Jewish Journeys from Russia and the Soviet Union

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

This panel reassesses the journeys of Jewish migrants leaving Russia during the long 20th century, linking the often-separately treated experiences of Jews leaving the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The papers draw on recent research and shift the focus from overarching assessments to the experiences, expectations and disappointments of individual migrants. The papers raise general questions that are strikingly relevant today: Do individual experiences question overarching structural explanations for large-scale migrations? Is the distinction between economic migrant and refugees misleading because it does not capture the actual and often overlapping motivations, obligations and pressures those weighing a decision to move had to deal with? And how did the personal journeys of Jewish men and women writing about Jewish and general migration impact their respective scholarly interpretations?
Rebecca Kobrin (Columbia University) examines autobiographical sources to assess how Jewish migrants who moved to America looked back at “Russia.” The migrants had different backgrounds, moved on different paths and pursued different opportunities. How did they perceive America over time? And how did their view of Russia change in the wake of political transformations, notably the 1917 Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991?
Tobias Brinkmann (Penn State University) looks at the journeys of several Russian Jewish scholars who produced influential studies about Jewish and general migration between the 1920s and 1950s. Even though they shared similar backgrounds and moved on similar paths though Weimar Germany and Vichy France to New York, they judged Jewish migration in strikingly different terms. The paper argues that the suggestive migrant-refugee dichotomy is misleading because the individual experiences of Jewish (and other) migrants often transcend overarching structural explanations.
Alexandra Zborovsky (University of Pennsylvania) draws on a research project about the transit journeys of Jews leaving the Soviet Union. Most spent several months or years in Vienna or Rome before moving on to the United States or Israel. She argues that the expectations of the migrants underwent significant changes during the European transit. America and Israel represented different options – and different futures, especially for the majority of assimilated Jews hailing from Soviet cities.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in Europe, Asia, Israel, and Other Communities

Chair

• Eliyana Adler, Penn State University

Individual Presentations

• Wandering Jews or Jewish Migrants? Reassessing the Jewish Migration from Eastern Europe before (and after) 1914 - Tobias Brinkmann, Penn State University

• “Venetian Waltz, Roman Holiday, American Tragedy:” Soviet Jewish Expectations and Encounters in Transit - Alexandra Zborovsky, University of Pennsylvania

Respondent

• Eliyana Adler, Penn State University