Abstract
Thus, the ethnic-national identity of the Jewish population of Eastern Ukraine, including the Dnieper region, is an extremely complicated and dynamic phenomenon. It is the result of a set of internal factors (such as historical memory, cultural heritage, traditions in education and social activities) and external circumstances (pressure on the part of the non-Jewish population and their attitude towards Jews, models and degrees of integration into local society, mutual relations with Israel and other communities in Diaspora, as well as political and socioeconomic factors).
The national identity of East Ukrainian Jewry represents a dynamic mixture of people's reactions to the historically formed circumstances and to their own existence in a specific environment. External and internal circumstances strengthen, in various periods, the role of certain specific elements of Jewish self-identity and weaken the importance of others. At the same time, the conservation of the structure of Jewish self-identity under Ukrainian conditions in general is an evident factor testifying to the great adaptive potential ofthe Jewish people.
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See: Mark Kupovetsky,Ethnic Demography of Ukrainian Jews in the 1990s, and Projections of School Age Populations (7–16 years old) for 1997 and 2002. Demographic research, Commissioned and Funded by The Joseph Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora, Bar Ilan University. Translated, Edited and Applied by Dr. Vladimir (Zeev) Khanin and Dr. P. Hayman, Fall, 1996-Summer, 1997, p 15. It should be noted a trend of coming back to Jewish identity of many of those, who in Soviet times, preferred to hide it because of political reasons. Thus, at the moment the Jewish population of the Ukraine according to Halahic criteria is estimated between 270,000 and 400,000. However, the “enlarged Jewish population” of the Ukraine, having, the right to makeAliya to Israel according to Israeli Law of Return (Jews and members of their families in the second and third generations) is estimated at between 520,000 and 685,000 persons.
Naselennya Ukra’iny, 1992: Demografichnyi Shchrichnyk [Ukrainian Population, 1992. Annual Demography Abstract] (Kyiv, 1993), p. 54. See also: L. Finberg, “Jewish Problems and the Ukrainian Society and State,”Pamyataty za rady zhittya [To Remember for the Sake of Life] (Kiev, 1993), p. 126.
A survey of students - new immigrants admitted in 1994 to the preparatory course of the Bar-Ilan University (Ramat-Gan, Israel) carried out on the initiative of the students’ Dean’s Office has shown that practically none of them had any idea of the contents and values of Jewish education. About 80% had never seen a Jewish book. The later samples showed a slight improvement of this situation due to development of the system of Jewish education in Ukraine. (The survey results are kept at the Archive of theMekhina le-Olim, Bar-Ilan University.) The modem state of Jewish education in Ukraine, see V. Khanin, “The Jewish School Education in the Contemporary Ukraine,”Yehudei Brit Ha-Moetsot Ba-Ma’avar (Soviet Jews in Transition), Jerusalem, 1995, No 3 (18) (in Hebrew).
According to the Soviet Account and registration of Population Low, adopted in 1929, each Soviet citizen since the age of 16 had to have an “internal passport” (identification cards). Among other personal details (name, age, origin, family status, place of living, etc.), this document also definednatsionalnost’ (ethnic affiliation) of a person, stated in the fifth paragraph of the ID. Thus, the Jews were easily recognized at the moment they showed their ID while applying for jobs, or seeking admission to college and so on. It should be mentioned, that after Ukrainian independents the definition of ethnic origin of is being gradually abolished (upon a citizen’s wish) in the course of exchange of internal passports.
The author used a quotatype sample, representative to social and demographic composition of the Jewish population of the region (according to 1989 census and local demographic statistics data). The possible deviation is between +5 till -5%. Thus, forty eight per cent of the respondents were males and 52% females. The age-group subdivision of the respondents was as follows: under 18: 17%; 18–22: 15%; 23–28: 16%; 29–40: 15%; 41–55: 15%; and over 55: 18%. Thirty per sent of the respondents were school and University students, 14% were pensioners, 8% blue-collar workers, 41% engineering and technical personnel, and 7% belonged to other professional categories. The division according to the level of education was as follows: 22% had secondary school education, 22% had finished secondary technical schools, and 56% had higher of incomplete higher education.
Altogether, 540 persons were surveyed, chosen as a quota-type sample. There were 48% male and 52% female respondents. The age-group subdivision of the respondents was as follows: under 18: 15%; 18–22: 21%; 23–28: 15%; 29–40: 21%; 41–55: 21%; and over 55: 7%. Thirty two per cent of the respondents were school and University students, 7% were pensioners, 27% blue-collar workers, 25% whitecollar workers and engineering and technical personnel, and 9% belonged to other professional categories. Fifty nine per cent of the sample were Ukrainians, 36% were Russians, and 5% represented other nationalities. In 25% of cases, the respondents had secondary school or incomplete secondary school education, 26% had finished secondary technical schools, and 49% had higher of incomplete higher education.
In particular, these opposing views concerning the essence of Jewish life are also upheld by the two competing all-Ukrainian Jewish organizations: thesemiofficial Jewish Council of Ukraine (JCU) and the independent Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine (AJOCU). (Personal interviews with A. Levitas, Chairman, JCU, Kiev, August 1993 and August 1995; personal interviews with 1. Zissels, Chairman, AJOCU, Kiev, August 1993, August 1994 and January, 1997) See also: V. Khanin, “Jewish Institutions and Jewish Politics in Ukraine: Some Principal Trends and Aspects”,Yehudei Brit Ha-Moetsot ’avar [Soviet Jews in Transition] Jerusalem, 1996, No 4 (19), in Hebrew).
Golovaha, E., Panina, N. “Problems of Development of Jewish National and Cultural Autonomy in the Ukraine.” Paper, presented at the Second International Conference “Jewish History and Jewish Culture in Ukraine,” Kiev, August 1995, p. 3.
Russian sociologist Rozalina Ryvkina came to similar conclusion in the course of her survey of Jewish population of five Russian cities, conducted in May and June 1995. See: R. Ryvkina,Evrei postsovetskoi Rossii - kto oni? [The Jews in the Post-Soviet Russia - Who They Are?] (Moscow: URSS Pub., 1996), pp. 22–23.
Population surveys of the region under study were carried out by us in 19891993. The advocates of a “strong hand” in state power numbered about 15% in 1989,17% in 1990, 28% in 1991, about 35% in 1992, and 54% in 1993.
Nineteen percent of the respondents said those structures “would be useful to some extent” (fifth and sixth places in the list) and 8% said they would be useless (second place in the list). For the discussion of political presentation of Ukrainian Jews in the public square see: V. Khanin, “Judaism and Organized Jewish Movement in the USSR/CIS After World War II: the Ukrainian Case,”Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol. 11,Nos. 1–2 (Spring 1999), forthcoming.
For example, according to research Kiev Center of Political Studies and Conflicts, conducted on the eve of the March 1998 parliamentary elections in the Ukraine, number of those, who preferred to rely upon the state, was twice bigger then those, who believed that a person is to take care about himself. In Dnieper region this sort of paternalistic aspirations were even more considerable, then average in the whole Ukraine. See:Politicheskiye Nastroyeniya Nakanune Vyborov: Ukraina, Dekabr’ 1997 (Political Inclinations of the Population on the Eve of Elections: Ukraine, December 1997) (Kiev: KCPSC, 1998), pp. 10–16, 167–168.
It is interesting to note that the surveys of potential emigrants we have been conducting in the region under study for several years have shown a stable reduction of the proportion of those who thought they would rely only on themselves during their initial period in Israel. This proportion was 60%, 49%, and 36.4% in 1991, 1992, and 1993 respectively. It should be added that the proportion of those who expected aid “from the outside” was either consistently high (for example, 36%, 48%, and 36.5% respectively would rely on aid from the state) or was growing significantly (thus, 13%, 15%, and 27% of the respondents respectively would rely on aid from public organizations and private citizens).
Twenty eight per cent of the respondents only partially agreed with this statement, and 19% disagreed.
Among others, see: R. Brym,Jews of Moscow, Kiev and Minsk: Identity, Anti-Semitism, Emigration (N.Y., 1994); V. Chervyakov, Z. Gitelman, and V. Shapiro “Religion and Ethnicity: Judaism in Ethnic Consciousness of Contemporary Russian Jews”,Ethnic and Racial Studies, April, 1997, Vol. 20, No 2; Rivkina, R.Jews in Post-Soviet Russia, What Are They? (Moscow, 1996, in Russian). See also: V. Khanin,Jewish Life in the Ukraine after the Second World War.-Documents on National Identity and Emigration, 1944–1987 (London: Frank Cass, 1999) (forthcoming) 21.
The most ardent adherents of this idea were young people under 18 (18%), blue collar workers (21%), and persons with a secondary school education (24%).
Population surveys carried out in the region on the eve of parliamentary elections in March 1994 showed that 62% of the respondents advocated a close union with Russia and the entrance of Ukraine into the ruble zone. (S.L.Kataev, Public Opinion of the Dnieper Region Population Concerning Positions and Programs of Candidates to the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine: report of a sociological study, Zaporozhye, March 1994, p. 12.) A close trend was captured by the 1997census (Politicheskiye Nastroyeniya Nakanune Vyborov: Ukraina, Dekabr’ 1997, pp. 21–22).
This trend in general is also characteristic of the Slav intelligentsia in the region under study; see V. Khanin, “Young People of Ukraine Social Values and Anti-Semitism,”Jews in Eastern Europe, 1995, No. 6 (25).
A theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of expatriotism can be found in:E.Cohn, Expatriate Communities (London, 1977).
These sort of activities of Jewish organizations in the Ukraine is clearly presented in recently declassified documents of Ukrainian State Archives. Thus, for example, according to the data of the Chief Bureau of Jewish Sections, Central Committee, Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) (CPU/b/) (Annex to Protocol No.6 of 26 January 1926): “In a majority of cases, instead of calling on the Jewish masses to emigrate to Palestine, the Zionist organizations are making appeals of a general character, containing demands to establish wages superior to the pre-war level and prices of foodstuffs below the pre-war level. They are also demanding the introduction of Soviet democracy without Communists and are putting forward slogans with demands for the provision of land to the Jews” (a copy of this document can be found in the State Regional Archive of Zaporozhiye Province (GOAZO),Fond (Fund) 1,Opis’ (Inventory) 1, Delo (File) 398,List (Page) 6). Similar slogans were put forward by Jewish Zionist organizations in the 1920s and early 1930s during election campaigns. See:Tsentralnyi Derzhavnyi Arkhiv Gromadskykh Ob’yednan’ Ukrainy (TsDAGOU) (Central State Archive of Public Associations of Ukraine), F.4 1, Op. 1, DD.225–234, 236).
TsDAGOU, F. 1, Op.29, D.494, L.76–79.
See Protocol No.71 of 9 June 1929 of the Meeting of the Chief Bureau of Jewish Sections attached to the Central Committee, CPU(b); State Regional Archive of Zaporozhiye, F.1, Op.1, D.398, p.59.
This was shown, in particular, by a study of social distance in mutual relations of various national groups in the population of the Luganskoblast’ (region) whose socioeconomic type and social structure are similar to those of the region under study. (See E. Vilenska, V. Poklad, ‘National-Cultural Orientations of Inhabitants of Lugansk Oblast’,Filosofska i sotsiologichna dumka (Philosophical and Sociological Thought), 1993, No.4, p.50 (in Ukrainian).
M. Feller,Strivings, Thoughts and Recollections of a Jew Who Remembers His Grandfathers, on Jewish-Ukrainian Relations and Especially on Languages and Attitudes to Them (Drogobytch 1994), p. 10 (in Ukrainian).
The author would like to express his deep gratitude to the Yoram-Schnitzer Foundation for the Promotion of Studies in Jewish History, Tel-Aviv, for their kind contribution to the financing of field studies used as a basis for the present article.
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Khanin, V. Social consciousness and identity of ukrainian jewry: The case of the dnieper region. Cont Jewry 19, 120–150 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02963429
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02963429