A Lost Tribe: Russian-speaking Jews in South Africa Today

A Lost Tribe: Russian-speaking Jews in South Africa Today

Author: Boris Gorelik

Publisher: Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research, University of Cape Town

Published: 2010-09-01

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13: 0799224685

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There is a group of Jews in South Africa that has been almost overlooked by local Jewish organisations. In fact they are not even viewed as an entity, but rather as an aggregate of individuals whose number is unknown. These are the Russian-speaking Jews from the former Soviet Union- South African Jewry's 'lost tribe'. Unlike Israel, Germany or the United States, South Africa did not experience the influx of hundreds of thousands of Soviet and post-Soviet Jews in the 1970s to 1990s. That is probably a reason why neither researchers nor journalists has ever considered them as a South African phenomenon. In addition, unlike those Jews from the ex-USSR in Israel, Germany or the United States, in South Africa they have not formed their own communities and do not play a prominent part in the existing ones. In fact, they usually appear to be unwilling to involve themselves with South African Jewish organisations. They keep their distance and are not as religious or Zionist as their locally-born counterparts and are generally not community oriented. To some observers they may even appear to be more Russian than Jewish. Generally speaking, ex-USSR emigres are not clearly bound to their Jewish identity. They might be Jews but do they manifest any 'Jewishness'?


Saving the Lost Tribe

Saving the Lost Tribe

Author: Asher Naim

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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This extraordinary history of the Falashas, the Black Jews of Ethiopia, is chronicled by the former Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia. Naim also recounts the rescue mission in 1991 that delivered them to the safety of Israel. 8-page full-color photo insert with b&w photos throughout.


The Jews of Contemporary Post-Soviet States

The Jews of Contemporary Post-Soviet States

Author: Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-10-23

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 3110791072

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Since the end of the USSR, post-Soviet Jewry has evolved into an ethnically and culturally diverse Russian speaking community. This process is taking place against the gradual inflation of a collective identity among Russian-speaking Jews that survived the first post-Soviet decade. The infrastructure for this new entity is provided by new local (or ethno-civic) groups of East European Ashkenazi Jewry with specific communal, subcultural, and ethno-political identities (“Ukrainian,” “Moldavian,” or “Russian” Jews, e.g.). These communities demonstrate a changing balance of identification between their countries of residence and the “transnational Russian-Jewish community”, and they absorb a significant number of persons of non-Jewish and ethnically heterogeneous origins as well. This book discusses identity, community modes, migration dynamics, socioeconomic status, attitudes toward Israel, social and political environments, and other parameters framing these trends using the results of a comprehensive sociological study of the extended Jewish population conducted in 2019–2020 by this author in the five former-Soviet Union countries (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Kazakhstan).


The Jews in South Africa

The Jews in South Africa

Author: Richard Mendelsohn

Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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Spanning the past two centuries, this book explores the fascinating role played by this small but highly significant community in the economic. political, social and cultural life of this country. This richly illustrated story -- the first comprehensive history to appear in over 50 years -- includes a wide range of historically important photographs, many long unseen, and encompasses a broad swathe of Jewish life, from the bimoh and the boardroom to the bowling green. Beginning with the first Jewish immigrants to South Africa, and depicting the fragility of the early foundations and the shifting fortunes of this infant community, the book traces its development to robust maturity amidst turbulent social and political currents. These include the strident anti-semitism of the 1930s, the moral dilemmas of the apartheid era, the subsequent turbulent transition towards a non--racial democracy, the birth of the New South Africa and the fresh challenges and promise that have followed in its wake up to the present day. Included are such personalities as Barney Barnato, Helen Suzman, Joe Slovo, Sol Kerzner and Rabbi Cyril Harris, as well as many others who have made an important mark in their fields. This book will be of great interest to every member of the Jewish community living both in South Africa and in their adoptive countries, as well as to all wishing to learn more about this highly energetic and innovative community whose contribution in many spheres of life has so greatly influenced and enriched the history of South Africa.


What Ifs of Jewish History

What Ifs of Jewish History

Author: Gavriel D. Rosenfeld

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-09-08

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 110703762X

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Counterfactual history of the Jewish past inviting readers to explore how the course of Jewish history might have been different.


The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel

The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel

Author: Andrew Tobolowsky

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-03-17

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1009089137

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The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel is the first study to treat the history of claims to an Israelite identity as an ongoing historical phenomenon from biblical times to the present. By treating the Hebrew Bible's accounts of Israel as one of many efforts to construct an Israelite history, rather than source material for later legends, Andrew Tobolowsky brings a long-term comparative approach to biblical and nonbiblical “Israelite” histories. In the process, he sheds new light on how the structure of the twelve tribes tradition enables the creation of so many different visions of Israel, and generates new questions: How can we explain the enduring power of the myth of the twelve tribes of Israel? How does “becoming Israel” work, why has it proven so popular, and how did it change over time? Finally, what can the changing shape of Israel itself reveal about those who claimed it?


The Thirteenth Tribe

The Thirteenth Tribe

Author: Arthur Koestler

Publisher:

Published: 2014-05

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9781939438188

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This book traces the history of the ancient Khazar Empire, a major but almost forgotten power in Eastern Europe, which in the Dark Ages became converted to Judaism. Khazaria was finally wiped out by the forces of Genghis Khan, but evidence indicates that the Khazars themselves migrated to Poland and formed the cradle of Western Jewry. To the general reader the Khazars, who flourished from the 7th to 11th century, may seem infinitely remote today. Yet they have a close and unexpected bearing on our world, which emerges as Koestler recounts the fascinating history of the ancient Khazar Empire. At about the time that Charlemagne was Emperor in the West. The Khazars' sway extended from the Black Sea to the Caspian, from the Caucasus to the Volga, and they were instrumental in stopping the Muslim onslaught against Byzantium, the eastern jaw of the gigantic pincer movement that in the West swept across northern Africa and into Spain. Thereafter the Khazars found themselves in a precarious position between the two major world powers: the Eastern Roman Empire in Byzantium and the triumphant followers of Mohammed. As Koestler points out, the Khazars were the Third World of their day. They chose a surprising method of resisting both the Western pressure to become Christian and the Eastern to adopt Islam. Rejecting both, they converted to Judaism. Mr Koestler speculates about the ultimate faith of the Khazars and their impact on the racial composition and social heritage of modern Jewry. He produces a large body of meticulously detailed research.


Becoming Jewish

Becoming Jewish

Author: Tudor Parfitt

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9781443899659

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One of the most striking contemporary religious phenomena is the world-wide fascination with Judaism. Traditionally, few non-Jews converted to the Jewish faith, but today millions of people throughout the world are converting to Judaism and are identifying as Jews or Israelites. In this volume, leading scholars of issues related to conversion, Judaising movements and Judaism as a New Religious Movement discuss and explain this global movement towards identification with the Jewish people, from Germany and Poland to China and Nigeria.


American Jewish Year Book 2019

American Jewish Year Book 2019

Author: Arnold Dashefsky

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2020-08-11

Total Pages: 830

ISBN-13: 9783030403706

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Part I of each volume will feature 5-7 major review chapters, including 2-3 long chapters reviewing topics of major concern to the American Jewish community written by top experts on each topic, review chapters on "National Affairs" and "Jewish Communal Affairs" and articles on the Jewish population of the United States and the World Jewish Population. Future major review chapters will include such topics as Jewish Education in America, American Jewish Philanthropy, Israel/Diaspora Relations, American Jewish Demography, American Jewish History, LGBT Issues in American Jewry, American Jews and National Elections, Orthodox Judaism in the US, Conservative Judaism in the US, Reform Judaism in the US, Jewish Involvement in the Labor Movement, Perspectives in American Jewish Sociology, Recent Trends in American Judaism, Impact of Feminism on American Jewish Life, American Jewish Museums, Anti-Semitism in America, and Inter-Religious Dialogue in America. Part II-V of each volume will continue the tradition of listing Jewish Federations, national Jewish organizations, Jewish periodicals, and obituaries. But to this list are added lists of Jewish Community Centers, Jewish Camps, Jewish Museums, Holocaust Museums, and Jewish honorees (both those honored through awards by Jewish organizations and by receiving honors, such as Presidential Medals of Freedom and Academy Awards, from the secular world). We expand the Year Book tradition of bringing academic research to the Jewish communal world by adding lists of academic journals, articles in academic journals on Jewish topics, Jewish websites, and books on American and Canadian Jews. Finally, we add a list of major events in the North American Jewish Community.