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Trends in Judaism in the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Avraham Greenbaum
Avraham Greenbaum*
Affiliation:
University of Haifa (Israel)
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Abstract

The history of Judaism in the Soviet Union is not a happy one. The Soviet Union, in a policy reminiscent of the premodern age, has persecuted the Jewish religion and not—with the exception of the 1948-53 period—Jews as persons. This does not mean that there was not discrimination. Anti-Jewish discrimination began about 1944 and presumably still continues in spite of Gorbachev's reported attempts to ease it. But we see no clear signs that the purges of the thirties were directed at Jewish party members as such. Recent research also does not credit the once common belief that the liquidation of the “Evsektsiia” (Jewish sections of the Communist party) in 1930 was an anti-Jewish act.

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Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Fall 1988, pp. 191 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe 

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References

Notes

1. This impression is given by Schwarz, Solomon, The Jews in the Soviet Union (Syracuse, 1951), p. 103. For an opposite view see Mordechai Altshuler, ha-Yevsektsiia bi-Berit ha-Mo'atsot [The Evsektsiia in the Soviet Union] (1918-1930) (Tel-Aviv, 1980), p.263; and compare Zvi Y. Gitelman, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 476.Google Scholar

2. On Homel see Altshuler, , “The Rabbi of Homel's Trial in 1922,” Michael 6 (1980), English section, pp. 10–11. The articles in Emes appeared inter alia 2 October 1921 (about Minsk and Smolensk), 13 November 1921 (Radomysl), 25 December 1921 (Ukraine generally), 2 February 1922 (Kremenchug). In all these articles there are complaints about Communist indolence in the face of illegal religious activity. See also A. Yodfat, “ha-Dat ha-Yehudit be-Rusiya bashanim ha-rishonot shel ha-mishtar ha-Sovyeti” [The Jewish Religion in Russia in the First Years of the Soviet Regime], he-'Avar, 19 (1972), pp. 100-106.Google Scholar

3. On the most famous such trial, held 1921 in Vitebsk, see Gershuni, A. A., Yahadut be-Rusiya ha-sovyetit [Judaism in Soviet Russia], (Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 37–44; and the “Evsektsiia” report: A. Leyb et al., Der mishpet ibern kheyder [The Trial of the Heder], (Vitebsk, 1922). On the Homel “Heder” trial see Altshuler, op. cit. pp. 14-17. See also more generally Gitelman, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics, pp. 299-301.Google Scholar

4. The decree, dated 23 January 1918, is reproduced in an English version in: Szczesniak, B., ed., The Russian Revolution and Religion (Notre Dame, 1959), pp. 34–35. It forbids religious instruction in private schools as well as state schools, and has been officially interpreted to mean that minors less than eighteen may not be taught religion in groups of more than three.Google Scholar

5. Thus, Emer reports (4 February 1922) that in small places the “Heder” cannot be closed until alternative schools are available.Google Scholar

6. On the “Evsektsiia” see the books by Altshuler and Gitelman (note 1 above) which grew out of doctoral dissertations. The present writer has discussed the problem of the Party's “national” sections in his “Soviet Nationality Policy and the Problem of the ‘Fluid’ Nationalities”, Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe, 1928-1945, ed. Vago, B. and Mosse, G.L. (New York: Wiley, 1974), pp. 257–269.Google Scholar

7. Katz, Dov, Tenu'at ha-Musar [The “Musar” Movement], vol. 4 (Tel-Aviv, 1963), pp. 228–229.Google Scholar

8. Gershuni, , op. cit. pp. 143–153.Google Scholar

9. See Gitelman, , op. cit. p. 314, for figures.Google Scholar

10. For Example: Alfarbandishe baratung fun die Yidishe sektsyes… Dekabr 1926 [All-Union Conference of the Jewish Sections… December 1926] (Moscow, 1927), p. 151.Google Scholar

11. A bibliography of them is included in: Shmeruk, Kh., ed., Pirsumin Yehudiyim bi-Berit ha-Mo'atsot [Jewish Publications in the Soviet Union] (Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 17–25; based in part on a bibliography of Soviet Hebrew imprints sent anonymously to Palestine by B. [=Shaul Borovoi] and published in the Jesualem bibliographic journal Kiryat sefer, 5 (1928/29), pp. 250-254.Google Scholar

12. A partial list can be found in the collection: Harkavi, Z. and Shauli, A., eds., Shomre ha-gahelet [The Guardians of the Embers] (Jerusalem, 1966), pp. 10–12.Google Scholar

13. See the report by the participant Peli [=Shlomo Yosef Zevin] in ha-'Olam, 10 December 1926, pp. 964-965; also Sh. Shinderman, “Korostin”, Ylkut Vohlin, vol. 2, sect. 9 (1948), pp. 17-19.Google Scholar

14. Yagdil tora, eds. Zevin, S. Y. and Abramsky, Y. It was printed in Bobruisk and forced to close after two issues.Google Scholar

15. Reported by the former Kharkov Rabbi E. A. Mileikowsky, who managed to emigrate to Palestine in 1928, in his Devar Eliyahu [The Word of Elijah] (Tel-Aviv, 1930), p. 2.Google Scholar

16. The amended text can be found in the collection of Soviet religious legislation and administrative regulations: Zakonodatel'stvo o religioznykh kul'takh [Legislation on Religious Cults] (New York, 1981), pp. 10-24; excerpts in the present writer's translation have been appended to this article. For an analysis of the 1975 changes see Paul D. Steeves, “Amendment of Soviet Law on Religious Groups”, Journal of Church and State, 19 (1977), 37-52.Google Scholar

17. On the arrest and execution of the Moscow Rabbi Shmarya Leib Medalia in 1938, see Bemjamin Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews, 1948-1967, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 309; see also A. Yodfat, “Ma'amad ha-dat ha-Yehudit bi-Berit ha-Mo'atsot veha-milhama bah bi-shenot ha-sheloshim” [The Status of the Jewish Religion in the Soviet Union and the War against it in the Thirties], Behinot, 2/3 (1972, p. 46.Google Scholar

18. Levin, Dov, “Hofesh dati mugbal ve-'al tenai” [Limited and Conditional Religious Freedom], Sinai, 79 (1976), p. 114f. The relative immunity of rabbis in the newly annexed areas—all of which were soon overrun by the Nazis—is also borne out by this writer's biographic file of Soviet rabbis. For the Slobodka “Yeshiva,” see E. Oshry, Hurbn Lite [The Destruction of Lithuania] (New York, 1951, p. 35.Google Scholar

19. Grossman, Moshe, In the Enchanted Land, (Tel-Aviv, 1960/61), p. 224; Hayim Shakhnovitz, Tosfot Hayim [Addition to Life], vol. 1 (New York, 1955) (bibliographical introduction), both mention a secret “Yeshiva” in Samarkand. Rabbi Shakhnovitz claims to have founded it (Samarkand's first “Yeshiva” ever) during his wartime wanderings in Soviet Asia.Google Scholar

20. Redlich, Shimon, Propaganda and Nationalism in Wartime Russia: The Jewish Antifascist Committee in the USSR, 1941-1945, n.p., Eastern European Monographs, no. 108, p. 51.Google Scholar

21. The impression that the “Yeshiva” was inactive during those years is borne out by the contemporary surveys of the Soviet Jewish scene, and was reported to me by Iljia (Elijahu) Essas, who studied briefly at the “Yeshiva” in 1972. Until his emigration in 1986, Essas was the best known of the younger Jewish religious leaders in Moscow.Google Scholar

22. Schechtman, Joseph B., Star in Eclipse New York, 1961), pp. 141–143, gives a list of synagogues supposedly closed in 1959. Cities shown include Bobruisk in Belorussia, Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, Orenburg in the RSFSR, Tashkent and Samarkand in Uzbekistan, and many smaller places. However, in the larger cities one synagogue was usually left. A. Eliav, Ben ha-patish veha-magal [Between Hammer and Sickle] (Tel-Aviv, 1966), p. 53, reports that one of Chernovit's two synagogues was closed in 1962.Google Scholar

23. The only exception seems to have been Israel Shvartsblat, for a time rabbi in Odessa (d. 1975), who, according to Essas, was ordained previously in Lithuania between the wars.Google Scholar

24. Known to me are Adolf (Avraham) Shaevich, rabbi in Moscow; Efim (Hayim) Levitis, rabbi in Leningrad; and Menahem Nidel, rabbi in Riga. Shaevich and Levitis studied at the Moscow “Yeshiva” before going to Budapest.Google Scholar

25. See the interview with Shaevich in the Jerusalem Post Magazine, 15 March 1988, pp. 12, 15.Google Scholar

26. Rothenberg, J., Synagogues in the Soviet Union, Waltham, 1966 (pamphlet published by Brandeis University); M. Namir, Shelihut be-Moskva [Mission to Moscow] (Tel-Aviv): Am Oved, 1971, pp. 385-386; unpublished list compiled by Semion Kraiz, Haifa.Google Scholar

27. Kharchev, K., Chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs, mentioned “about 110” (Jerusalem Post, 30 October 1986, p. 4); another official of the same organization, in an interesting if self-serving article on the decline of Judaism in the USSR, gave the number 90 (I. Shapiro, “Iudaizm v SSSR” [Judaism in the USSR], Nauka i religiia, 1980:9, 38-39, translated in Soviet Jewish Affairs, 11, no. 2 (1981), 62-64. Shimon Iantovskii, a Soviet Jew who visited numerous cities and towns to see what was left of Jewish life and organized an exhibition on the subject, told journalists that 130 Jewish communities had organized prayer in some form (Jerusalem Post, 28 July 1987, p. 5); see also his pseudonymous travelogue: Israel Taiat, Sinagoga: razgromlennaia, no nepokorennaia [The Synagogue: Battered but Unconquered] (Jerusalem: Sifriyat Aliya, 1987).Google Scholar

28. See especially Rothenberg's pamphlet (note 26) and Shapiro's article (note 27).Google Scholar

29. For example, Rothenberg, J., The Jewish Religion in the Soviet Union (New York: Ktav, 1971); E. Mikhlin, ha-Gahelet [The Embers] (Jerusalem-Shamir, 1986).Google Scholar

30. Ma'ariv, 22 May 1987, sec. 2, p. 8, carried a report that 5,000 Pentateuchs sent from New York had arrived, and an equal number of prayer books were on the way. A 1977 shipment of 10,000 Pentateuchs is reported in American Jewish Year Book (1979), p. 86. Shaevich (see note 25 above) reported that the proceeds from the sale of the Pentateuchs were being used to construct a new ritual bath in Moscow.Google Scholar

31. Reported in the journal ‘Emda, no. 17 (JUne 1987), 7.Google Scholar

32. Kraiz, S., “ha-Hazara la-dat be-kerev Yehude Berit ha-Mo'atsot” [The Return to Religion Among the Jews of the Soviet Union], Gesher, no. 112 (Summer 1985), 82–88.Google Scholar

33. Leibler, Isi J., “The Future of the Soviet Jewry Movement”, Midstream, 34:2 (February-March 1988), 6–10.Google Scholar

34. “Judaism in Soviet Russia”, Minority Problems in Eastern Europe between the World Wars, with Emphasis on the Jewish Minority, ed. Greenbaum, A., Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Institute for Advanced Studies, 1988, pp. 134–138.Google Scholar