Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness : : The Post-Holocaust Plea for Jewish Reconstruction of the Soviet Yiddish Writer Der Nister / / Ber Kotlerman.

• VerfasserIn: Kotlerman, Ber,
• MitwirkendeR: Gitelman, Zvi,; Kotlerman, Ber,
• TeilnehmendeR: Gitelman, Zvi.
• Place / Publishing House: Boston, MA : : Academic Studies Press, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: Jews of Russia & Eastern Europe and Their Legacy
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (210 p.)

In the summer of 1947, three years before his death in a labor camp hospital, one of the most significant Soviet Yiddish writers Der Nister (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh, 1884-1950) made a trip from Moscow to Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Region in the Russian Far East. He traveled there on a special migrant train, together with a thousand Holocaust survivors. The present study examines this journey as an original protest against the conformism of the majority of Soviet Jewish activists. In his travel notes, Der Nister described the train as the "modern Noah's ark," heading "to put an end to the historical silliness." This rhetoric paraphrasing Nietzsche's "historical sickness," challenged the Jewish history in the Diaspora, which "broke" the people's mythical "wholeness." Der Nister formulated his vision of a post-Holocaust Jewish reconstruction more clearly in his previously unknown notes ("Birobidzhan Manifesto"), the last that have reached us from Der Nister's creative legacy, which are being discussed for the first time in this book. Without their own territory, he wrote, the Jews were like "a soul without a body or a body without a soul, and in either case, always a cripple." Records of the fabricated investigation case against the "anti-Soviet nationalist grouping in Birobidzhan" reveal details about Der Nister's thoughts and real acts. Both the records and the manifesto are being published here for the first time.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Note on the Translation and Transliteration -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- Preface -- Part One: Der Nister's Journey from Moscow to Birobidzhan -- A Wedding on a Migrant Train -- Der Nister's Images and Impressions -- "With the Second Echelon" -- "With the New Settlers to Birobidzhan" -- A Man Dieth in a Tent -- Russian Jewish "Hybridization" -- Comfort Ye My People -- Real Action -- Part Two: Investigation Case No. 68 -- Der Nister Affair -- Accused in the Case -- Detention Order: BUZI MILLER, June 6, 1949, Birobidzhan -- Interrogation Records -- Defendant HESHL RABINKOV, July 23, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant BUZI MILLER, August 5, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant BUZI MILLER, August 29, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant BUZI MILLER, September 17, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant ITSIK FEFER, June 30, 1949, Moscow -- Defendant BUZI MILLER, October 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant BUZI MILLER and Defendant HESHL RABINKOV, October 28, 1949, Khabarovsk (Confrontation) -- Defendant LUBA VASSERMAN, July 12, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Arrestee GRIGORI FRID, April 4, 1938, Minsk (Testimony) -- Defendant LUBA VASSERMAN, August 17, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant SHIMEN SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, October 25, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November 21, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Defendant FAIVISH ARONES and Witness ALEKSANDR DRISIN, November 29, 1949, Khabarovsk (Confrontation) -- Resubmission of the Indictment: Defendant BUZI MILLER, December 15, 1949, Khabarovsk -- Bill of Indictment: BUZI MILLER, HESHL RABINKOV, ISROEL EMIOT, BER SLUTSKI, LUBA VASSERMAN, SHIMEN SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, and FAIVISH ARONES, April 6, 1950, Khabarovsk (Excerpts) -- The Sentence: BUZI MILLER, May 31, 1950, Moscow (Excerpt) -- The Early Release: BUZI MILLER, December 27, 1955, Moscow (Excerpt) -- Appendix: Der Nister's "Birobidzhan Manifesto" (Yiddish) -- Bibliography -- Index