Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union after the Second World War

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

The panel will discuss state and public anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union after the Second World War and analyze its roots and forms of expressions. The panel will examine Jewish responses and resistance to anti-Semitism. It explains why the level of anti-Semitism was different in various Soviet republics.
Wendy Z. Goldman’s paper “In the Wake of the Holocaust: Soviet Jewish Responses to Anti-Semitism” explores the range of responses among ordinary people to popular and state sponsored anti-Semitism, from physical violence to active protest to communal forms of reorganization and rebuilding. Using both state documents and oral histories, it looks at Jewish reactions to both new discriminatory policies and popular anti-Semitism amid the trauma of overwhelming loss.
Victoria Khiterer’s paper “How Kyiv Became the Capital of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union” analyzes the transformation of Kyiv from one of two centers of Jewish Soviet culture in the interwar period into the city with the strongest level of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. Khiterer argues that the dramatic rise of anti-Semitism in Kyiv appeared due to the combination of various factors. Among them were the rise of Russian nationalism and the revival of imperial Russian Black hundred ideology during the war, the impact of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda on the local non-Jewish population, the severe apartment shortage in Kyiv after the war, and state anti-Semitic campaigns, which unleashed even more rabid and violent public hatred toward Jews.
Marat Grinberg’s paper “The Jewish Hullabaloo: Antisemitism in Mikhail Goldis’s Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney from Soviet Ukraine” explores anti-Semitism in Ukraine during the post-Stalinist years and shows how anti-Semitism functioned in various professional venues. Grinberg analyzes in his paper Mikhail Goldis’ “Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney,” who worked as a detective and district attorney in Soviet Ukraine for more than 30 years, starting in the mid-1950s. Goldis’ memoirs provide a rich testimonial and historical information about what it was like to survive as a Jew in the halls of Soviet power in the atmosphere of ubiquitous anti-Semitism.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in Europe, Asia, Israel, and Other Communities

Chair

• Susan Rupp, Wake Forest University

Individual Presentations

• In the Wake of the Holocaust: Soviet Jewish Responses to Anti-Semitism - Wendy Goldman

• How Kyiv Became the Capital of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union - Victoria Khiterer, Millersville University

• The Jewish Hullabaloo: Antisemitism in Mikhail Goldis’ “Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney from Soviet Ukraine” - Marat Grinberg, Reed College

Respondent

• Elissa Bemporad, Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 09