We are Jews again : Jewish activism in the Soviet Union /

The author of this oral history was an activist in the Soviet Jewry struggle, one of those who played a key role in cultural and political organizing, including mutual aid for "refuseniks" denied emigration for years and even decades. The Jewish movement in the former Soviet Union overcame totalitarian repression to motivate and promote the emigration of half a million Jews by the time communism fell, with another 1.3 million more emigrating, mainly to Israel and the US, during the 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author's recollections, documented with scholarly sources and, especially, with oral history testimonies, provide a detailed portrait of how the movement grew and of how assistance from Israel and US Jewry, as well as from other diaspora communities and countries, reinforced and built up the wave of Jewish emigration. The book also underscores the development of a movement for Jewish cultural and religious identity in an atheistic, repressive state, providing the basis for a continued Jewish communal life well into the 21st century. Important as a work about transnational identity. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Robert Moses Shapiro, Brooklyn College