Building a Diaspora : : Russian Jews in Israel, Germany and the USA / / Eliezer Ben-Rafael [and six others].

• Superior document: International Comparative Social Studies ; Volume 13
• VerfasserIn: Ben Rafael, Eliezer,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands : : Koninklijke Brill NV,, [2006]; ©2006
• Year of Publication: 2006
• Edition: First edition.
• Language: English
• Series: International comparative social studies ; Volume 13.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (ix, 374 pages) :; illustrations

The crumbling of the USSR has set Russian-speaking Jews free to emigrate. From the threat of antisemitism to economic disaster, their "good reasons" to do so were numerous and within one and a half decade most of them moved out and scattered throughout the world. This book is about the million that settled in Israel, the half million now in the US and the 200.000 who settled in Germany. This book presents the comparative work of an international team of researchers which delves into the building of communities, the formulation of collective identities and the articulation of public discourse by people who, after eighty years of Marxism-Leninism and compulsory removal from Jewish culture, are now reconstructing their ethnicity. In every place, they face contrasting challenges and as a whole, constitute an ideal case for the study of the making of contemporary transnational diasporas.

Table of Contents

Preface -- PART A: BUILDING A TRANSNATIONAL DIASPORA -- Chapter 1: Collective construction -- Chapter 2: The shake-up of Russian Jewry -- Chapter 3: Research Methodology -- PART B: BUILDING COMMUNITIES -- Chapter 4: When ethnicity becomes national and vice-versa: Israel -- Chapter 5: A new American Jewry -- Chapter 6: Russian Jews in Germany -- Chapter 7: Communities compared -- PART C: COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES -- Chapter 8: RSJs' images and self-images in Israel -- Chapter 9: RSJs images and self-images in America -- Chapter 10: RSJs' images and self-images in Germany -- Chapter 11: Divergent and Convergent Identities -- Chapter 12: RSJs' distancing from "others" -- PART D: MEDIA DISCOURSE -- Chapter 13: RSJs' press and in the Press -- Israel -- Chapter 14: RSJs' Press and in the Press -- USA -- Chapter 15: RSJs' Press and in the Press -- Germany -- Chapter 16: RSJs' Press and in the Press -- In Comparative Perspective -- PART E: PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES -- Chapter 17: The phases of collective construction -- Chapter 18: "Jewishness" versus "Russianness"? -- Chapter 19: RSJs in perspective -- Addenda -- Addendum 1: The Experience of Non-Jewish "Russian" Immigrants in Israel -- Addendum 2: Policy-making perspectives -- Appendices -- Appendix 1: SAM survey and Measures -- Appendix 2: The media analysis: classification System -- Bibliography -- The authors.