Soviet Identities and the Challenges of Community-Building in Post-Stalinist Poland, 1955-1959

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

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the ‘Second Repatriation’ (1956-59) from the Soviet Union to Poland on Jewish identities. The Thaw in Poland encouraged the temporary and limited development of the Jewish community, creating space for repatriated and settled Jews to develop new understandings of their own multifaceted Jewish identities in a way that was limited in the Soviet Union. My paper deconstructs the idea of a singular ‘Soviet Jewry’ and ‘Polish Jewry,’ untangling the nature of post-Stalinist Jewish identity in the Soviet periphery and nuancing our understanding of the nature of Jewish belonging in the region in this Cold War moment.

Author

• Frankee Lyons, Haifa Interdisciplinary Unit for Polish Studies (Israel)