Artefacts of Dissent: Material Culture of the Struggle for Soviet Jewish Emigration

• In Event: The Question of Belonging: New Perspectives on Late Soviet Jewish Emigration

Abstract

This paper examines the role of material culture in transnational solidarity with Soviet Jews who fought for (and were denied) the right to emigrate. During the final decades of the Cold War, members of Jewish communities from all over the world travelled to the Soviet Union, carrying medicine, clothing, gadgets, or books, which they delivered to Soviet Jews at considerable personal risk to both parties. The paper highlights the role of material objects in campaigns for Soviet Jewish emigration; investigates what the exchange of material objects meant to Soviet Jews and their supporters around the world; and how materiality shaped knowledge production within Soviet Jewish communities.

Author

• Dina Fainberg, City St George's, U of London (UK)