Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness : The Post-Holocaust Plea for Jewish Reconstruction of the Soviet Yiddish Writer Der Nister / Ber Kotlerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kotlerman, Ber, Author.

Contributor:

Gitelman, Zvi Y.

Series:

Jews of Russia & Eastern Europe and their legacy.

Jews of Russia & Eastern Europe and Their Legacy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nister, 884-1950--Travel--Russia (Federation)--Birobidzhan.

Nister.

Nister, 1884-1950--Trials, litigation, etc.

Authors, Yiddish--Soviet Union--Biography.

Authors, Yiddish.

Jewish authors--Crimes against--Russia (Federation)--Birobidzhan.

Jewish authors.

Jews--Persecutions--Soviet Union.

Jews.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (299 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Boston, MA : Academic Studies Press, [2017]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In the summer of 1947, three years before his death in a labor camp hospital, one of the most significant Soviet Yiddish writers Der Nister (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh, 1884-1950) made a trip from Moscow to Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Region in the Russian Far East. He traveled there on a special migrant train, together with a thousand Holocaust survivors. The present study examines this journey as an original protest against the conformism of the majority of Soviet Jewish activists. In his travel notes, Der Nister described the train as the "modern Noah's ark," heading "to put an end to the historical silliness." This rhetoric paraphrasing Nietzsche's "historical sickness," challenged the Jewish history in the Diaspora, which "broke" the people's mythical "wholeness." Der Nister formulated his vision of a post-Holocaust Jewish reconstruction more clearly in his previously unknown notes ("Birobidzhan Manifesto"), the last that have reached us from Der Nister's creative legacy, which are being discussed for the first time in this book. Without their own territory, he wrote, the Jews were like "a soul without a body or a body without a soul, and in either case, always a cripple." Records of the fabricated investigation case against the "anti-Soviet nationalist grouping in Birobidzhan" reveal details about Der Nister's thoughts and real acts. Both the records and the manifesto are being published here for the first time.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Foreword / Gitelman, Zvi

Note on the Translation and Transliteration

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Preface / Kotlerman, Ber

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 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November 21, 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)

The Early Release: BUZI MILLER, December 27, 1955, Moscow (Excerpt)

Appendix: Der Nister's "Birobidzhan Manifesto" (Yiddish)

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 21. Dez 2019)

ISBN:

1-61811-531-6

OCLC:

958066492