Jewish Russians: Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue

Canadian Slavonic Papers, Mar-Jun 2004 by Wanner, Catherine

Sascha L. Goluboff. Jewish Russians: Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. 199 pp. Map. Glossary. Works Cited. Index. $19.95, paper.

Sascha Goluboff combines two themes that have received tremendous scholarly attention since the fall of the USSR: the role of religion and ethnicity in self-definition and the interrelation between these two factors. By analyzing the everyday workings of life in the multinational Central Synagogue of Moscow, Goluboff illustrates how individual believers balance their own interpretations of themselves as practising Jews and as Russians, Georgians, and Caucasians or Mountain Jews living in Moscow.

This ethnography details many of the dynamics that shift allegiances either to a national or religious group and the effect this has on the overall solidarity of or strains within this synagogue community. Importantly, the book considers how the new moral economy of consumption and emerging class differences affect social bonds. The author also considers the influence of Western religious leaders, such as the French head rabbi, who, against the wishes of many older, long-standing members, places a premium on competing for believers by engaging in outreach to young secular Jews. Finally, by contrasting the values and worship practices of elderly, Russian believers with younger members who are of mixed nationality, the author is able to reveal the values, beliefs and social bonds the Soviet system engendered and alienation between generations.

One of the most original aspects of this ethnography is a reversal of the typical way gender plays out. Usually, community studies of religious groups that embrace traditional gender roles and a strict separation of the sexes inevitably lead to women scholars studying the views and practices of the women members. Although GolubofPs selected community reflects traditional gender divisions, she nonetheless studied the men of the community. Indeed, we learn very little about the women participants in this community. Goluboff s persistence to "observe" morning services by sitting in the corridor behind a half-closed door and her willingness to endure the constant debates as to whether she should cover her head or not (she did with a hat) or whether she had a right as a woman to be present in some shadow form at all or not, truly add a unique dimension that distinguishes this study from other ethnographies of religious communities.

The first line of her book asserts that this study is "about the end of an era," meaning the end of Soviet-engendered cultural values and practices shaping communal religious life and the end of the domination of Russian Jews as key members of the synagogue (p. 1 ). The author does a fine job analyzing why and how this era has ended and describing what appears to be emerging to take its place. Yet, her discussion of what this era was is minimal. Had the hints of comparison Goluboff offers been expanded, 1 believe this study would have been strengthened. For example, she offers fascinating remembrances and archival data of synagogue life under the Soviet regime to better depict the tensions among members after the collapse of socialist economies. However, a clearer and broader depiction of the workings of the synagogue under Soviet rule would have revealed the degree to which the problems that the synagogue members encounter today are new. For example, what were the sources of community conflict in the past? Who assumed key leadership positions in resolving them? What role, if any, did tensions between Ashkenazim and Sephardim or among different nationalities play? The aspects of synagogue life the author selected to focus on bespeak her view of what is distinctly Soviet or post-Soviet about synagogue life in Moscow today. Yet, perhaps a more direct discussion of how the issues in Moscow differ from American or western Jewish communities more generally, where open competition for members, fundraising, concern over assimilation and secularism, and status-based patterns of consumption are established factors, would have further highlighted the distinctiveness of this community and the dynamics driving change.

This study is clearly suitable for classroom use and will be of interest to cultural anthropologists, sociologists, anyone interested in religious life in the former Soviet Union, and Soviet area specialists more generally. The numerous anecdotes the author recounts of her experiences conducting fieldwork as a woman among a religiously and culturally conservative community of men, combined with her vivid descriptions of characters and personalities and the forces and desires that propel them, make this an interesting book for all.

Catherine Wanner, The Pennsylvania Slate University