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The book examines the Soviet Yiddish writer Der Nister's (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh, 1884-1950) vision of a post-Holocaust Jewish reconstruction, challenging the Jewish "homelessness" in the Diaspora.
List of contents
Foreword by Zvi Gitelman Note on the Translation and Transliteration Acronyms and Abbreviation Preface Part One: DER NISTER’S JOURNEY FROM MOSCOW TO BIROBIDZHAN A Wedding on a Migrant Train Der Nister’s Images and Impressions “With the Second Echelon” “With the New Settlers to Birobidzhan” A Man Dieth in a Tent Russian-Jewish “Hybridization” Comfort Ye My People Real Action Part Two: INVESTIGATION CASE NO. 68 Der Nister Affair Accused in the Case Detention Order: BUZI MILLER, June 6, 1949, Birobidzhan Interrogation Records Defendant HESHL RABINKOV, July 23, 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant BUZI MILLER, August 5, 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant BUZI MILLER, August 29, 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant BUZI MILLER, September 17, 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant ITSIK FEFER, June 30, 1949, Moscow Defendant BUZI MILLER, October 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant BUZI MILLER and Defendant HESHL RABINKOV, October 28, 1949, Khabarovsk (Confrontation) Defendant LUBA VASSERMAN, July 12, 1949, Khabarovsk Arrestee GRIGORI FRID, April 4, 1938, Minsk (Testimony) Defendant LUBA VASSERMAN, August 17, 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant SHIMEN SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, October 25, 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November 21, 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November [22–29?], 1949, Khabarovsk Defendant FAIVISH ARONES and Witness ALEKSANDR DRISIN, November 29, 1949, Khabarovsk (Confrontation) Resubmission of the Indictment: Defendant BUZI MILLER, December 15, 1949, Khabarovsk Bill of Indictment: BUZI MILLER, HESHL RABINKOV, ISROEL EMIOT, BER SLUTSKI, LUBA VASSERMAN, SHIMEN SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, and FAIVISH ARONES, April 6, 1950, Khabarovsk (Excerpts) The Sentence: BUZI MILLER, May 31, 1950, Moscow (Excerpt) Resolution to Reduce the Prison Term and Release BUZI MILLER from Custody, December 27, 1955, Moscow (Excerpt) Appendix: Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto” (Yiddish) Bibliography Index of Names and Places
About the author
Ber Kotlerman is Associate Professor at the Department of Literature of the Jewish People, Bar Ilan University, where in 2011–14 he served as Academic Director of the Rena Costa Center for Yiddish Studies. His fields of interest include Jewish history in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Far East, Yiddish and Hebrew literature, Jewish theater and cinema. He is the author of Disenchanted Tailor in “Illusion”: Sholem Aleichem behind the Scenes of Early Jewish Cinema (Bloomington, IN, 2014), The Cultural World of Soviet Jewry (Raanana, 2014), In Search of Milk and Honey: The Theater of “Soviet Jewish Statehood” (Bloomington, IN, 2009), and Bauhaus in Birobidzhan (Tel Aviv, 2008); the editor of Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 2009 and 2011), Yiddish Theater: Literature, Culture, and Nationalism (Ramat Gan, 2009); and the co-editor of Around the Point: Studies in Jewish Literature and Culture in Multiple Languages (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014)
Summary
The book examines the Soviet Yiddish writer Der Nister's (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh, 1884–1950) vision of a post-Holocaust Jewish reconstruction, challenging the Jewish “homelessness” in the Diaspora.
Additional text
“Broken Heart/Broken Wholeness is an exemplary historical
case study that combines meticulous archival research with insightful analysis
of an event that had fateful consequences for the Soviet Birobidzhan project.
It is also a valuable contribution to Jewish cultural history in the Soviet Union,
as it shows how the Soviet Jewish elite sought to play an active role in
shaping the reconstruction of Jewish life in the wake of the Second World War.
Last but not least, this book tells a dramatic personal story of a Yiddish
writer who emerged as a spiritual leader of his people, and who paid for his actions
with his life.”
—Mikhail Krutikov, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Studies
in Contemporary Jewry
