International Jewish Questions in Russia’s First World War

• In Event: The Transnational Making and Remembering of "Russian Jewry"

Abstract

The paper will examine the influence of global resettlement and migration schemes on attempts to resettle displaced Jewish civilians in Imperial Russia during World War I. The Russian Army’s deportations of Jews from European Russia to the imperial interior, and Siberia in particular, prompted debates among Jewish activists that mirrored global ideological conflicts surrounding Jewish migration. Jewish leaders in Russia formulated their ideas in reference and reaction to debates around Zionism, Diaspora Nationalism, and attempts of American Jewish elites to make migrants less visible by dispersing them in the American south and Midwest.

Author

• Polly Zavadivker, U of Delaware