Shush! Growing Up Jewish Under Stalin - A Memoir

1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-0-520-25446-6
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 610 g

Many years after making his way to America from Odessa in Soviet Ukraine, Emil Draitser made a startling discovery: every time he uttered the word "Jewish"—even in casual conversation—he lowered his voice. This behavior was a natural by-product, he realized, of growing up in the anti-Semitic, post-Holocaust Soviet Union, when "Shush!" was the most frequent word he heard: "Don't use your Jewish name in public. Don't speak a word of Yiddish. And don't cry over your murdered relatives." This compelling memoir conveys the reader back to Draitser's childhood and provides a unique account of midtwentieth-century life in Russia as the young Draitser struggles to reconcile the harsh values of Soviet society with the values of his working-class Jewish family. Lively, evocative, and rich with humor, this unforgettable story ends with the death of Stalin and, through life stories of the author's ancestors, presents a sweeping panorama of two centuries of Jewish history in Russia.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Draitser, Emil

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Geschichte des Judentums Geschichte des Judentums: Moderne & Gegenwart
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Geschichte des Judentums Geschichte des Judentums außerhalb Israels/Palästinas
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte des Judentums (Diaspora)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

acknowledgments
notes on languages and translation
prologue

part one
1 How I Failed My Motherland
2 Fathers at War
3 Path to Paradise
4 What’s in a Name!
5 Black Shawl
6 Us Against Them
7 I Don’t Want to Have Relatives!
8 Friends and Enemies
9 The Girl of My Dreams
10 How They Laugh in Odessa

part two
11 Papa and the Soviets
12 A Dependent
13 Without Declarations
14 Who’s Who
15 A Strange Orange
16 Who Are You?
17 One Passover in Odessa

part three
18 On Commissars, Cosmopolites, and Lightbulb Inventors
19 Them!
20 No Kith, No Kin
21 Grandpa Uri
22 Missing Mikhoels
23 Black on White
24 Time Like Glass
25 The Death of Stalin

Epilogue
My Genealogical Tree

Über Autor(innen)

Emil Draitser is Professor of Russian at Hunter College of the City University of New York. In addition to his twelve books, his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Partisan Review and the North American Review.