Bialis, and it delineates the activities that took place in the Soviet Russia during the 1960’s and 1970’s to help those who wanted to emigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel, but were forbidden from doing so. There were activists in the Soviet Union who communicated with international organizations to gain support the right of refuseniks to emigrate out of the Soviet Union. Once they had their exit visas refused, the refuseniks were persecuted in their jobs, as it was considered to be an unpatriotic act to want to leave the Soviet Union.

A well-known character that appears in this film is Natan Sharansky. He was a former refusenik who was sent to jail for his activity of supporting the cause of the refuseniks. Finally, after being released from jail in 1986, he was able to come to Israel where he was reunited with his wife.  He was released by Mikhail Gorbachev due to international pressure from Ronald Reagan. He wrote his lifestory in his memoirs entitled Fear No Evil. The movie presents the scene when Sharansky lands in Israel. As he exits the plane, there is great joy among everyone who was awaiting his arrival. 

The Party Line on Soviet Jewry is a documentary that shows how good life was in the Soviet Union, and that the Jews who were lured to emigrate to other countries were very much grateful to the Soviet Union when they were allowed to come back. There are scences in the movie where Soviet Jews are depicted kissing the land upon which they walk as sign of joy for being allowed to return. It is a propaganda documentary sponsored by the Soviet Union in order to show how successful and happy Soviet Jews were in the Soviet Union. They warn against emigration to Israel, what they regarded as an unpatriotic act against the motherland. This documentary is supposed to bring support for the position of the Soviet Union which was forbidding Jews from emigrating elsewhere. It is meant to improve the image of the Soviet Union locally and internationally.

These two documentaries both highlight the desire of Soviet Jews to leave Soviet Union, but in different ways as they diverge in the perspective they assume. While the documentary Refuseniks shows the positive aspects of leaving the Soviet Union and deems emigration to be a violation of human rights, the documentary The Party Line on Soviet Jewry tries to convince the public union of the negative aspects of leaving the Soviet Union and how emigration proved to be a bad choice for those who emigrate and who actually wanted to come back, and felt blessed to be granted the right to return to the Soviet motherland they had abandoned.

A Study of Former Soviet Union Jewry

The piece entitled “E Pluribus Unum? Post-Soviet Jewish Identities and Their Implications for Communal Reconstruction” by V. Chervyakov, Z. Gitelman, and Vladimir Shapiro deals with the issue of reviving Jewish community life in the Former Soviet Union and the challenges and implications that surround this topic. The matter at hand is that there are different points of view when it comes to assessing the feasibility of reviving Jewish life in the former Soviet Union and whether this can be regarded as a feasible option. Research was done to assess the attitudes of the Former Soviet Union Jews, especially for Jews living in Russia and Ukraine, in regards to their Jewish identity. This research sheds light on the various factors and attitudes that resolve around the question of Jewish identity.

The attitude of the Israeli government as evidenced by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s perspective in 1999 was that Russian Jews should emigrate to Israel. However, in the former Soviet Union, Jewish self-awareness among particular Jewish communities, as the article points out, encompasses a different perspective

The piece presents the findings of an empirical study that assessed the conceptions of Jewishness of Russian and Ukrainian Jews. Its conclusion is that it is “radically different from both historical understandings and contemporary notions held by most Jews in the Diaspora and Israel” (p. 61-62).  It is interesting that this research found that “For FSU Jews, the Jewish religion is hardly a factor of Jewishness…” (p.62). The Russian and Ukrainian Jews emphasize different aspects of their definition of what makes a Jew a “good Jew”, highlighting factors such as “knowledge of history and culture, especially feeling pride in one’s Jewishness and a duty to remember the Shoah, or Holocaust”. The Jews of Former Soviet Union emphasize both aspects of their ethnicity, Russian and Jewish. Though they maintain ties with Israel, they’re not as closely attached to Jews in other places.

The research found an overall decline in interest in Jewish matters between the findings of the two surveys that were done in 1992/1993 and 1997/1998. However, the interest of those who are actually interested in their Jewish identity has increased from one time period to the other. However, overall, there is no conclusive answer as to whether Jews are more or less “communally active and engaged”. There are certain transitions that occur. The article forecasts that a demographic erosion is occurring, and that the result may make the Jewish community “distinctly more secular” (p. 62) and it is a question that awaits an answer in the matter of how Jewishness “divorced from religion and not imposed by the state can ultimately be evolved and sustained” (p. 62). The research interviewed Russian and Ukrainian Jews, and it was performed by the Jewish Research Center of the Russian Academy and Sciences. It surveyed three Russian and five Ukrainian cities. The cities that were surveyed were Moscow, St. Peterburg (Leningrad), Ekateringburg, Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Lvov, Chernovsty, and the persons interviewed were at least 16 years old. It noticed a distinct change, a negative birth : death rate ration and the emigration of younger people. They interviewed people who had both parents Jewish, half or quarter Jews, and those with more remote Jewish roots. The sampling noticed a decrease in the Jews with two Jewish parents. One reason being that those with stronger Jewish roots passed away or emigrated. There was also increase in intermarriage.

A finding of this study is that partial Jewishness seems to influence one’s behavior and how Jewish the next generations will be, noticing some underlying trends such as that partial Jews have a higher tendency to intermarry. This survey makes note of the fact that under Soviet ruling, Jews were forced to chose one’s nationality when parents had different backgrounds.  Now, those who are intermarried had two or more identities. They identified especially however as Russian and Jewish.  Those who were fully Jewish were more likely to identify as Jewish, whereas those who were partially Jewish were less likely to identify as Jews, and it was even less likely for part Ukrainian Jews to identify as such than for Russian Jews.

As of October 1917, in Russia, a law was passed where it is no longer to required to register one’s nationality in the passport and as such, those who identify as Jewish in public on their passport is declining. The impact of this in the past was that Jewish identity was registered in one’s consciousness as one had to deal with this on a daily basis. As such, many disapprove nowadays of being identified as Jewish in their documents because Jews suffered ethnic discrimination in the past. Two other trends that the surveys observed were that the elderly are more likely to identify themselves as Jewish, whereas those of mixed nationality are more likely to become aware of their nationality later in life. Antisemitism is also a factor that strengthens the bonds among pure Jews. Pure Jews are more influenced by holiday observances and Jewish foods whereas part Jews discover their Jewish consciousness later and through more abstract means and processes (p. 68). They are also made self aware through negative emotional experiences. There is also a decrease in the influence of the environment in shaping one’s Jewish identity. Ukrainian Jews are more likely to identify with Russian culture than with Ukrainian culture. What is unusual is that the concept of Jewishness among Russian and Ukrainian Jews is “radically different from both historical and contemporary understandings of most Jews in Diaspora and Israel. Judaism is largely irrelevant to Jewishness…” (p. 71).

The article concludes that when it comes to revival of Jewish life in FSU, the definition of what it means to be a Jew challenges the hierarchy of values between what the Western “normative” definition of a “good Jew” is and that one held by the Jews of Russia and Ukraine. There is a duality between a Jewish and another identity. There is also an erosion of Jewish identity. The Russian Jews are more distant from other Diaspora Jews, and they don’t regard Israel as the only place to live in. They don’t place much emphasis on Judaism and practice. Because the definition of Jewish identity for the Jews of former Soviet Union is different than that of Jews in Israel and Diaspora, it may present “problems of mutual recognition and understanding” (p. 74).

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Reading Response: Emigration in the Soviet Union

In the piece entitled “Fear No Evil” By Natan Sharansky, the narrator discusses his struggle with the restrictions and persecutions imposed on him by the Soviet Union for his struggle to help the Jewish nationalist movement and Jews who wanted to emigrate to Israel but they were refused a visa and persecuted for wanting to leave. He was “charged with espionage and treason against the Soviet Union”, and he was sentenced to 9 years of prison and labor camp. The regime of the Soviet Union was very authoritarian punishing those who sought to emigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel. The narrator sought to improve the situation of those who sought to emigrate to Israel and who were forbidden to do so in Soviet Union and then they were singled out, even though it was a violation of their human rights.

The piece starts with a date March, 15, 1977 when the narrator explains how he was abducted by the KGB and he was interrogated in a very harsh way so he would confess to crimes he didn’t commit. He advocated for the right of Jews to leave for Israel and of the dissidents who sought that their human rights would be respected. He delineates episodes of anti-Semitism that occurred since he grew up as Stalin had revived anti-Semitism and his mother was afraid of pogroms. He had to adopt a vigilant attitude in the face of an authoritarian regime that would be suspicious of Jews.  Though he didn’t grow up to have a religious education. He was accepted into the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and he remarks that the acceptance requirements were more challenging for Jews. He says that it was anti-Semitism that made him aware of his own Jewishness, and identity as a Jew. He translates an article about Andrei Sakharon who had formed a Committee for Human Rights and wrote a letter to the Soviet leadership and so the narrator was summoned to respond to the KGB official at the Institute to be interrogated. He mentions the Holocaust and the Six Day War as events that made Jews feel united with each other. In spite of the anti-Israeli propaganda in the Soviet Union, the author notes that there was respect for Israel and the Jews.

The Jews of Russia were beginning to realize that in order for them to achieve their personal freedom, they had to reclaim their historical roots. He comes to the conclusion that the Soviet mentality is that the Soviet system is responsible for controlling the destiny of other peoples and this is their way in which they derive their own authoritarian power while they want people to ascribe to the Soviet mentality in order to maintain “the consciousness of the slave who looks for guidance to the good czar, the leader, the teacher”. The Soviet regime was anti-Israel and anti-Zionism and viewed Israel as a “fascist” state. He relates how he applied for an exit visa to Israel and he was denied, and how many like him where also not allowed to leave Israel and afterwards they were persecuted for applying for their exit visas, they were called ‘refuseniks”. They considered those who applied for exit visas to be “traitors”. Moreover, he started to demonstrate against the unfair policies of the Soviet Union and he made contacts with people who would be able to inform the foreign press about the dire situations that the Jews were subjected to. During this time, the KGB would keep a close watch on him. The narrator and his group kept in touch with other refuseniks and they knew what was happening to them to ensure their safety. They were jailed for their desire to emigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel. The author was put on trial. The proceedings of the trial showed that the evidence against him was fabricated and unreliable. The witness testimony was not accurate and the judge was interfering with the witnesses’ testimony in order to get them to accuse the narrator. There were obvious discrepancies and contradictions of the testimonies in terms of date and place of locations, yet in spite of these ambiguities, the goal of the prosecution was to condemn the narrator rather than grant him a fair trial. The prosecutor makes the case that “Israel….was not a country but an armed camp. The economy lay in ruins, and religious terror was unbearable. The Sabbat was a silent period of morning that stretched for twenty-four hours. Israel required cannon fodder in order to oppress other peoples and conquer new territories, which explained why international Zionism was in league with the Soviet Jewry movement” (p.  217).  He was charged with “aiding capitalist states in conducting hostile activity against the USSR” (p.219). The narrator defends himself by saying that “Our open activity in informing world public opinion has been presented as clandestine and conspirational, and organized and coordinated from abroad”. (p. 219). The narrator talks in his defense about the struggle between the two system that is taking place, the Soviet system and capitalism, and about the “struggle of peoples for their national liberation, for the right to live in accordance with their own national culture and religious traditions, and for the right to live in their own state” (p.218-219). He presents in a clear and objective way the inconsistencies in the accusations that were brought against him, and how this treatment Jews receive is “anti-Semitism in its purest form.”  He was given 13 years in prison. The foreign press covered the event and his brother who was present in the courtroom informed him that he has the support of the foreign press. At the end of the story, the narrator sits in his cell with his cellmate and he weeps over the injustice, symbolic of the fact that the Soviet system tries to quench those who speak against injustice.

In the piece “Congress of Jewish Organizations and Communities in the USSR” by Lukasz Hirszowicz, the focus is on presenting information about Jewish organizations in the Soviet Union.  There were organizations that represented the Soviet Jewry from all aspects of Soviet Jewish life, except for the anti-Zionist organizations who did not attend. The Congress of Jewish Organizations and Communities in the USSR met on December 18-21, 1989 in Moscow. The significance of this is that it portrays the reaction and involvement of the Soviet government to Jewish life in the Soviet Union.

It appears noteworthy that for this gathering the Soviet government granted visas to the foreign visitors who wished to attend this meeting, with the exception of Natan Sharansky, the author of the piece “Fear no evil” who is symbolic of the struggle of the Soviet Jews to obtain the freedom and right to emigrate to Israel. Among the organizations represented there were members of the World Zionist Organization, World Jewish Congress, and officials from the Jewish Autonomous region of Birobidzhan. It was emphasized that this meeting is a continuation of the emigration movement and it has an independent character. They wanted to strengthen a Jewish national movement that would resist anti-Semitism, to help Jews fight for their rights, and to enable emigration in order to unite the Jewish people. They created the Vaad as an umbrella organization that would unite the cultural bodies on a confederative basis. They also discussed the proper remembrance of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. They wanted to organize in order to be able to combat anti-Semitism and the anti-Zionist propaganda. It called for abolishing the practice of the Soviet Unions to deprive the emigrants who were refused entry into Israel of Soviet Citizenship, and that their human rights be respected as according to the Helsinki and Vienna Agreements, and to ease transition of their belongings to those who were to emigrate. In exchange the position of the anti-Zionist organizations was that Zionists and anti-Semites were hand in hand, and that the Jews were settling on Arab territories, and Zionism was equal to racism.  They were aware that in order to maintain Jewish independent activities they would face much opposition from the Soviet government.

The piece entitled “Perestroika and Jewish Cultural Associations in Ukraine” by Vladimir Khanin discusses how the perestroika impacted ethnic revival among the ethnic groups, such as the Jews of Ukraine. The perestroika was an attempt of the Soviet Communists to restructure the Soviet system and which in turn granted some independence, and this stimulated nationalism in the Soviet republics.

The Jews in the Soviet Union sought to gain independence and legalize Jewish organizations. The first official Jewish organizations appeared in the Baltic republics and in Lvov in 1988, where there was strong nationalism. The Vaad (Committee of Jewish Organizations and Communities in the USSR) was established in December 1989. There were trends that supported Zionism and emigration to the land of Israel and trends that supported cultural autonomy and directed at reviving the cultural and public life in the Soviet Union. There was significant emigration at this time. Though these activities were banned before in the early 1970’s and 1980’s, at this point the government offered a path for these activities to be legal under Gorbachev liberalization movement. The communist authorities were also hoping that with this, they would gain control over the “Jewish cultural, historical, and Zionist organizations” (p. 7).

In Ukraine, the Jews as a minority were very significant as they were “one of the key communities” and after Ukrainians and Russians, the Jews were “third in number” (p. 8). The authorities were concerned with the “upsurge of Jewish activity” and they wanted to set in place loyal leaders through which they would be able to monitor these activities. For this reason, the state was trying to use their means to control the indepence of the Jewish organizations. For this, they established Jewish Culture Associations (JCA’s). They founded JCA’s in Lvov and elsewhere, the hope being that like this they would be able to control the activities of the Jews and it would improve the image of the regime at an international scale. Those in charge of JCA’s were supposed to appear traditional, with Yiddish as their mother tongue, with schooling in Russian, Ukrainian, or possible received in Yiddish schools, and they would be loyal to the Soviet system. There were some conflict in terms of leadership that wanted to support at anti-Zionism agenda and supporters of Zionism. There were JCA leaders who regarded emigration as an “unpatriotic step” (p. 21).

Overall, the activities of the JCA’s were significant as they initiated Jewish activities and help establish Jewish ethnic cultural organizations, Jewish newspapers, monuments and ceremonies for remembering the Holocaust, gave lectures on Jewish topics and had Yiddish and Hebrew language courses. They attracted the Jewish intellectuals in Ukraine who were interested in reviving Jewish culture. The reaction of the authorities was to support the JCA’s in order to increase control of Jewish public life through them and to get rid of the other groups. However these Jewish organizations sought to strengthen the Jewish consciousness.

Reading Response: In Private: The Daily Lives of Jewish Women and Families

The piece “In Private: The Daily Lives of Jewish Women and Families, 1933-1938” by Marion Kaplan delineates the reaction of Jewish women in the face of the changing environment of Nazi Germany, which was characterized by restrictions that effected family life and altered the role of women and men. Kaplan points out the ways in which the roles of women changed, the transition that occurred in reversals of gender roles, and how men reacted to this situation.

Kaplan points out that certain values received more emphasis. The milieu of the Jewish family became a refugee in the face of persecutions as the family members sought emotional comfort. The author points out that women interceded for their husbands in the public sphere with state officials. Women also showed greater insight than men in sensing the danger that they were facing in Nazi Germany. The way the Nazi policies affected family life can be analyzed on two planes, at the group level and at the individual level. She points out that in 1941 there was a Harvard study that assessed the attitudes that men and women assumed in the face of the mercurial environment in Germany. Jewish organizations attempted to deal with the restrictions placed on the “Jews as a group”. According to the Harvard study, there was increased emphasis on the importance of the family and friendships, reliance on the self, as well as “the lowering of ambitions, increased planning and action; and a change in life philosophy” (p. 51). The Harvard study found that the perspective of men also shifted to place more emphasis on family life. Friendships among Jews also provided some comfort. However, socially, the Jews had to limit their interactions to the milieu of “their own homes or organizations, staying away from public theaters, and museums, but still, occasionally, frequenting movie houses.” (p. 51). Among the topics discussed there was the “worsening situation for Jews, the emigration of friends and children, and details about visas, foreign lands, and foreign climates “of an existence where they would no longer be frightened to death when the doorbell rang in the mourning, because they would be certain: it is only the milkman!”

Factors that contributed to the shift in gender roles came with the change in status of men. There was increased unemployment so the men would gather with other male friends to comfort each other. They had to be careful because they were being watched by the Gestapo or other informants from among the neighbors. Social life was very difficult during the period between 1933-1938. Wealthier Jews could afford to leave for vacations outside of Germany. The laws that emphasized restrictions directed towards Jews resulted in an increased awareness of one’s identity as a Jew. Religion was also a factor that received more attention than before as it provided comfort. There was increased synagogue attendance. Jews also turned to Zionism and there was increased membership as Jews sought a new homeland.

Another way in which Jews sought to cope with this was emigration. The attitude of men and women towards emigration differed. The expectations of the society towards women were that they should endure and seek ways to cope with this situation. Women were “to prepare less expensive meals, to repair their homes and clothing themselves, and to make do with less help around the house.” (p. 54). Women’s organizations encouraged women to keep their “moral strength to survive” and suggested that when cooking, they should cook vegetarian menus as kosher meat was expensive and hard to obtain, and they should have their daughters help their mothers in the kitchen. In terms of men, they were “expected to pitch in— but only minimally. Despite women’s new responsibilities, the “domestication” of men felt illegitimate to women and men alike” (p. 55). The press advised women to hire young men to help with household choirs since the Nuremberg laws forbade Jews to hire Aryan women below 45 years of age. The Nazi laws were taking a deep psychological burden on Jews. In terms of emigration, women wanted to emigrate while their husbands tended to resist and did not want to leave Germany.

In terms of role reversals, “Jewish women took on new roles as breadwinners, family protectors, and defenders of businesses or practices (…) The Nazis essentially destroyed the patriarchal structure of the Jewish family, leaving a void to be filled by women” (p. 59). Women became the representatives of their husbands in public matters, and often saved them as “it was always assumed that the Nazis would not disrupt gender norms: they would arrest or torture Jewish men but would not harm women” (p. 60). As such, as a result of this, women ended up having more “assertive roles in public” (p. 60).

Jews were also migrating due to the hostility they encountered in villages and smaller towns and so they headed for larger cities were they would have some privacy.  Women had to cope with the “new urban environment: crowded apartments, unskilled jobs, and public constraints, not to mention deteriorating political circumstances”. They also joined social welfare activities in the Jewish community and Jewish women’s organizations who sought to help the newcomers adjust to the new life.

Women were more insightful in interpreting danger signals, and they attempted to convince their husbands to emigrate. Kaplan makes the argument that women were not as attached to their life in Germany as men were because they were not as integrated into the public sphere. Marion believes that women were not as attached to their status in Germany since “their status had always been determined by that of their father or husband anyway” (p. 64). Women picked on warning signals coming from their neighbors and children, servants and they took on these signals seriously. In exchange, men had a different interpretation of events; they were trying to analyze things. It is interesting that “a widespread assumption that women lacked political acumen—stemming from their primary role in the domestic sphere—gave women’s warnings less credibility” (p. 64). Men believed that singling out the Jews was Hitler’s ruse to gain power in Nazi Germany, but once he would have this power, he would stop. There was much confusion in interpreting what the Nazi policies really meant. Marion notes that there was prejudice in interpreting women’s reaction to the Nazi dangers and they were viewed as “hysterical”, they were considered “too emotional in general” and their attempts to convince their husbands to emigrate were being discredited. The ultimate decision to emigrate belonged to their husbands. However, there was a shift in this with the November Pogroms, where “some wives broke all family conventions by taking over the decision making when it became clear that their husbands’ reluctance to flee would result in even worse horrors.” (p. 69). The Nazis wanted the Jews to emigrate between 1935 and 1939 and they regarded this as the “territorial final solution” (p. 70). However, Jews faced very harsh limits in emigrating, such as there were restrictions on immigration and the Nazi government wanted to enrich themselves by placing cumbersome emigration taxes forcing people to sell everything they had to be able to pay these taxes. Moreover, the Jews who were emigrating were obligated to buy foreign currency at rates that were exploiting them. Furthermore, there was much corruption as the Nazi officials as well as those working in foreign consulates demanded bribes. Besides financial exploitation, Jewish women were also sexually exploited by Nazi officials who demanded sexual favors in order to grant them emigration visas. Overall, one quarter of German Jew fled before 1938. 

The Plight of Soviet Jewry after World War II: Reading Selections

         The piece entitled “Soviet Jews as Economic Criminals” from the Journal of the International Commission of Jurists relates that the Jews of Lvov have been there since the thirteenth century. Lvov had been under Polish rule, and it was not under Soviet influence until the end of World War II. There were 30,000 Jews in Lvov and though they did not pose a political threat to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union viewed them as an ideological threat so they were either deported to Russia, killed by the Germans, or evacuated to Poland as the Tehran Conference decided to hand in the city to the Soviet Union.  The Jewish inhabitants of the city of Lvov were attacked in the press in seven articles that criticized the remnant of the Jewish community in Lvov. These articles carried anti-Semitic and biased perspectives. The synagogue was depicted as the site where “anti-Soviet activity” took place and as the “center for illicit currency dealings” where “Jewish speculators from Lvov and foreign towns met and carried on their trade and concluded their transactions” (p. 116).  The leadership of the synagogue was regarded as “speculators”. The ritual slaughterer Kntorovich is attacked for making “religion and its rites the source of his personal income”. He was put on trial and received the death sentence. Moreover, the Jews are accused of carrying out a “black market”. The articles also criticize the fact that Israeli diplomats visited the synagogue and distributed “Israeli propaganda material”. The Rabbi is also sentenced to death along with other members of the synagogue council. In analyzing the proceedings of these trials, it is evident that injustice was done against them. There was no fair trial and the accusations were fabricated.  The Soviet regime condemns those who have relations with people from abroad and regards them as suspicious. The attacks are also directed against the Jews of Moscow who are deemed “a large group of parasites who do not wish to encumber themselves with work useful to society” (p. 119).  The articles report other cases in which Jews are said to “go to any length in order to help their kind” (p. 120). There are other reports were Jews are depicted as being dishonest, thieves, exploiters, wanted to get rich quickly, corrupt, willing to use bribes, immoral, “whose only God is gold”. This anti-Semitic propaganda hides the true facts and relates things only one sided casting the blame on the Jews.  The goal of this is to portray how beneficial communism is and that capitalism is “both evil and less successful” (p. 126).

              “The Jewish National Movement in the Soviet Union: A Profile” by Yossi Goldstein portrays the Jewish national movement that emerged in the Soviet Union after World War II and the reasons for its emergence. An activist desired to leave the Soviet Union to emigrate to Israel and was willing to petition the government in regards for this.  The activists tended to have a better education and a better economic situation than the non-activists. Thought they did not identify with traditional religious values, they were motivated by the recent events that had emerged attacking the existence of the Jewish people, such as the Holocaust, the Six Day war, and the experiences in the Soviet Union, which included anti-Semitic incidents. They protested to be allowed to emigrate to Israel, which was forbidden to them by the regime of the Soviet Union.

              “Jewish Freedom Letters from Russia” are a collection of letters in which Jewish intellectuals were appealing to higher authorities requesting help so they would be able to emigrate to Israel when the Soviet authorities forbid them to do so, and they had no one else to turn to. The Jews of Lithuania appeal to the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party pointing out their fears given the rise of anti-Semitism and reminded to the Party that the 25,000 Jews living in Soviet Lithuania are aware of the mass murders that have been carried out against their tens of thousands of their brethren. The point that the anti-Israeli propaganda that is carried out leads to the rise of anti-Semitism in their midst and they point how Jews face significant restrictions in their daily lives, such as not having access to higher education and jobs, not being able to teach their children Hebrew, being publicly humiliated and oppressed, even Jewish cemeteries being desecrated in Lithuania, something that did not happen not even under the Nazis. Another letter depicts a similar situation in the Soviet Union, where anti-Israel propaganda prevails. Moreover, the Jews of Georgia address a letter to the Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir and to the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations were they delineate their plight and request help to leave to Israel. Boris Kochubiyevsky’s letter points out his plight as a Jew living in the Soviet Union who is harshly punished with 3 years of forced labor for his support of Israel. He lost his job as an engineer and his wife was dismissed from the Pedagogical Institute of the Young Communist League. In his letter, he points out that his relatives were shot by the fascists, and he is forbidden to teach his children Hebrew, to read Jewish newspapers or to attend a Jewish theater. Under the Soviet regime, he was accused like a criminal of “slandering Soviet reality”.

          The excerpts from “Fascism under the Blue Star” from Theodore Freedman’s  “Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union are directed at attacking the ideology of Zionism that the Jewish people, regardless of where they were born and where they live, form one undivided nation. It claims that the ancient Hebrews have disappeared a long time ago, and therefore the “slogan of Zionism” in regards to “the ingathering of the nation from the Diaspora” is unfounded. The argument is that a Jewish nation is being created by the Zionists now in the “national home” they claim, but this did not exist before. They say that the countries in which Jews live have welcomed them like brothers and the Jews have prospered in these locations intellectually and economically, and therefore the Jews belong to these social milieus. It claims that Zionism wants to instill anger in the midst of the other people where the Jews live so as to compel the Jews to leave their countries and come to Israel where a new nation would be built.