Russians, Jews, and Hebrew: The Makings of Ambivalence
Year: 2011

Zvi Gitelman entitled his popular and highly regarded text on Jewish history from 1881 to post-Soviet times, A Century of Ambivalence. Why ambivalence, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as, coexistence in one person of contradictory emotions or attitudes (as love and hatred) towards a person or thing? Gitelman (2001:xi, xiii) explained that Russians and Jews have been locked into a tempestuous, intense relationship producing great enthusiasms and profound disappointments as well as eno