1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910823898903321

Autore

Goluboff Sascha L

Titolo

Jewish Russians : upheavals in a Moscow synagogue / / Sascha L. Goluboff

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2003

ISBN

1-283-89055-0

0-8122-0203-1

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (219 p.)

Disciplina

296/.0947/3109049

Soggetti

Synagogues - Russia (Federation) - Moscow - History - 20th century

Jews - Russia (Federation) - Moscow - History - 20th century

Jews, Georgian (South Caucasian) - Russia (Federation) - Moscow - Social conditions - 20th century

Jews, Bukharan - Russia (Federation) - Moscow - Social conditions - 20th century

Mountain Jews - Russia (Federation) - Moscow - Social conditions - 20th century

Moscow (Russia) Ethnic relations

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [191]-199) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Fistfights at Morning Services -- Chapter 2. Georgian Meatballs and Russian Kolbasa -- Chapter 3. Renovating the Small Hall -- Chapter 4. The Savage in the Jew -- Chapter 5. The Madman and His Mission to Unite the Sephardim -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Personae -- Glossary -- Works Cited -- Index -- Acknowledgments

Sommario/riassunto

The prevalence of anti-Semitism in Russia is well known, but the issue of race within the Jewish community has rarely been discussed explicitly. Combining ethnography with archival research, Jewish Russians: Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue documents the changing face of the historically dominant Russian Jewish community in the mid-1990s. Sascha Goluboff focuses on a Moscow synagogue, now comprising individuals from radically different cultures and backgrounds, as a nexus from which to explore issues of identity



creation and negotiation. Following the rapid rise of this transnational congregation-headed by a Western rabbi and consisting of Jews from Georgia and the mountains of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, along with Bukharan Jews from Central Asia-she evaluates the process that created this diverse gathering and offers an intimate sense of individual interactions in the context of the synagogue's congregation.Challenging earlier research claims that Russian and Jewish identities are mutually exclusive, Goluboff illustrates how post-Soviet Jews use Russian and Jewish ethnic labels and racial categories to describe themselves. Jews at the synagogue were constantly engaged in often contradictory but always culturally meaningful processes of identity formation. Ambivalent about emerging class distinctions, Georgian, Russian, Mountain, and Bukharan Jews evaluated one another based on each group's supposed success or failure in the new market economy. Goluboff argues that post-Soviet Jewry is based on perceived racial, class, and ethnic differences as they emerge within discourses of belonging to the Jewish people and the new Russian nation.