10744 The Jews of Russia in the 20th Century 1

Credits: 6 intermediate credits in Modern History of the Jewish People

Prerequisites: none

Authors: Yaacov Ro’i, Baruch Gur-Gurevitz, Boris Kotlerman, Vladimir Levin, Arkadi Zeltser, Kiril Feferman, Natasha Zilber, Alek Epstein

The course surveys the main social, economic, political, and cultural processes in the history of Russian Jews from the beginning of the 20th century, before the collapse of the Russian empire, and during the entire Soviet period. Special attention is paid to relations between the Jewish population and the Soviet regime. The last unit deals with the mass emigration of the 1990s and the Russian Jewish diaspora.

Topics: Russian Jewry, 1900-1921; Jews in the Soviet Union, 1921-1939; The Soviet Jewish cultural world; Soviet Jewry in the Holocaust; The “black years” of Soviet Jewry (1948-1953); Soviet Jewry under Khrushchev and Brezhnev; The Jewish national revival and emigration in the 1970s and 1980s; The formation of a Russian Jewish diaspora.

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1A 4-credit version of this course is offered in Russian (42148). Its description is available on the Russian-language website of the Open University (https://www-r.openu.ac.il/).

There is some overlap in the content of this and other courses. For details, see Overlapping Courses.