In Jewish Odesa<\/strong>,\u00a0Marina Sapritsky-Nahum<\/strong> explores\u00a0Jewish identity in Odesa over the course of Soviet history, Ukrainian nation-building and global Jewish revivals. Combining oral histories, anthropology and Jewish studies, this vivid work captures a resilient community navigating shifting political, cultural, and transnational dynamics,\u00a0writes Lucy\u00a0Lopata-Varkas<\/strong>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Jewish Odesa: Negotiating Identities and Traditions in Contemporary Ukraine.<\/a><\/strong><\/em> Marina Sapritsky-Nahum. Indiana University Press. 2024.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0The author draws out the multiplicity of Jewish experiences and how \u2018no single interpretation of Jewish lives in the Soviet Union could reveal a complete picture of Odesa\u2019s Jews\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As a daughter of immigrants from the Soviet Union, the author, much like her interlocutors, was faced with navigating the multifacetedness of her own positionality and identity within the boundaries of modern Russian-speaking Jewry in Ukraine. This engenders a reflexivity within in the writing, adding complexity to the ethnography and subsequent analysis. The book opens with a vignette of Sapritsky-Nahum sitting in an Odesan park with her father who is surprised to see Jewish children wearing kippahs (skullcaps) in public, contrasting with the enforced secularism in the Soviet regime he grew up in. One of the boys who comes up to chat to the author asks why her father, who is Jewish, doesn\u2019t wear a kippah. This innocent encounter begins Sapritsky-Nahum\u2019s discourse on the everchanging nature of Jewishness in Odesa and the difference between forging \u201cnew ways of life\u201d rather than \u201creturning\u201d to them (141).\u00a0<\/p>\n The following two chapters focus primarily on Odesan history, and the narratives told by elderly Odesan Jews, acting as a background to the succeeding reflections on revival and change. The information in chapter one illuminates the cultural significance of Odesa for Jewish intelligentsia who thrived among the liberal environments of the 19th<\/sup> century. Well-known figures such as the author Sholem Aleichem, philosopher Aham Ha\u2019am, or poet Haim Nachman-Bialik, to name a few, were tied to Odesa over the course of their lives, as were prominent leaders of the Zionist movement, like Ze\u2019ev Jabotinsky. Thus, the author points out, Jewish Odesits<\/em> (Odesans) had adopted the values of the intelligentsia class as Jewish values. This is further explored in chapter two, where Sapritsky-Nahum focuses on the accounts of four elderly Jews who, to varying degrees, identified with Jewishness, Judaism and Odesa; some had strong ties with Israel, others were brought up in strictly secular homes. The author draws out the multiplicity of Jewish experiences and how \u201cno single interpretation of Jewish lives in the Soviet Union could reveal a complete picture of Odesa\u2019s Jews\u201d (83).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The author recounts examples of local Odesans who adopted a religious lifestyle much to the surprise (and sometimes even discontent) of their elderly family members<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Within the following chapters of Jewish Odesa<\/em>, Sapritsky-Nahum turns to discussions concerning Jewish revivals and the effect it has had on Jewish Odesans. Some scholars of Jewish heritage bemoaned the term \u201ca Jewish Europe<\/a>,\u201d perceiving it as inaccurate or immaterial \u2013 a wishful characterisation of the achievements of revival efforts. Ruth Ellen Gruber, too, proposed the term \u201cvirtually Jewish<\/a>\u201d to describe the many non-Jews who not only partook in, but initiated such revivals. Sapritsky-Nahum\u2019s ethnography is a new addition to such reflections with the observation that Jewish Odesans are not so much restoring their lost Jewishness, but reinventing it. According to her, \u201cadopting a religious identity in twenty-first-century Odesa became<\/em> a way for Jews to define their Jewishness by turning to, rather than returning to, religious practice and faith\u201d (114, italics original). This point is elucidated mainly in chapter four where the author recounts examples of local Odesans who adopted a religious lifestyle much to the surprise (and sometimes even discontent) of their elderly family members who grew up with different understandings of Jewishness \u2013 less religious, more value-oriented.\u00a0<\/p>\n The existence of such rich and varied experiences might be attributed, the author suggests in chapter five, to the influence of Jewish philanthropic missions from Israel and the US. Often perceiving ex-Soviet Jews as \u201cdeprived\u201d (174), they exposed and \u201cimported\u201d understandings of Jewishness from other diasporic communities, which differed in their principles and priorities. Thus, perceiving Odesan Jews as in need of \u201crescue\u201d or of a revival created what the author termed \u201casymmetrical encounters\u201d (144), magnifying the disparate relationship and value dynamics present within global Jewish communities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Sapritsky-Nahum considers the ways the war has shaped and altered Jewish Odesan perceptions of nationhood and belonging<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In the last two chapters, Sapritsky-Nahum looks beyond the significance of Odesa as a \u201cJewish place\u201d due to the ways Jews who have shaped local culture, language, and customs to consider the lasting presence of Odesa, along with its networks and values, in the lives of those who emigrated, returned, and remained. Drawing on her interlocutors\u2019 experiences, the author underlines the bond between Odesa and Jewish Odesits<\/em>, suggesting:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019home\u2019 and \u2018diaspora\u2019 were not ideologically driven constants associated with a center (life in Israel) and a periphery (life outside Israel). Rather, they should be conceptualized as variable locations, infused with memories and attachments that social actors inhabit and relate to through everyday experiences and life circumstances, which in turn shape their imagined reality and senses of attachments\u201d (199).\u00a0<\/p>\n This is an incisive analysis of the home\/diaspora model, sharpened by the inclusion of a short epilogue chapter that considers the ongoing war in Ukraine. Sapritsky-Nahum considers the ways the war has shaped and altered Jewish Odesan perceptions of nationhood and belonging due to their liminal placement between so many categories: Jewish, Odesan, Ukrainian, or Russian-speaking, to name a few.\u00a0<\/p>\n The author carried out most of her fieldwork in the mid-2000s and shows an awareness of the limitations of her work given the onset of war. Yet, her consecutive excursions to Odesa in 2014 and 2019 gave her a glimpse of the growing tensions and shifting understandings of the entanglements of Jewishness, Ukraine, and Russia, which she notes can \u201conly be further transformed\u201d (250) during the war and are in need of further research. Nonetheless, Sapritsky-Nahum\u2019s Jewish Odesa<\/em> is an ethnographically vivid addition to the anthropology of Jews and Jewishness. It is sure to interest anybody wishing to broaden their knowledge of the lives of minorities, diaspora groups, or post-Soviet experiences.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Note:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.<\/em><\/p>\n Main image credit<\/strong>:\u00a0Solarisys<\/a> on Shutterstock<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Enjoyed this post?\u00a0<\/em>Subscribe to our newsletter<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for a round-up of the latest reviews sent straight to your inbox every other Tuesday.\ufeff<\/em><\/p>\n
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<\/a>Marina Sapritsky-Nahum\u2019s\u00a0Jewish Odesa<\/em>\u00a0is a compelling exploration of Jewishness in Odesa against the backdrop of Soviet history, Ukrainian nation-making, and ongoing European Jewish revivals. Drawing on an abundance of materials from history, oral testimonies, anthropology, and Jewish studies, Sapritsky-Nahum depicts a vibrant community whose connection to the port city never falters, despite waves of emigration to countries like Israel or the US, the changing political status quo, and fluctuating levels of religious observance. Over the course of seven chapters, we learn about various ways of being Jewish in Odesa and different levels of belonging for Jewish Odesans who, negotiate their \u201ccosmopolitanisms\u201d depending on age, experience, or even transnational networks. Odesa\u2019s erstwhile position as a vital port city during the Russian Empire and Soviet Union immersed it within a Russian-speaking sphere of influence, yet, it has been part of Ukraine since that nation gained independence in 1991. This history, combined with the\u00a02014 Euromaidan protests<\/a>\u00a0and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, has meant that \u201cJewish Odesans find themselves to be part of different communities simultaneously: as Jews, as Odesans, as Ukrainians, and as Russians or Russian speakers\u201d (17).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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