Chapter Five Jewish Studies
Journal: University of Toronto Press eBooks
Year: 2025

The fight for the right of Soviet Jews to repatriate to Israel did not in and of itself lead to a renaissance of Jewish studies in the USSR.In 1956, Shaul Avigur, the director of Nativ sought to create an academic centre for the study of Soviet Jews in Jerusalem, but he had no intention of encouraging Jewish studies in the USSR itself. 1 The goal of Nativ was to facilitate the emigration of Jews to Israel, not to create any expectation that full-fledged Jewish life was possible in Russia.The Zio