American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924-1951


Book Description

ENG: The American Jewish Communist movement played a major role in the politics of Jewish communities in cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, as well as many other centers, between the 1920s and the 1950s. Making extensive use of Yiddish-language books, newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, and other materials, Dreams of Nationhood traces the ideological and material support provided to the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan in the far east of the Soviet Union by two American Jewish Communist-led organizations, the ICOR and the American Birobidjan Committee. By providing a detailed historical examination of the political work of these two groups, the book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of 20th century Jewish life in the United States. RUS: Еврейское коммунистическое движение в период с 1920-х по 1950-е годы играло важную роль в политике еврейских общин в таких американских городах, как Бостон, Чикаго, Лос-Анджелес, Нью-Йорк, Филадельфия. Опираясь на книги, газеты, периодические издания, памфлеты и другие материалы на идише, Генри Сребрник рассказывает о той идеологической и материальной поддержке, которую Еврейской автономной области Биробиджана оказывали две американские организации -- Организация еврейской колонизации в России и Американский Биробиджанский комитет.




Dreams of Nationhood


Book Description

The American Jewish Communist movement played a major role in the politics of Jewish communities in cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, as well as in many other centers, between the 1920s and the 1950s. Making extensive use of Yiddish-language books, newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, and other materials, Dreams of Nationhood traces the ideological and material support provided to the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan, located in the far east of the Soviet Union, by two American Jewish Communist-led organizations, the ICOR and the American Birobidzhan Committee. By providing a detailed historical examination of the political work of these two groups, the book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of twentieth-century Jewish life in the United States.







A Vanished Ideology


Book Description

While a number of books and articles have been written about Jewish Communist organizations and their supporters in particular countries, an academic treatment of the overall movement per se has yet to be published. A Vanished Ideology examines the politics of the Jewish Communist movement in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, South Africa, and the United States. Though officially part of the larger world Communist movement, it developed its own specific ideology, which was infused as much by Jewish sources as it was inspired by the Bolshevik revolution. The Yiddish language groups, especially, were interconnected through international movements such as the World Jewish Cultural Union. Jewish Communists were able to communicate, disseminate information, and debate issues such as Jewish nationality and statehood independently of other Communists, and Jewish Communism remained a significant force in Jewish life until the mid-1950s.




Jewish Radicals


Book Description

Winner of the 2013 New York Book Show Award in Scholarly/Professional Cover Design Jewish Radicals explores the intertwined histories of Jews and the American Left through a rich variety of primary documents. Written in English and Yiddish, these documents reflect the entire spectrum of radical opinion, from anarchism to social democracy, Communism to socialist-Zionism. Rank-and-file activists, organizational leaders, intellectuals, and commentators, from within the Jewish community and beyond, all have their say. Their stories crisscross the Atlantic, spanning from the United States to Europe and British-ruled Palestine. The documents illuminate in fascinating detail the efforts of large numbers of Jews to refashion themselves as they confronted major problems of the twentieth century: poverty, anti-semitism, the meaning of American national identity, war, and totalitarianism. In this comprehensive sourcebook, the story of Jewish radicals over seven decades is told for the first time in their own words.




Jewish Lives Under Communism


Book Description

This volume provides new, groundbreaking views of Jewish life in the pro-Soviet bloc from the end of the Second World War until the collapse of Communism in late 1989 by recovering and analyzing the agency of Jews and their creativity in Communist Europe after the Holocaust.




The History of Birobidzhan


Book Description

Gennady Estraikh's book explores the birth, growth, demise and afterlife of the Birobidzhan Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR). The History of Birobidzhan looks at how the shtetl was widely used in Soviet propaganda as a perfect solution to the 'Jewish question', arguing that in reality, while being demographically and culturally insignificant, the JAR played a key, and essentially detrimental, role in determining Jewish rights and entitlements in the Soviet world. Estraikh brings together a broad range of Russian and Yiddish sources, including archival materials, newspaper articles, travelogues, memoirs, belles-letters, and scholarly publications, as he describes and analyses the project and its realization not in isolation, but rather in the context of developments in both domestic and international life. As well as offering an assessment of the Birobidzhan project in the contexts of Soviet and Jewish history, the book also focuses on the contemporary 'Jewish' role of the region which now has only a few thousand Jewish occupants amongst its residents.




Triumph Over Tyranny


Book Description

The history of the Jewish resistance in Russia and the government backed anti-Semitism that tried to obliterate every form of Jewish self-awareness. Traces the success of the heroes of this movement, people like Anatoly Sharansky, who became living legends in Russia, Israel, the United States and the world.




Lenin's Jewish Question


Book Description

The grandson of a Jew, whose Jewish relatives converted to Christianity, whose allies played down his Jewish origins just as fervently as his enemies played them up, V.I. Lenin makes for a fascinating case study of the many complexities associated with 'Jewish question' in Russia.




The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust


Book Description

This book explores regional variations in civilians' attitudes toward the Jewish population in Romania and the occupied Soviet Union.