Journal of PEOPLE TO PEOPLE Jewish Studies Delegation to Russia
September 9-18, 2005

Delegates (photo 1):  
Judith R. Baskin, Director, Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies, Head, Department of Religious Studies; Knight Professor of Humanities, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR; President, Association for Jewish Studies (Delegation Leader)

Leah Baer, Ph.D. Independent Scholar, Chicago, IL

Michael Galchinsky, Associate Professor of English; Director, Program in Jewish Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA.

Peter Haas, Abba Hillel Silver Professor of Jewish Studies; Chair, Department of Religion; Director, The Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies ;
Case Western Reserve University, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH

Gladys Koranek, artist and retired art teacher, San Antonio, TX

Moshe Pelli; Abe and Tess Wise Endowed Professor of Judaic Studies; Director,
Interdisciplinary Program In Judaic Studies, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL; Vice-President, Association of Professors of Hebrew.

Nancy Sinkoff, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History and Vice-Chair of Undergraduate Education, Dept. of Jewish Studies; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; Board Member, Women's Caucus of the Association for Jewish Studies.

Judith Sobre, Professor of Art History, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX

Introduction:

Our delegation traveled together in Moscow and St. Petersburg between Sept. 9 and 18, 2005, under the aegis of People to People Ambassador Programs. We quickly formed a cohesive and harmonious group. We were united in our high regard for our outstanding guide, Ms. Alla Levitina, whose deep knowledge of Russian history, culture, and art and strong sense of personal connection to Moscow significantly enhanced our experience as visitors.

Our delegation met with our counterparts who teach and conduct research in Jewish Studies at institutions of higher education in Russia. We also learned about Russian library and archival resources and their condition and preservation. Beyond our four substantive meetings with academic colleagues, detailed below, our group also made two special visits which are also discussed. The first was to the Memorial Complex, Synagogue, and Holocaust Museum at Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow. The second was to the magnificent Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg, where we also attended Sabbath services (seven of us in the evening and two in the morning). In addition, three of our members made contacts with libraries or conducted interviews with individuals connected with their own research. As a group, we are extremely grateful to People to People Ambassador Programs for their outstanding professional services in arranging an excellent schedule that was flexible regarding our professional interests, and for their exceptional services to those of our members who had personal research projects. Their aid in this area, particularly, went far beyond the call of duty.

I am grateful to my colleagues who took notes of our various meetings and shared the reports of our activities which they prepared for their own institutions. These include Nancy Sinkoff, Michael Galchinsky, Peter Haas, and Moshe Pelli. Their work is very much reflected in the journal entries that follow.

We met faculty and students in three university contexts and also met with the librarian from the Asian and African Department of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. The university contexts were: (1) a meeting with members of SEFER: the Moscow Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization; (2) a visit to the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow which houses the Russian-American Judaic and Bible Educational and Research Center; (3) although we did not visit St. Petersburg University, we met with a visiting professor of Jewish Studies from the Sorbonne who was teaching a course there; and (4) the Jewish Heritage Center at the European University in St. Petersburg. These visits are described in detail below:

(1) At the Russian Academy of Sciences building, we met with faculty connected with SEFER: the Moscow Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization. SEFER is an umbrella organization for university Jewish Studies in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) and the Baltic States, established in 1994. It is a non-profit association that unites university teachers, independent researchers, graduate, and post-graduate students in academic Jewish studies through conferences, publications, lectures, and mentoring programs. Its twenty-one partner organizations include a variety of Russian and Israeli funding agencies. Among the academic programs are: the Shimon Dubnov School of Humanities; the Center for Jewish Studies and Jewish Civilization at Moscow State University; the Russian-American Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities; the International Research Center for Russian and East European Jewry; the St. Petersburg Institute for Jewish Studies; the Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies at St. Petersburg State University; as well as academic programs in Kiev and Kharkov in Ukraine.

This gracious and lively meeting was led by Dr. Victoria Mochalova, a specialist in East European Jewish history, and Director of the SEFER Center. Those present included, among many others, Professor Alexander Militarev, a historian, President of the Jewish University, member of the board of the Russian Jewish Congress, and Professor, Dept. of History and Philology of the Ancient Orient at Russian State University for the Humanities; Motya Chlenov, Director of the World Congress of Russian Jewry and editor of Tirosh, a student-run Jewish Studies journal; Maria Liberman, Administrative Director of the International Center for Russian and East European Jewish Studies; Dr. Oleg Budnitskii, Academic Director of the International Center for Russian and East European Jewish Studies and Professor of History at the Russian Academy of Sciences; Dr. Alexander Lokshin, Senior Researcher in the Department for Israel and Jewish Studies at the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; and Mark S. Kupovetsky, Executive Director of the Russian-American Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies.

The SEFER Center receives significant financial support from the World Congress of Russian Jewry and a variety of American and Israeli institutions which are listed in their publications. There are particularly close links with the Chais Center for Jewish Studies in Russian Civilization at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Open University of Israel. Half of the professors who teach in the SEFER program are visting from Israel and an active student exchange program with Israel is in place. SEFER has an active publishing agenda, holds an annual international conference, and is involved in scholarly programs with colleagues abroad.

We had a fascinating discussion about the emergence of Jewish studies in post-Soviet Russia. Although the faculty were clearly working hard to develop academic Jewish studies, it became clear that the effort was somewhat hampered by a lack of interest on the part of Russian Jewry. As one of the faculty put it to us, "There is no Jewish community in Russia. There is a Jewish population, but there is no community. The ersatz Jewish communal leadership, the Russian Jewish Congress, is really just three wealthy Jews. There is no organization or affiliation, just a thin ethnic identification." Many of the interested students are non-Jews, a phenomenon that is also common in Jewish Studies in North America, and this has apparently created some tensions with communal funding bodies.

Given the difficult situation of Russian Jewry which is an aging population in virtual demographic collapse, it is not surprising the major funding for the programs connected with Jewish Studies in Russia comes from Israel and the United States. Although some of the students at Moscow State University take courses in ancient and medieval Judaism, few actually specialize in Jewish Studies, since the field offers so few substantive career opportunities. The vast majority of those who do specialize in Jewish Studies are focused on Israeli social and economic life since this area offers a pragmatic path which is likely to increase their professional opportunities. A major concern of Sefer, which has just become a separate academic Department of Judaica Studies at MSU, is developing post-graduate programs and training a teaching faculty. Some colleagues expressed skepticism that many students would choose this route, given the very low academic salaries and the far greater financial opportunities for university graduates in other areas. There was similar skepticism that very many students would make long term commitments to become teachers in Jewish schools since that is regarded in Russia as a low status and very low-paying occupation for a university graduate.

The meeting ended with discussion of possibilities of increased contact with North American colleagues, exchanges of journals and books, as well as possible exchanges of faculty and graduate students, and mutual attendance at conferences. Our delegation made a gift of various books and articles by our members and presented a People to People certificate of appreciation (photo 2 and photo 3 ).

(2) At the Russian State University for the Humanities we met with faculty, students and staff, including Vice-Rector Natalia I. Basovskaya, a medieval historian, who helped organize the university during the period of perestroika. The Russian State University for the Humanities now has eleven international centers that are linked with institutions all over the world. The Russian-American Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies, directed by Mark S. Kupovetsky, was established in 1989 with support from the Jewish Theological Seminary and YIVO-Jewish Research Institute, both in New York City. This center was the first international program at RSUH and the first Jewish Studies academic program in Russia. A major research project of the Center is to identify and describe the archives connected with Jewish life in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. This archival project, one of the largest in the world, will cover 10,000 archival sites. Three volumes have already been published and were proudly displayed.

We were given a tour of the impressive premises of the RSUH, including the Jewish Studies library which consists of 3000 volumes, in great part English language books sent from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City. We spent most of our time with faculty and students connected with the Russian-American Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies. Some of those present had also attended the meeting at Moscow State University the previous day.

We learned about the Center's 5-year student certificate program that has a focus on Jewish history, culture, Yiddish, and archives administration. Approximately fifty students are involved in Jewish Studies certificate courses. All students spend a year doing archival work as part of their academic programs. It was clear that Jewish studies had attracted much student interest, among Jewish and non-Jewish students. As in many similar US programs, most of the students taking Jewish Studies courses were majoring in other concentrations. Still some of the graduates are now pursuing post-graduate work in Jewish Studies. The Center also publishes a number of Russian language educational textbooks for courses in various aspects of Jewish history, literature, and thought, an essential contribution to the growth of the field in Russia. The academic program at the Center seems to focus on ancient and medieval Jewish studies. Although some of the students may find employment in Jewish communal organizations, national and international, or in institutions of higher education when they complete their certificate programs, there is little expectation that any of the graduates will enter elementary or secondary teaching for the long term since the salaries are so low.

One of the faculty, Lev Goradetsky, teaches Hebrew, Aramaic, and Mishnah studies. In the 1970s he was an underground Hebrew teacher. The Hebrew circles at that time were the cells of the Jewish emigration movement, modern and Zionist in focus. Many Hebrew teachers were charged and convicted of distributing anti-Soviet propaganda, and given harsh sentences. Goradetsky had originally been a Math Professor, but was dismissed from two positions and then began teaching Hebrew in lieu of other work. Many of the Jewish studies faculty had started in the sciences or in other fields from which they made the leap to Jewish studies, such as ethnography, gender studies, history, Arabic, or literature. Goradetsky says he teaches Hebrew today, less out of a Zionist feeling than because he enjoys doing it professionally and has pride that he's contributing to the Jewish cultural revival in Russia.

A group of twenty or more students was present for our visit. Mostly female, they expressed great enthusiasm for their studies. Some have been motivated to pursue Jewish Studies by their family backgrounds; others simply have a great interest in the field. In addition to archival work, there is also an interest in collecting oral history, both in Ukraine and Belarus, as well as in Moscow.

One central topic of our discussion was issues of external funding of Jewish Studies academic programs, both in Russia and in North America. American delegation members explained the funding situations at their various universities (high dependence on outside endowments and communal support). Mark Kupovetsky explained that the Russian-American Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies is under similar constraints but unlike in North America, he does not believe that Russian Jewish leaders see academic Jewish Studies as an important communal priority. Now that RSUH has financial problems and there have been cuts in support from the American side, particularly given financial problems at JTSA, he is very anxious about the future of the Center.

During our visit at the Russian State University for the Humanities, a member of our delegation, Dr. Judith Sobre, gave a much appreciated and enthusiastically received Power Point presentation, demonstrating how she uses the study of Jewish ritual objects in her course on Jewish Art.

On behalf of our People to People Delegation, we presented a plaque to our hosts at RSUH in gratitude for meeting with us, and we also presented some of our own publications to the library.

(3) In St. Petersburg, we met with Dr. Yuri Vartanov, Head of the Oriental Department at the National Library of Russia, to talk about the library's Jewish Studies holdings. Dr. Vartanov is an expert in classical Hebrew and ancient Israel. He noted that study of ancient Hebrew continued throughout Soviet times and said that even in Soviet times there was always access to Jewish learning if an individual was willing to seek it out. Mostly those who did so were older people who were not putting their livelihoods at risk. Dr. Vartanov believes that contemporary Russian Jews have mostly lost interest in their culture and heritage and he said that this is true of Russians in general.

This library is one of the largest in the world, with over 40 million volumes. The building in which we met was sorely in need of repair, the walls and floors showing evidence of years of neglect. The library's Judaica collection of about 45,000 volumes seems to be in a similar state of disarray. There is a small program for preserving Hebrew and Yiddish books, around fifty to one hundred per year, which means that many of the volumes in this collection are disintegrating. It was unclear how many of these are unique in the heritage of world Jewry. The librarian himself is the curator of the entire Asian and African collection. He said there were no funds to hire a curator specifically to preserve, maintain, and grow the Jewish collection. The collection was indexed and catalogued, but is not available on line to scholars. The only way of knowing what it has is to contact the librarian or to visit. The large manuscript collection (including the Firkovitch collection) is housed in another building. Dr. Vartanov noted that at the moment there is no Judaica specialist in the library. Some collections that house unique documents bearing on a thousand years of Jewish history are in danger of disappearing from lack of resources and trained people to maintain them. Dr. Vartanov expressed great pessimism that young people would be available to succeed him and his colleagues in similar positions, since the salaries for librarians, even at his level, are so low.

On behalf of our People to People Delegation, we presented a plaque to Dr. Vartanov in gratitude for the time he spent with us, and we also presented some of our own publications to the library (photo 6).

(3a) St. Petersburg University. As a result of an arrangement with Hebrew University in Jerusalem, several visiting faculty members in Jewish Studies teach at St. Petersburg University for short periods each year (Prof. Paul Fenton of the Sorbonne and Prof. Elhanan Reiner of Tel Aviv University were in St. Petersburg for the month of September). We met with Professor Fenton, formerly of Hebrew University and now of the Sorbonne, as part of our meeting at the National Library. Professor Fenton, an expert on medieval Judaeo-Arabic culture and a scholar of the Cairo Genizah documents, said he found the students at St. Petersburg University very capable. Most are studying medieval philosophy, and some of the students know Arabic. He teaches his course in Hebrew, since many of the fifteen students have lived in Israel. He finds the availability of Jewish Studies in Russia a positive development that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago.

The focus on ancient and medieval scholarship was in keeping with our university visits. The study of twentieth-century Russian Jewish life does not yet, for the most part, seem to have found much of a foothold. There are complicated reasons for this. Part of it is that some of the documents are held in state KGB archives to which there is no access. Part of it is that the Jewish emigration from Russia left a "brain drain" of academics who could pursue this work and tell the stories. Part is that many of those who might be interviewed for oral histories are now dead or in the Russian Jewish diaspora (in Israel, Germany, and North America). As a consequence of these difficulties, the state of research and representation into contemporary Russian Jewish life is embryonic.

(4) Our fourth meeting was at the Jewish Heritage Center housed in the European University in St. Petersburg. Here we met Dr. Valery Dymshits, Director, and two of his colleagues. The leaders of the center are ethnographers and anthropologists who are mainly funded by the Jewish Federation of West Palm Beach County (US) and the Petersburg department of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. While the European University provides only office space, internet support, and some student aid, the Center is well-integrated into the University and takes part in conferences and lectures. The Center's mission is to contribute to the renewal of Jewish culture in St. Petersburg through production of historical and art exhibitions and educational activities.

The Center has only four students of its own; the rest come from other Russian institutions one month a year to participate in a summer course on field work. Two weeks of the course (first and last) are in St. Petersburg. During the other two weeks, members of the Center, with this student assistance, document remains of Jewish synagogues and cemeteries and gather folklore and oral histories from people who are left in what were once predominantly Jewish areas in Ukraine, Birobidzhan, Belarus, Central Asia, and the Crimea. They have found an amazingly rich array of material remains. The Center is forced by lack of funds to focus only on documentation; there are no resources for preservation.

The Center is now the repository of the famous An-Sky ethnographic archives, purchased with mainly American donor support, from the former Petersburg Jewish Museum. This collection contains over three hundred and seventy outstanding pre-revolutionary photos of Jewish shtetl culture, taken between 1912-1914. The Center also has a large collection of photographs of Jewish life in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s and will soon be publishing a catalog of that material accompanied by scholarly essays.

The Center is now engaged in mounting an oral history project centered on urban Jews who lived in Moscow and St. Petersburg in and around the 1960s. The purpose is to get a sense of what life was like during the Soviet period for Jews. Their focus is on ordinary people, not the leaders of the human rights and Zionist movements. The faculty here is able to do such important contemporary work because, as anthropologists, they are not dependent on texts and archives. Since the archives here are difficult to work with at best, they have a competitive advantage over programs set up on an American model where anthropological approaches to the Jewish experience are often marginalized. This important program, primarily dedicated to documentation of a vanished and rapidly vanishing world, may produce unique findings that will reshape Russian Jewish studies altogether. At the end of our visit, we presented a plaque and some of our publications to Dr. Dymshits and received some of the fascinating publications the Center has produced about its work (photo 7).

(5) In Moscow we visited the Museum of the Jewish Heritage and the Holocaust and Synagogue (photo 8) located in the Victory Garden, the memorial to the 28 million Russians killed by Hitler. Here, there are three main memorials: a Russian Orthodox church, a mosque, and a lovely, modern complex incorporating a synagogue and a museum. The museum is very well done, preserving both material artifacts of Jewish life in Russia and a record of the Holocaust in Russia. Built ten years ago, this is the only such museum in Russia, and it is frequently visited by Russian school children, as well as numerous foreign tourists. The museum- synagogue complex was funded by the Russian Jewish Congress. The synagogue is designed as a non-denominational space where visiting foreign Jews of different orientations could worship. It does not appear to be in regular use by Moscow Jewry (who have five other functioning synagogues). The museum emphasizes the "Russian-ness" of Imperial and Soviet Jewry prior to World War II. Among other things, the synagogue's museum had a pair of Sabbath candlesticks with a double-headed eagle on top (the coat of arms of the czars) and another pair of candlesticks made out of railroad ties and screws (to symbolize the Jewish embrace of Soviet socialism). We were also shown a brief film, produced by the museum, about Jewish life in Russia. It was fascinating, with a significant amount of old footage. We noticed that while the film showed footage of both shtetl life and of Holocaust victims, it ended with the joyous emigration of Russian Jews to Israel following WW II. There was no footage of Jews in the Soviet Union or in Russia after Hitler. Thus, there was a significant ideological disconnect between the museum's exhibits (stressing the Russian character of Russian Jewry) and the message of the film. In many ways, it seemed to us that this cognitive dissonance was reflective of the present confusion over what it means to be a Jew in contemporary Russia.

(6) Perhaps in contrast, the Great Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg stands as a magnificent reminder that Jewish cultural life continues to exist here (photo 9). Built by wealthy acculturated Jews in Moorish style in the 1890s, it is simply stunning. We met with the cantor, born in St. Petersburg but trained in Miami, and he sang for us from the bimah. His magnificent voice was haunting. We attended Friday night services in the shtiebel next to the synagogue with other foreign visitors and around 40 members of the local Chabad community, and we enjoyed a kosher meal in the adjacent restaurant. Some of us came back on Saturday for services in the main sanctuary, with about 75 Jews of different denominations. The cantor described services as "reservedox," a combination of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, to accommodate all the city's Jews, since this is the only synagogue in St. Petersburg. However, traditional practice is, in fact, observed. All women must sit in the upstairs gallery, both in the main sanctuary and in the shtiebel. The synagogue was one of the only Jewish places of worship continuously in operation throughout the Soviet period. This was permitted in order to show that there was a thriving Jewish religious life in the USSR. Today it remains the only synagogue in St. Petersburg, a city of 5 million people, while Moscow (population 10 million) has six synagogues (see photo).

(7) Special Report by Delegate Moshe Pelli: Library Experience in Russia During the Delegation's Visit (September 9-18, 2005)

'People to People' coordinator Rebecca Gahl was very kind and cooperative, and she pursued my requests, while in Russia, to do some of my research in two major Judaica libraries - the Russian State libraries in Moscow and in St. Petersburg. P t P established contact with the respective librarians in both libraries and forwarded lists of my current research needs (mostly 18th- and 19th-century Hebrew books and periodicals) to them to check their availability in their libraries and prepare them for me. The lists included 21 items, of which 14 were bound periodicals.

Rebecca then gave me the names and email addresses of the librarians. I communicated with them in advance of the visit and set the dates and times when I would be coming to their respective libraries.

At the Oriental Center of the Russian State Library in Moscow I met the head, Dr. Meri E. Trifonenko, and her deputy head, Mr. Sergey V. Kukushkin. I was in touch with Mr. Kukushkin via the email, and he prepared the books for me. Of the 21 items on my list, the library had 8, some of them multi volumes. I was able to examine the periodicals, and will include them and the library in my forthcoming book in the series of monographs and indices of Hebrew periodicals.

The second scheduled visit was to the Russian State Library in St. Petersburg. I corresponded with Dr. Yuri P. Vartanov, head, Dept. of Asian and African Literature, at the Russian National Library, who prepared the books and periodicals for me. Dr. Vartanov met the group in lieu of the planned professional meeting that had been canceled. He prepared 6 items for me (one was in error).

A third unscheduled library visit to the library of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Science at St. Petersburg happened only after I insisted on going there. That library holds the well-known Friedland collection of classical Hebrew books.

That collection is catalogued in the Bibliotheca Friedlandiana, by Shmuel Wiener (Petrograd, 1898-1918), and I was looking for a book, Besamim Rosh (Berlin, 1793), by Saul Berlin (Lewin), written under the pseudonym Yitzhak de Molina. I devoted several chapters in my books to this author and to his writings. This particular copy contains hand-written annotations by the author on the margins, which I wanted to examine. I communicated for some time with several librarians as well as with the director, Igor N. Wojewodski. For years I was told that the library was inaccessible, and upon my request to contact the library, our guides tried to discourage me from going there. But finally we did go there, and I was able to access the room where the books are stored. The condition of that collection is appalling: books are stacked in tall piles on the floor in total disorder.

Even though I did not find the book that I was looking for, I felt that I made some progress by just being there, and by having first-hand information about the status of this collection. I hope that an occasion will arise in the future to come back to that library and to find what I was looking for. In addition, I am exploring ways to help the library place the books on shelves and make them accessible to scholars.

(8) Delegate Nancy Sinkoff had an individual meeting in Moscow with Dr. Oleg Budnitskii, Academic Director of The International Center for Russian and East European Jewish Studies in Moscow and Professor of History at the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Professor Budnitskii also attended our meeting with SEFER at the Russian Academy of Sciences. As it turns out, Professor Sinkoff will see Professor Budnitskii soon at her home institution, Rutgers University, where he will be delivering a lecture arranged by one of Professor Sinkoff's colleagues.

Some of our Conclusions:

I think all of us are in agreement that this was a wonderful experience in every way. We were delighted to meet our Russia counterparts and I believe we established some professional connections that will endure over the long term. We cannot thank People to People enough for the excellent job they did in arranging our various meetings and for including important sites of Jewish interest. The delegation was overwhelmed with the riches of Russian culture to which we were exposed in our tours. If there was any disappointment, it was that there was not an opportunity to see more of the remnants of the Soviet period.

All of the individuals we met were dedicated professionals who greeted us with warmth and enthusiasm. Yet, we also felt that much of what we saw was poignant. Soviet Jews, like other ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities during the Soviet regime, essentially lost the right to practice their own culture and to transmit their culture to the future. In the new Russia this right has been formally guaranteed. The laws have been changed and the anti-Semitism that exists now is not official policy; rather it is generated in various forms at the grassroots level. But a right that isn't implemented is only a right on paper. It is clear that the next phase of Jewish life in Russia will have to be for organizations both inside and outside the country to aid Russian Jews in redefining a distinct cultural identity. Needless to say, such efforts, some already underway, involve a variety of competing agendas. We encountered both demoralization and hope among the colleagues we encountered as to the possibility of recreating and preserving a meaningful Jewish community in Russia. There is clearly a great deal of work to be done.

Regarding academic Jewish Studies in Russia, we feel cautiously encouraged. There is clearly much that American academics in Jewish Studies, as well as academic organizations, could do to help. These include raising consciousness among our colleagues here about what is now going on academically in Russia, helping to facilitate student and faculty exchanges, and encouraging attendance from both constituencies at each others' academic conferences. Other ways in which we could make a difference include raising resources to safeguard and restore existing collections, advocating for open access to KGB files and other closed archives, sending books to build up libraries, providing Russian Jewish Studies programs with access to journals, and developing travel funds for Russian Jewish Studies academics and graduate students. We all hope that the contacts we made on this trip, both personally and institutionally, will play some small role in beginning to implement these goals.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith R. Baskin, Delegation Leader
October 8, 2005