В поисках общины: Модели возрождения организованной еврейской жизни в позднем СССР и постсоветских странах

After the decades of discrimination against organized Jewish life in the Soviet Union, the present period shows creation and rapid development of Jewish national organizations and institutional infrastructure of Jewish communities in most of the post-Soviet states, especially in Russia and Ukraine. Not a few of these organizations were rooted in history of Jewish life in the USSR after World War II, including the experience of the creation and existence of legal (state-sponsored), illegal (underground national and human rights organizations), and quasi-legal (religious communities) Jewish social institutions in a hostile social and political environment. The Jewish organizations, including local/sectarian institutions, municipal/regional federations, as well as nationwide «umbrella» structures, that were established in the USSR successor states, had to meet the challenge of new conditions of Jewish life in post-communist countries which included a demand for services normally provided by a Jewish community (education, welfare, synagogues, cultural activities, etc.) and a need for an adequate institutional framework which reflected local Jewish identity (whether ethnic nationalism or cultural/religious affiliation). Finally, there was the need to present an adequate display of Jewish interests in the communal and national public square. These are just a few of the points needed to understand both East European «Jewish politics» and the character of post-Soviet Jewry which, until now, have never been properly discussed by researchers.