Now back in print in a new edition! A Century of Ambivalence The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present Second, Expanded Edition Zvi Gitelman
A richly illustrated survey of the Jewish historical experience in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the post-Soviet era.
"Anyone with even a passing interest in the history of Russian Jewry will want to own this splendid... book." ―Janet Hadda, Los Angeles Times
"... a badly needed historical perspective on Soviet Jewry.... [Gitelman] is evenhanded in his treatment of various periods and themes, as well as in his overall evaluation of the Soviet Jewish experience.... A Century of Ambivalence is illuminated by an extraordinary collection of photographs that vividly reflect the hopes, triumphs and agonies of Russian Jewish life." ―David E. Fishman, Hadassah Magazine 
"Wonderful pictures of famous personalities, unknown villagers, small hamlets, markets and communal structures combine with the text to create an uplifting [book] for a broad and general audience." ―Alexander Orbach, Slavic Review
"Gitelman’s text provides an important commentary and careful historic explanation.... His portrayal of the promise and disillusionment, hope and despair, intellectual restlessness succeeded by swift repression enlarges the reader’s understanding of the dynamic forces behind some of the most important movements in contemporary Jewish life." ―Jane S. Gerber, Bergen Jewish News
"... a lucid and reasonably objective popular history that expertly threads its way through the dizzying reversals of the Russian Jewish experience." ―Village Voice
A century ago the Russian Empire contained the largest Jewish community in the world, numbering about five million people. Today, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union has dwindled to half a million, but remains probably the world’s third largest Jewish community. In the intervening century the Jews of that area have been at the center of some of the most dramatic events of modern history―two world wars, revolutions, pogroms, political liberation, repression, and the collapse of the USSR. They have gone through tumultuous upward and downward economic and social mobility and experienced great enthusiasms and profound disappointments. In startling photographs from the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and with a lively and lucid narrative, A Century of Ambivalence traces the historical experience of Jews in Russia from a period of creativity and repression in the second half of the 19th century through the paradoxes posed by the post-Soviet era. This redesigned edition, which includes more than 200 photographs and two substantial new chapters on the fate of Jews and Judaism in the former Soviet Union, is ideal for general readers and classroom use.
Zvi Gitelman is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He is author of Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917–1930 and editor of Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR (Indiana University Press). 
Published in association with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Contents Introduction Creativity versus Repression: The Jews in Russia, 1881–1917 Revolution and the Ambiguities of Liberation Reaching for Utopia: Building Socialism and a New Jewish Culture The Holocaust The Black Years and the Gray, 1948–1967 Soviet Jews, 1967–1987: To Reform, Conform, or Leave? The "Other" Jews of the Former USSR: Georgian, Central Asian, and Mountain Jews The Post-Soviet Era: Winding Down or Starting Up Again? The Paradoxes of Post-Soviet Jewry

A Century of Ambivalence, Second Expanded Edition: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present

History

Gitelman, Zvi

Russia

Indiana University Press

A century ago the Russian Empire contained the largest Jewish community in the world, numbering about five million people. Today, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union has dwindled to half a million, but remains probably the world's third largest Jewish community. In the intervening century the Jews of that area have been at the center of some of the most dramatic events of modern history -- two world wars, revolutions, pogroms, political liberation, repression, and the collapse of the USSR. They have gone through tumultuous upward and downward economic and social mobility and experienced great enthusiasms and profound disappointments. In startling photographs from the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and with a lively and lucid narrative, A Century of Ambivalence traces the historical experience of Jews in Russia from a period of creativity and repression in the second half of the 19th century through the paradoxes posed by the post-Soviet era. This redesigned edition, which includes more than 200 photographs and two substantial new chapters on the fate of Jews and Judaism in the former Soviet Union, is ideal for general readers and classroom use.

A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Presentsecond, Expanded Edition

A journey into a time of astounding innovation on the stage Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet Jewish theaters became catalysts for modernist experimentation. Working with avant-garde playwrights, actors, and producers in a new political environment, artists such as Marc Chagall, Natan Altman, Robert Falk, and Aleksandr Tyshler combined Russian folk art with elements of Cubo-Futurism and Constructivism into a bold new style. This collaboration gave rise to extraordinary productions with highly original stage designs that redefined the concept of theater itself.
From the Jewish mythical and folkloric plays produced at Habima to the daring, expressionistic Yiddish dramas presented at the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (GOSET), this beautifully illustrated book chronicles the flourishing of Soviet Jewish theater in the 1920s and 1930s. Spanning such topics as Jewish culture and history in the Soviet Union, the volume includes stunning reproductions of Chagall’s celebrated theater murals; fascinating archival materials such as posters, prints, and playbills; designs for costumes and sets; and many other breathtaking works.

Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater

Arts & Photography

Harshav, Benjamin

Veidlinger, Jeffrey

Goodman, Susan Tumarkin

Ivanov, Vladislav

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

Robert Weinberg and Bradley Berman's carefully documented and extensively illustrated book explores the Soviet government's failed experiment to create a socialist Jewish homeland. In 1934 an area popularly known as Birobidzhan, a sparsely populated region along the Sino-Soviet border some five thousand miles east of Moscow, was designated the national homeland of Soviet Jewry. Establishing the Jewish Autonomous Region was part of the Kremlin's plan to create an enclave where secular Jewish culture rooted in Yiddish and socialism could serve as an alternative to Palestine. The Kremlin also considered the region a solution to various perceived problems besetting Soviet Jews. Birobidzhan still exists today, but despite its continued official status Jews are a small minority of the inhabitants of the region. Drawing upon documents from archives in Moscow and Birobidzhan, as well as photograph collections never seen outside Birobidzhan, Weinberg's story of the Soviet Zion sheds new light on a host of important historical and contemporary issues regarding Jewish identity, community, and culture. Given the persistence of the "Jewish question" in Russia, the history of Birobidzhan provides an unusual point of entry into examining the fate of Soviet Jewry under communist rule.

Stalin's Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland: An Illustrated History, 1928–1996

Weinberg, Robert

Berman, Bradley

Europe

University of California Press

In order to "Bolshevize" the Jewish population, the Soviets created within the Party a number of special Jewish Sections. Charged with the task of integrating the largely hostile or indifferent Jews into the new state the Sections' programs are, in effect, a case study of the modernization and secularization of an ethnic and religious minority. Zvi Gitelman's analysis of the Sections during the first decade of Soviet rule examines the nature of the challenge that modernization posed, the crises it created, and the responses it evoked.Originally published in 1972.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 (Princeton Legacy Library)

Princeton University Press

In order to "Bolshevize" the Jewish population, the Soviets created within the Party a number of special Jewish Sections. Charged with the task of integrating the largely hostile or indifferent Jews into the new state the Sections' programs are, in effect, a case study of the modernization and secularization of an ethnic and religious minority. Zvi Gitelman's analysis of the Sections during the first decade of Soviet rule examines the nature of the challenge that modernization posed, the crises it created, and the responses it evoked.
Originally published in 1972.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A popular history of Soviet Jewry is complemented by a photographic survey of Soviet Jewish life

A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present

Schocken

Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine: An Uncertain Ethnicity

Before the USSR collapsed, ethnic identities were imposed by the state. 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. 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, post-Communist Jews, especially the young, are transforming religious-based practices into ethnic traditions and increasingly manifesting their Jewishness in public.

Religion & Spirituality

Cambridge University Press

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Books by Gitelman, Zvi

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gitelman, Zvi. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Century of Ambivalence, Second Expanded Edition: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present

A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Presentsecond, Expanded Edition

Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater

Stalin's Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland: An Illustrated History, 1928–1996

Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 (Princeton Legacy Library)

Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 (Princeton Legacy Library)

Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 (Princeton Legacy Library)

A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present

Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine: An Uncertain Ethnicity

Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine: An Uncertain Ethnicity