More than one generation of Jews leaving the Soviet Union for Israel, the United States, and Germany, left precisely because they were Jewish. One often had to go to considerable lengths in order to prove one’s Jewish origin and to be allowed to emigrate. Yet, ironically, in their new homelands, many would be called “Russians” from now on and continue to identify with Russian culture.
Sascha Goluboff’s book, tracing the life of a Moscow synagogue in 1995 – 1996, asks related questions, yet with an unexpected turn: under which circumstances would Jews, still living in Russia, call themselves “Russian”? And why would they refer to other Jews as “Georgian,” or even as chernye, or “blacks” (a derogatory term for traders from the Caucasus)? The findings are too complex to be reduced to the commonplace juxtaposition of the “black exotic Other” and “the white, civilized self.” As the largely Russian-speaking older generation is dying out, the new congregation consists largely of Georgian and Mountain Jews, under the leadership of a “foreign” rabbi, a French citizen with a limited knowledge of Russian.
Goluboff’s analysis, based on fieldwork as well as archival research, places ethnic and religious identity into the framework of class, following the advent of new market economy in Russia. The scholar makes a strong argument for the suggestion that, in today’s Russia, race often conflates with class. The study is also a welcome contribution to the discussion within the wider context of European politics, where migrants and guest workers are increasingly defined as a new underclass.
In Jewish Russians, the negotiation of racial and ethnic identity is exposed in terms of space, economy, class and time. The temporal dimension concerns not only the proverbial generation gap, but also the elements of the “Soviet spatial and moral order” appropriated by the older generation in their resistance against the new market economy values and the largely unwelcome “foreign” influences. Thus, both “Soviet” and “Russian” may be charged positively or negatively, depending on the context, with the Russian traits ranging from th negative “drinking, stealing, and hoarding,” to the extremely positive “soulfulness” and “culturedness.”
The book is well-written, and the “tale of the researcher in the field” is fascinating to follow. As all studies based on longer periods of fieldwork, “Russian Jews” contains reflections on the status of the researcher. Goluboff’s observations are always astute, as she makes use even of what might have been considered as obstacles and setbacks. Some of the situations she describes, dealing with internal intrigues, rumors, and the researcher getting caught into the web of personality conflicts, are virtually a must-read for students planning fieldwork. Gender is an instrumental part of her analysis; not merely due to the researcher’s own status as a young unmarried woman in a largely male community, but also because of the significance that the attitudes to gender and sexuality carry for the identity of many subjects.
The book comes equipped with an index of people discussed, and a glossary of Jewish and Russian words that many readers will find useful. There are, however, a few infelicities in the translation and interpretation of a few Russian terms in the body of the book. For instance, prikhozhanin is derived not from the Russian verb prikhodit’ (to come), as claimed by one of Goluboff’s sources (pp. 29, 174), but rather from the noun prikhod (congregation). Also, “kept woman” is soderzhanka, rather than zaderzhanka (p. 117). Still, these are few and far between and do not in any way detract from the merits of the book. It will certainly be enjoyed by a wide academic readership with an active interest in Russian Studies, Judaism, and racial and ethnic identity issues – not to mention all those planning fieldwork in the FSU and / or religious communities.