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Rabbi Mordukh Krol: “Little Man” In The Background Of The Soviet Epoch, Tetiana Savchuk Jan 2024

Rabbi Mordukh Krol: “Little Man” In The Background Of The Soviet Epoch, Tetiana Savchuk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article analyzes the life path of Rabbi Mordukh Krol in the background of the socio-political transformations in Soviet Ukraine (1920-1940s). For the first time, special sources are introduced into the scholarly circulation such as the Rabbi’s correspondences addressed to the Jews of Denmark, Germany, France, the USA, the USSR, Palestine, and Africa during the Holodomor. Major milestones of the Rabbi’s life are identified. He served in the Chernihiv and Melitopol Region, in Voroshylovhrad, Novoukrayinka of Odessa, and later Kirovohrad regions, in Dnipropetrovsk. Rabbi M. Krol, who was the father of many children, was forced to fight with the challenges …

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The Final Dilemma: Cremation As A Form Of Jewish Burial In Slovakia, Peter Salner Jan 2023

The Final Dilemma: Cremation As A Form Of Jewish Burial In Slovakia, Peter Salner

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This paper seeks to answer the question of why, in the 21st century, Jews from the largest Jewish community in Slovakia have increasingly begun to prefer cremation over traditional Jewish burial. Importantly, Judaism views the act of cremation as a repudiation of faith in the afterlife, which incurs punishment in the form of exclusion from the resurrection after the prophesied coming of the Messiah. There is also a historical case against cremation, based on the Nazis’ burning of the bodies of murdered concentration camp inmates. Ethnological research shows that the main reason for this preferential shift is the Holocaust, one …

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The Holocaust In Slovakia: The Deportation Of 1942 Through The Prism Of Oral History, Peter Salner Jan 2022

The Holocaust In Slovakia: The Deportation Of 1942 Through The Prism Of Oral History, Peter Salner

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

On October 28, 1918, after the end of the Great War, Slovakia became part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Two decades later, on October 6, 1938, the country’s political leadership declared autonomy, and within a few months, on March 14, 1939, the Slovak National Assembly voted for the establishment of an independent state. Already during the period of autonomy, the government adopted anti-Jewish legislation (this trend would continue throughout the brief lifespan of the new state) aimed at gradually shutting Jews out of social and economic life. This state-sponsored persecution of the Jews culminated in mass deportations which began in 1942. …

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Adaptation Practices And Forms Of Struggle In Jewish Communities For The Preservation Of Religious Worldview In Soviet Ukraine (1920s-1930s), Tetiana Savchuk Dec 2021

Adaptation Practices And Forms Of Struggle In Jewish Communities For The Preservation Of Religious Worldview In Soviet Ukraine (1920s-1930s), Tetiana Savchuk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to the reconstruction of the ways of adaptation of the Jews to the Soviet anti-religious experiments and the definition of forms of counteraction to these attacks during the 1920s and 1930s. There is insufficient research in the historiography of the struggle of Jews for the preservation of their religious worldview. The development of historiography shows a certain imbalance in the studies of the methods and extent of anti- church policy while ignoring the reaction of believers to the Bolshevik experiments. Based on archival documents of the Soviet secret services (not previously introduced into scientific circulation) and …

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Emigration, Home, Identity: An Ethnological Examination Of The Identity Of Jewish Emigrants From Czechoslovakia, Peter Salner Mar 2021

Emigration, Home, Identity: An Ethnological Examination Of The Identity Of Jewish Emigrants From Czechoslovakia, Peter Salner

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Stretnutie (The Meeting) is a group formed in October 2004 by Jewish emigrants from Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) who fled Czechoslovakia following the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968. The original intention behind its founding was to hold a reunion that would bring together people who, forty years after emigrating, lived in Israel, in different states across Europe and North America, and in Australia. The meeting took place in May 2005 in Bratislava, drawing over 200 participants. Encouraged by this initial success, the group and its website continued its activities, and it remains operational to this …

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Book Review: Rachmil Bryks, May God Avenge Their Blood: A Holocaust Memoir Triptych, Brian Horowitz Dec 2020

Book Review: Rachmil Bryks, May God Avenge Their Blood: A Holocaust Memoir Triptych, Brian Horowitz

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Excerpt: "For the many readers who have never heard of Bryks, I beseech you to get this volume. You are likely to feel as I do, that here is a rare thing, a genuine writer who is ours, writes in Yiddish, although the material belongs to all humanity."

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The Resurrection Of Jewish Religion At The Turn Of The 20th And 21st Centuries: The Case Of Ukraine, Viktor Yelenskyi Aug 2020

The Resurrection Of Jewish Religion At The Turn Of The 20th And 21st Centuries: The Case Of Ukraine, Viktor Yelenskyi

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article deals with the complexities of Judaism’s revival in Ukraine, where Jews have enriched the Jewish civilization with Hasidism, gifted the Jewish world with a whole plethora of outstanding Jewish figures and a remarkable cultural heritage both tangible and intangible, and where their religion underwent a monstrous destruction during the Holocaust and the Soviet anti-religious persecutions. Today's Judaism in Ukraine is a complex mixture of at least six decisive components. That is, (i) more than 20 centuries of the Judaism’s history in Ukrainian lands; (ii) the "great religious comeback," which unfolded in the world in the late 1970s; (iii) …

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Jewish Holidays In The Time Of The Corona Virus Pandemic In Slovakia, Peter Salner Aug 2020

Jewish Holidays In The Time Of The Corona Virus Pandemic In Slovakia, Peter Salner

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The first wave of the new coronavirus pandemic swept through Slovakia between March 1 and May 31, 2020. During this relatively short period, four important Jewish holidays took place: Purim, Pesach, Lag BaOmer, and Shavuot. When the news of the pandemic initially broke, a large part of Slovak society viewed COVID-19 as a remote, and therefore, not entirely dangerous, threat. This attitude shifted on March 6, , when the first case of the disease was confirmed in the country. On March 9, the authorities reacted by introducing the first set of public health measures, which the Jewish Religious Community immediately …

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Gordiejew's "Voices Of Yugoslav Jewry" -Book Review, Paul Mojzes Oct 2001