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ABSTRACT
This article sheds light on the clandestine maintenance of Jewish traditions in the Soviet Union after World War II, focusing on Ashkenazi Jews in the European part of the country. It draws on post-secular theory to shed a new light on traditional Jewish practices in the atheist Soviet Union. The central argument is that Jewish traditions persisted in the post-war period (despite surging antisemitic campaigns) but were confined to private and domestic spaces. Three central characteristics of this tradition were: its relegation to the private sphere of Jewish households; its main expression through cooking Jewish dishes in kitchens dominated by women; and the ambivalent character of the clandestine Jewish practices in the ‘“double life’” of Soviet Jews.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Prof. Larissa Remennick (Bar Ilan University) for her careful reading of the earlier drafts of this article and helpful comments. Ana Prashizky, Western Galilee College, Israel.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Valdman and Prashizky, “Affinity to Jewish Tradition.”
2 Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence.
3 Remennick, Russian Jews on Three Continents.
4 Valdman, “Israelis and Soviet Jews.”
5 Ro’i, “Move from Russia/Soviet Union to Israel.”
6 Rapoport and Lomsky-Feder, “ ‘Intelligentsia’ as an Ethnic Habitus.”
7 Grinberg, The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf.
8 Kushkova, “From a shtetl house.”
9 Kaspina, “Folk Judaism.”
10 Altshuler, Judaism in the Soviet Vise: Between Religion and Jewish Identity in the Soviet Union, 1941-1964.
11 Gorski et al, The Post-Secular in Question.
12 Uzlaner, “The Soviet Model of Secularization”.
13 Stepanova, “Soviet Atheism in the Context of Multiple Modernities.”
14 Casanova, Public Religions.
15 Luehrmann, Secularism Soviet Style.
16 Shishkov, “Some Aspects of De-Secularization in Post-Soviet Russia.”
17 Tsyplakov and Tsyplakova, “Folk Culture and Religious Customs in the Soviet Secularization Period.”
18 Shliktha, “From Tradition to Modernity: Eastern Orthodox Rituals and Holidays under Antireligious Struggle
Conditions (1950-1960).”
19 Lebina, Soviet Everyday Life.
20 Shenhav, “Invitation to a Post-Secular Outline”; Neeman, “Tel Aviv Prayer”; Yadgar, “Post-Secular Look at Tradition”; and Ruah-Midbar, “A Channeler, Healer and Shaman.”
21 Yadgar, “Post-Secular Look at Tradition”; Leon and Shoham, “Belonging Without Commitment.”
22 Shils, Tradition.
23 McGuire, “Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life.”
24 Leon and Shoham, “Belonging Without Commitment.”
25 Yadgar, “Post-Secular Look at Tradition.”
26 Strauss and Corbin, “Grounded Theory Methodology.”
27 Lebina, Soviet Everyday Life.
28 Shishkov, “Some Aspects of De-Secularization in Post-Soviet Russia.”
29 Nakhimovsky, “Public and private.”
30 Veidlinger, In the Shadow.
31 Zeltser, Jews of the Soviet Provinces.
32 Kushkova, “From a Shtetl House.”
33 Turkina and Turkin, “Soviet ‘Communal Apartments’”; Gerasimova, “Housing in the Soviet City.”
34 Nakhimovsky, “Public and private”; Veidlinger, In the Shadow.
35 Zeltser, Jews of the Soviet Provinces; Kushkova, “From a Shtetl House.”
36 Shternshis, Soviet and Kosher.
37 Yurchak, Everything was Forever.
38 Kushkova, “From a shtetl house,” 19.
39 Shternshis, When Sonia Met Boris
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Anna Prashizky
Anna Prashizky is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Western Galilee College, Acre, Israel. She immigrated from FSU to Israel in 1991. Her research interests include sociology of immigration and anthropology of Judaism. Her recent research focus has been on so-called generation 1.5 of russian speaking Israelis, their social identity and encounters with Mizrahi Jews in frame of Israeli periphery.Her articles have been published in broad range of international scientific papers.