HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: School of History - Honors Program

Semester: Yearly

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Jonathan Dekel-Chen

Coordinator Email: jonathan.dekel-chen@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Wednesdays, 9:00 - 10:15

Teaching Staff:
Prof Jonathan Dekel-Chen

Course/Module description:
This is an introductory course for students with no prior knowledge about the study of East European Jewry from its arrival in the region, through the fall of the Russian Empire, the decades of the Soviet Union and util Putin’s Russia today.
Particular attention will be devoted to the huge changes that East European Jews underwent during these years – a period of repeated wars and massive changes in policy, demography and culture.
Part of the course will be devoted to a survey of non-Ashkenazi communities in this huge space.

Course/Module aims:
The goal of this course will be acquisition and greater understanding of the period, as well as an improvement of analytical skills when dealing with scholarly materials.
The course will also allow the students to explore the relationship between historical events and collective memory in the public and political arenas.

The course aims to engage students from diverse academic backgrounds with the history of East European Jewry. The course will encourage critical thinking about this history from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Compare and contrast the representations of historical events in scholarship versus collective memory.

Evaluate long-term trends in scholarship and the reasons for its changes.

Think critically about connections between historical events and the general development of historical interpretations of those events.

Assess the interpretations of historical events arising from memoir literature, oral history and professional historical writing.

Construct original written analyses using a multi-disciplinary approach.

Integrate materials from the assigned readings and research materials, together with material collected in class, to support the original analyses.

Acquire an ability to analyze primary documents from the period.

Attendance requirements(%):
80

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: LECTURE

Course/Module Content:

What is Eastern Europe? Geography, Demography, Politics.

Where did they come from and where did Ashkenazi Jews settle in Eastern Europe.

The History of non-Ashkenazi Communities in the Russian Empire.

Jews in the Eye of the Storm: 1861-1906.

The Autocracy’s “Jewish Question”.

The Jewish Radical Movements in Eastern Europe.

The “Jewish Question” among the Revolutionary Movements in Eastern Europe.

Life and Death during the First World War, Revolutions and Civil War, 1914-1921.

The “Jewish Question” under the Red Banner, 1921-1941.

Non-Ashkenazi Communities and the Soviet Regime.

The Jewish agrarianization project in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe on the Brink of Disaster.

The Second World War and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe – Lesser Known Aspects

What Remained Afterwards? How the Communist regimes dealt with memorialization of the Second World War and the Holocaust.

The “Black Years” of Soviet Jewry, 1946-1953.

The Khrushchev era, 1956-64: “Melting of the Snows” for Soviet Jewry?

The Brezhnev era and the anti-Zionism campaign.

The Arab-Israeli conflict and its impact on Soviet Jewry, 1947-75.

The awakening of the Jewish national movement in the USSR as a global phenomenon.

The “Jewish Question” during the disintegration of the USSR, 1985-91.

The “Jewish Question” after the walls came down in Eastern Europe and the immigration issue.

A new/old diaspora: Soviet Jews on three continents.

Required Reading:
Shaul Stampfer. “Settling Down in Eastern Europe.” In: Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe: Shared and Comparative Histories. Edited by Tobias Grill, pp. 1-20. DeGruyter, 2018.
יעקב רואי.‫ יהודי רוסיה במאה העשרים, כרך ג'. רעננה: האוניברסיטה הפתוחה, 2014. עמ' 86-98.

זאב לוין, "יהודי בוכרה תחת השלטון הרוסי, 1864 – 1917 ", תולדות יהודי רוסיה, כרך א' (תש"ע): 168 – 177.

גולדה אחיעזר, "הקראים בפולין-ליטא עד סוף המאה השבע עשרה", תולדות יהודי רוסיה, כרך א' (תש"ע): 233-257.
מקסים גמל, "הקראים בקיסרות הרוסית", תולדות יהודי רוסיה, כרך ב' (תש"ע): 157 - 168.
DS 135 R9 T64 2010

בוריס טוקן ווולף מוסקוביץ', "עדת הקרימצ'אקים : תולדותיהם, תרבותם ולשונם," פעמים: רבעון לחקר קהילות ישראל במזרח 14 (תשמ"ג): 5 – 31.

ח.נ. ביאליק, "בעיר ההרגה" ו"על השחיטה" בתוך: חיים נחמן ביאליק: השירים. ערך אבנר הולצמן. דביר, 2004.
עמ' 248 – 249, 253 – 262.

Eli Lederhendler, “Did Russian Jewry Exist Prior to 1917?” in Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union, Yaacov Ro’i, ed. pp. 15-27. London: Frank Cass, 1995.

צבי גיטלמן. "מאה שנים של פוליטיקה יהודית במזרח אירופה: מורשת של הבונד והתנועה הציונית." תרבות דמוקרטית 2 (תש"ס): 63 – 78.

מתתיהו מינץ. "מקומה של תנועת הפועלים היהודית בפוליטיזציה של העם היהודי," עיונים בתקומת ישראל 8. באר שבע, 1998. עמ' 253-265.


“Does the Jewish Proletariat Need an ‘Independent Political Party?’” [www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/feb/15.htm]

“The Reaction is Taking to Arms” [www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/jun/04.htm]

י. ברזילי. "יעקב סברדלוב ומהפכת אוקטובר." העבר ט"ו (תשכ"ח): 211-216.

איזאק בבל. כל הכתבים, הסיפורים. כרך 1. תרגמו וערכו חמוטל בר-יוסף ואפרים זיכר. ירושלים: כרמל, 2008. (הפרקים "גדליה", "הרבי", ו"בן הרבי", עמ' 145 – 147, 152 – 154, 240 - 241)

Abram Bragin and Mikhail Kol’stov, Sud’ba evreiskikh mass v Sovetskom Soiuze. Moscow, 1924.


Michael Zand, “Notes on the Culture of the Non-Ashkenazi Jewish Communities Under Soviet Rule.” In Jewish Culture and Identity in the Soviet Union, ed., Yaacov Ro’i, et al. ed. pp. pp. 378-444. New York University, 1991.

זאב לוין. מפריחי הערבה הרעבה: השלטון הקומוניסטי ויהודי אוזבקיסטן, 1917 - 1939. ירושלים: מכון בן צבי, תשע"ב.

J. Dekel-Chen. “Jewish Agricultural Settlement in the Interwar Period: A Balance Sheet.” In: Revolution, Repression, and Revival: The Soviet Jewish Experience. Edited by Zvi Gitelman and Yaacov Ro’i, pp. 69-90. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

J. Dekel-Chen. “‘New’ Jews of the Agricultural Kind: A Case of Soviet Interwar Propaganda,” Russian Review 66 (July 2007): 424-50.

יצחק ארד. תולדות השואה בבריה"מ והשטחים המסופחים. כרך 2. ירושלים: יד ושם, 2004. עמ' 1005 - 1020.

David B. Green “This Day in Jewish History: Nazis Declare – Karaites are not Racially Jewish.” Haaretz, January 5, 2015.

Mordechai Altshuler. “Evacuation and Escape During the Course of the Soviet-German War.” Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust 28, n. 2 (2014): 57–73.

קיריל פפרמן. "המאבק היהודי המזוין במלחמת העולם השנייה – הערכה מחדש." מורשת ישראל 21, מס' 1 (2023): 31 – 52.


יצחק ארד. "השואה בהיסטוריוגרפיה הסובייטית." ב: השואה בהיסטוריוגרפיה, ערך ישראל גוטמן ואחרים. יד-ושם, 1983. עמ 139-165.

Mikhail I. Tyaglyy. “The Role of Antisemitic Doctrine in German Propaganda in the Crimea, 1941–1944.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 18, n. 3 (Winter 2004): 421–459.
Yaacov Ro’i, “The Religious Life of the Bukharan Jewish Community in Soviet Central Asia after World War II.” In: Ingeborg Baldauf, Moshe Gammer and Thomas Loy, eds. Bukharan Jews in the 20th Century, pp. 57-75. Weisbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2008.

Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov. Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Yale, 2001. pp. 65-109.
George Reavey, ed. The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko. N.Y., 1967. pp. 144-149.

יעקב רואי. "יהודי בריה"מ, 1944 – 1964." מתוך: תולדות יהודי רוסיה, ממהפכות 1917 עד נפילת ברית המועצות, ערך מיכאל בייזר, עמ' 221 – 236. ירושלים: מרכז זלמן שזר, 2015.

Jonathan Frankel. “The Soviet Regime and Anti-Zionism: An Analysis.” In Jewish Culture and Identity in the Soviet Union, ed., Yaacov Ro’i, et al. ed. pp. 310-354. New York University, 1991.
Benjamin Pinkus. The Soviet Government and the Jews. pp. 42-45, 253-256

Simeon Charny, “Judaism in the Jewish Movement,” in: The Jewish Movement in the Soviet Union, pp. 304-333.

Mark Tolts, “The Demographic Profile of the Bukharan Jews in the Late Soviet Period.” In: Bukharan Jews in the 20th Century, pp. 77-90.

Mark Tolts. “Post-Soviet Jewish Demographic Dynamics: An Analysis of Recent Data.” In: Jewish Population and Identity, Studies of Jews in Society, edited by Sergio DellaPergola and Uzi Rebhun, pp. 213-229. Springer, 2018.
לריסה רמניק, "דור 1.5 של עולי חבר העמים בישראל : בין אינטגרציה לשימור חברתי ותרבותי," משורשי העבר לניצני המחר (2012):עמ' 199-217.
Alanna Cooper, Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism. Indiana University Press, 2012, pp. 203-229.

חן ברם," בין תרבות למורשת: יהודי הקווקאז ומקומה של תרבותם ושפתם בישראל," ספר היהודים ההרריים בין עבר להווה (2011): עמ' 128-145.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2017/03/the-prospect-for-russias-jews/

Additional Reading Material:

Grading Scheme :
Essay / Project / Final Assignment / Home Exam / Referat 50 %
Active Participation / Team Assignment 30 %
Mid-terms exams 20 %

Additional information: