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Hello, welcome to the new books in Jewish Studies podcast. I am your host, Ari Barblett. Today, I'm honored to be in dialogue with Dr. Zev Levine.
We'll be discussing his book, Collectivization and Social Engineering, Soviet Administration and the Jews of Uzbekistan, 1917 to 1939, published in Leiden, Netherlands, like Bril 2015. Zev Levine is a historian specializing in the modern history of Central Asia and the Caucasus. He is Director of Research Center on Jews in Central Asia and the Iranian Sphere at the Bensfi Institute in Jerusalem. He is also a research fellow at the Harry Estrumen Institute for the Advancement of Peace at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
It's an honor to be in your presence. Thank you, Ari Barblett. To begin, can you kindly tell us about yourself? Where did you grow up?
What for to the events in your life inspired the scholarly leader become? If you're coming to conclusion that I become a scholar, well, I was born in the Soviet USSR in the city that was called the Leningrad back then today. It's a better known as Sanpetable. I and my family were part of the refusing community, people who struggled for the right of the immigration from the USSR.
And finally, we were granted permission at 1980. So actually, I grew up as a child. I grew up in Israel and I'm what could be probably determined as a product of the Israeli education system. All of my education came from the Israeli schools, the private high schools, universities, etc.
What inspired you to write this book? What message do you hope to convey to readers? Well, I came to the topic probably by accident. As most of the things that happen in your life, I graduated from the Middle Eastern Studies.
But when I conducted my M8s that focused on the Hamas movement and the peace accord, pretty much for today's as well. But then I realized that I was in Israeli and dealing with Middle East, it's kind of problematic. So I went as far as I could from our region and ended up in Central Asia. And back then it was the time that the Soviet Union fell apart and the new Muslim Republic emerged.
And this topic actually became at least something new and I thought that I could contribute to the seal. And while beginning to work at the local archives in Uzbekistan, I discovered lots of archival material about the Jewish community that lived in Prospered in this region of Central Asia, which I not really knew at the time and didn't think initially that I will focus with it or make my career academic career dealing with this topic. But once I was there and I thought that, well, it's something that no one touched about. And when I was opening archival booklets, I could notice that I was the first man who ever opened them and signed the booklet when receiving.
So I decided to deal with this topic eventually and they wrote a PhD thesis and the book that you hold it in front of you is actually the outcome of my PhD thesis. What are the primary themes in this book? What story and stories does this book tell? Well, there are definitely quite a few stories that developed simultaneously.
First and foremost, it's a book about Jewish history of Central Asia and the Jews that lived in the interwar period in this region from the World Republic of Uzbekistan also emerged just in that time. And it's also a story of collectivization and the transformation that all the region of those Asian republics underwent under the colonies. And of course, it's also the story of the Jewish community of the USSR as the whole. And it's also the story of minorities that lived in this region for centuries and also underwent similar processes during this time.
So if you read the title of the book, it doesn't focus on the Jews in the first instance, but dealing with collectivization and social engineering. And this was the private task that the government and the government authorities were focusing on when addressing the Muslim majority, but also minorities. And the Jews in this region in these groups are only a case study that helps through the micro history, reflect to the much wider topics and issues. What does your book title mean?
Can you explain it? Yeah, collectivization and social engineering, meaning exactly that that the Soviet authorities in the 20s and 30s were dealing in changing the whole society and the changing of the society from the people were in their point of view, were stuck in the villages with all beliefs and all practices of their occupations needed to transform and to become and use Soviet men. And in order to do so, they had to concern the peasants and farmers into workers of collective farms and the the treatment and the producers of everything to work in the also in the artels in the community, and share the social socialist way of life. And this was a huge endeavor, which spread all over the Soviet Union and the creation of national republics actually was only one part of this in the data.
And what the title means is actually that during the 20s and 30s, the Soviet authorities were focusing on transforming the peasants into Soviet peasants and to the treatment into Soviet productive men who wouldn't be concerned about themselves only but to teach them the ideals of the communist revolution and to fight all those who are not accepting the rule. All the authorities, the religious institutions and so on. On page 65, you write as follows. I'm going to read the passage.
At the beginning of the 1920s, upper echelons of the Russian communist regime began to recognize the fact that the Jews had suffered more than any other population group as a result of the communist revolution. This crystallized after public institutions became cognizant that most Jews were not engaged in trade by choice and that the star restoration had deliberately prevented them from working in agriculture and manufacturing, cultivating them as a buffer between the expoive masses and the regime with the outbreak of the communist revolution merchants and middlemen lost their source of livelihood. It was now the responsibility of the party to initiate affirmative action for this public sector and allowed Jews to work in agriculture. The first step towards creation of a what I quote, normative national region where the Jewish nation would be if they had been settled in concentrated settlement blocks, which in time would form national territories.
These positions were an expression of axioms that were self-evident and did not rely on any data. There is no doubt that the Jews who lived in Russia prior to the Bolshevik revolution had suffered injustice and states sponsored persecution and it is difficult. It is clear that the situation of the Jewish population during the 1920s was difficult and the less remains unclear is whether the ravages of the past had a more significant effect on the Jews and on other non-Jewish population groups among whom they lived as a consequence of the economic restrictions imposed on Jews during the Tsarist period. Can you say more about this for us?
Sure, well it is actually a continuation with the explanation of the titan, so it is connected to one to another. The point here is that while the General Martin published his book on the affirmative action empire in the USSR claiming that USSR was one of the empires that applied affirmative action to provide equality between the nationalities in the USSR, the Jews that lived in the USSR actually gained much more affirmative action from the state than any other. Because they considered by the party Asholans and again it is a long story explaining why it happened but as a fact Jews were part of the affirmative action that was implied by the authorities in one case but what is most interesting in this is that the Soviet authorities based in Moscow looking down on all other minorities living in a special Asian Islands that are considered to be for them, the end of the civil world actually could fail to determine that there are various kinds of Jews that lived in the USSR. In one part they claim that various groups that lived in the USSR of Jews are actually different national groups and in the 1926 census those groups were counted as different nationalities.
Asholans are considered to be one of the national groups and they were calling Jews another but they are affirmative action that was not considered to be one of the national group and they were calling Jews another. But the affirmative action that was applied for them actually looked at them similarly and in this way the authority established various forms of action towards Jews and various authorities that were actually responsible to provide their needs. For example the concept the authority for a settlement of Jews on land was established in Moscow but soon enough just a few years after was also established in Uzbekistan and their aim was to make sure that Jews would be settled on land and receive pretty much a favorable place comparing to many other minorities living that were living among them. In this case at least while those authorities were the consent of the party authorities also was responsible for Jewish transformation into a social group were actually receiving extra funds receiving extra attention and by this the Jews are living all over the Soviet Union but also by book focusing on the majority of Uzbekistan are actually received more attention from the Soviet authorities than any other national group.
If you compare them to the Greeks or Minions or the other national minorities living in Uzbekistan at the time the government authority expressed much more intention and much more funds were allocated to deal with the Jews than any other minority. This is kind of important an interesting issue. Can you tell us what the call causes in Central Asia? All the forms of private ownership of land and the private cultivation of land.
The sole ownership of tools was considered to be agricultural tools in this context but also any tools of production considered by the Marxist ideology is something that couldn't be done and all forms of cultivation of land or production should be collected. The creation of collective forms on the confiscated land that became a state ownership is actually led to the creation of causes in which the collective forms in which all members were equal, all members were working together, all members were supposed to cultivate the land together and then provide the production to the government who would buy it from them in the fixed prices. In the sense of the Jewish population in Central Asia which my book could focus on was double problematic because of transformation or moving most of the Jewish population into causes, into farm agriculture was not natural for this one or two because most of them, more than 90% were city dwellers and never dealt with agricultural or agricultural life. The government was trying to make the Jews a normal national land and by this also when it's residing on this certain land plot, it will also be owned with a certain rights to the national minority.
The zerasto, it will receive a national and education, it's a national language, it will receive a representation of its national group only because they had their own land. This was very important for the authorities, this is why there were several other projects in the USSR that first had a tremendous tool that was used on the Khmera Peninsula and then creating for them Biorbijan which was an automius region designed to be settled by all the Jews from the Russian, the Russian, and the same also happened in the territory of the Wikistan where the authorities, the Soviet authorities were trying to pull the Jewish masses from the city centers of Somarkand and to settle them on the land and by this making them a normal minority group. And you tell us about the blood libel in the city of Kharjui but were the reasons and repercussions of the Kharjui affair. Can you tell us about similar episodes such as the one that took place in Somarkand in August 1930 and in Kyrgyzstan in 1931?
The blood of the bay was actually resonance the anti-semitism of anti-semitism in a central Asia. Compared to other parts of the Russian Empire later the Soviet Union, anti-semitism was rarely addressed regarding Jews in central Asia. In central Asia Jews settled for many centuries living together with the Muslim population and actually the modern anti-semitism arrives to central Asia only after the conquest of the region by the Russians in the 19th century. Well, where the Rovuslava Church arrived to the region and introduced the terms of anti-semitism to the region which never registered at least such deeds, especially as a blood libel to the region before.
We don't have any record about the recommendations of Jews in the Muslim world and of course the atto-pae of special texts under the authority of the Muslim administration. But more or less those economic limitations were eat while modern anti-semitism and especially as a big or if we can encounter the blood bills are the direct effect of Russian colonialism. And the Dostinabales arrived and spread in the region and in the Turkish Jew which is really remote and forgotten region is a planting that reflects specifically on the problems with Soviet administration that was trying to impose its standards on the Muslim population. And while recognizing or thinking that the Jews are some way involved with the revolution those anti-semitic act actually began spreading in the region and were first documented at the 1928 in the chargeau.
Then there were similar cases of blood debate but once again while in the European parts of the US are blood liberal, acquisition brought to programs and to the murder in the central Asia those parts to some demonstrations and manifestations for claiming or demanding the authorities to look into those claims. This was it. So the scale and amplitude of those cases was actually very small and it's not published by the Soviet authorities in the central press. But I think that no one will hear about them a hundred years later but the Jewish affair will actually magnify it and out there was an outing about this affair in the Soviet press that was trying to make it as a case.
For everybody in the USSR to see that socket those cases could probably happen only in very remote and not develop regions but actually were aimed to the wider publics and to say that they don't want to hear about it anymore. And they see those cases as something that's related to the religious issues that are there no place in the family of nations of the USSR. Who was Ildash Akhoon Babayev? Can you describe him?
Yeah sure again and Ildash Akhoon Babayev and for the Lakhojai for the over party leaders who spread their influence and adopted the communist ideology in the very beginning of the establishment of the Soviet regime. Ildash Akhoon Babayev came from a very poor family in the Fergnavalli and the Soviet became a party commissar and one of the prominent figures of the Soviet government in Uzbekistan. It was told that he was actually grew up as a among the Jewish population of the Fergnavalli and those who were quite familiar with Jewish practices and was one of the people who were trying to assist Jews in need. What were the red tea houses?
Can you explain? The red tea houses are actually institutions that the Soviet government adopted. The tea house is an establishment that was still existing in Central Asia as a place where men come, drink tea of course, but also relate to each other, play games, but also discuss every political and social topic existing. What the Soviet authorities did is actually transformed those capitalists and the people of Bourgeois places into hubs of the Soviet power.
They introduced the Soviet papers into it, they made, they adopted the institution of the social institution that exists in Central Asia and they transformed it into a Soviet one. The one that people who come there will discuss the Soviet issues and will discuss the Soviet justice and discuss positively of course, the Soviet power and the change that the region is undergoing and will learn probably about the workers in other places and read the Soviet press that was disseminated among the masses. And it's also worth mentioning that when the Soviet power was established in Uzbekistan, less than 80% of the population were illiterate. So those red tea houses were also places where newspapers were read, who couldn't read them and also places where a few who couldn't read could probably take some classes to read those papers that were disseminated among the workers.
On page 57, you read as follows, despite the regime's attempts to characterize religion as a form of superstition, religion just like anti-Semitism continued to exist in Soviet society as an undercurrent for many years to come. Although these issues generally were not discussed publicly and were swept under the rug due to the regime's sense of discomfort in light of the fact that religion and anti-Semitism were not but it, for local deviation, but stubborn and embarrassing undercurrents that refused to yield to the will and aspirations of Soviet social architects. From the 1930s onward anti-Semitism was almost never mentioned in the media. It was played down by authorities who preferred to view it as a marginal deviation, the establishment of national republics encouraged and legitimized a sense of local national affiliation and local nationalism had flourished leading to deviations in interpretation of Soviet law on national issues that often discriminated against national minorities and the Jews were not all immune to this phenomenon.
From complaints received by the Minorities Department, it appears that instances of anti-Semitism were well entrenched in Soviet society, including Central Asia during the crises wrought by the Second World War, there were additional outbreaks of anti-Semitism, the regime claimed that the solution to rising anti-Semitism towards the close of the 1920s, the education and indoctrination of the cenari of the Soviet Union as a whole and socialization of the Jewish public, the latter included not only an economic transformation, Jews becoming a productive community, but also abandoned myths of Jewish particularity and religious faith in order to integrate Jews into the family of Soviet nations. Yet throughout the 1930s attempts at education and indoctrination failed to eradicate anti-Semitism. Moreover, during the Second World War, parallel to the bloody struggle against Nazi invaders, the Soviet Union experienced a new wave of anti-Semitism expressed far from the front in the steps of Central Asia. Can you expand on this for us?
Yes, well again, it's just a direct communication about what I just been speaking about, a lot of the battles, but also anti-Semitism of course, very much connected and intervened into it. The Soviet authorities, how they perceive the world based on the Marxist ideology is it's like all the people of the USSR are sitting in the same cart of the train, and the train is riding towards the bright socialism. And what did they have to do on the way just to open the windows to those who are in this train so they can see the light and see the bright future where the trade is going. And this was the Enlightenment program.
So by the Enlightenment program, the Soviet authorities, what they thought of is that the Soviet Enlightenment system will teach people to read, and if they can read, they will read the Soviet press, and then they forget about God and all beliefs, and they will see that there are no differences between the people in the world, and the only differences existing are only of economic status of workers and those who exploit them. And if the Soviet nation is a combined of farmers and the workers of the land and the workers of the factories, there is no difference between people. In this way, there is no difference between the Jews or Christians and Muslims, and there is no difference between the national groups. So this was exactly the key focus of the Enlightenment system in the Soviet Union, but nevertheless, although many decades passed, and I'm speaking here about the 2030s and the 40s, and fighting with the this is one of the key roles to show that all those things of a difference, and all beliefs between the men are part of the old school that should be abolished by the Soviet authorities.
And the only thing if the people will be educated and shown that there is no difference between people, it will pass away. But the practice all ground showing exactly the opposite, that anti-Semitism, although the authorities invested pretty much to fight it, actually never was well-managed, and even developed in the regions where it's never been. The Blutlabelle in chargeu in other places were just in the case of showing that the spread of the Soviet men and Soviet education system in the region and the arrival of various people from Central part of Asia or to Central Asia were actually bringing all beliefs into the region where it's never been. And the economic difficulties are actually the one who developed anti-Semitism and not abolished it, and those on every economic crisis, like in the late 20s where the collectivisation wasn't big, and the farmers were had ordered to deliver their lands and their products to the government on one hand, and when the Second World War broke out in the 41, and again, the economic crisis began.
And there also was a peak in anti-Semitism, which not related to the realities, but actually was one of the echoes of the local populations forward to the authorities. You comment on the importance of the 1926 census? Yes, sure. The 1926 census was the first, it was the first all the Union Census of the Soviet Union, which actually counted all the population of the US.
Before it, there were in the 20s, there were quite few regional or local census that were devoted to the same issue. The census not only counted numerically, the people who were living in the USSR, but also described the people as national groups. And this was actually the first time when the national groups were in the population of the USSR as a whole was divided into national groups. Those who conducted the research in the mid-20s, the census was conducted during 23rd, 25th, and only published in 26th, but still, they came to various regions and decided for the people who lived in various remote places to which nationality they belong to, based on their national language or the custom, or the place where they lived.
And this was actually the first time where the population of the Soviet Union was divided, according to the national principle, where today for us it's something that we perceive nationality, it's something that people were born with. But a hundred years ago, especially in Central Asia, as well as the remote parts of Siberia, the remote tribes that were living there, not necessarily knew that they have a specific nationality, and the creation and definition of various nationalities in the Soviet Union was actually one of the key big issues. And he, very big issues that these censuses imposed on populations. And as I mentioned already, the definition of nationality for different national groups was very important, because according to your nationality, you could receive education in your national language.
You could consume culture, theater, and so on, all your national language. You can have a national plot of land that will, that the administration in this land will be conducted, but represented over this national group. And this, of course, was very important. And what was very important for the in Soviet Union is the equality among various nationalities.
And this was also one of the basic principles in the Soviet Union, while nationality was all considered by Marxist theory, something that was also should be abolished when the social community will be established. But in Soviet Union, in the creation and the establishment and the declaration of various national groups in the right was one of the major parts of the establishment. And every law that passed in the USSR had to be confirmed by the Soviet officialities in which every national group were represented in the Soviet officialities. And only war of existence was that it should be sure that none of the national groups in the USSR will be deprived from their rights, national rights.
And through this, every national group should be represented according to its percentage in the whole population. Out of the Russian Revolution, impact Soviet Central Asian Jewish women. What was similar and different about women's experiences in Uzbekistan? The part and the role that women played when the Soviet Revolution and the Soviet power arrived to the region was pretty much interesting.
And there were pretty many studies that were conducted on this topic, but not on the Jewish part. In general, in the traditional society of Central Asia, when the Soviet authorities arrived during the early 20s, women were walking on the streets. In order to modernize and to equalize the women among men by law, the Soviet authorities had to impose their will and strength, but also pretty much effort. The first time I was writing his research on the topic in his book titled it as a sort of the woman of Central Asia as a sort of a pro-tillery.
The someone who will come instead of a non-existing social layer in society. The women in the Soviet-to-Sbeksadas were expected to unveil themselves and modernize to leave their houses, to go to study and go to work in the Soviet enterprises. And by this becoming modern and equal in all senses. While there was quite a resistance from all the strata in the society, an unweltered one, the religious one, in the Jewish case, there was no by any strict regulation about the Jewish women who would go to sail.
They were practicing this because they didn't want to exclude themselves from the general public, but when the unveiling campaign was imposed on the women of Central Asia, Jewish women were among the first who could unveil their authorities. Their traditional authorities didn't come against it on the contrary. There was no limitation of working with women wearing scarves or putting something on to cover their head, but the regulations were specifically about unveiling. And in this time, especially in the mid-20s, Jewish women were among the first among the social activists towards the Communist Party who came out with the unveiling.
And so, as the Narcomnats, the people's commissariat of nationalities, how did it impact the Jews of Uzbekistan? Well, I already spoke about it about Narcomnats as a, you've translated the revelation, is the commissar of nationalities, it's a special unit within the local government that was fully responsible for overseeing the national issues in the republics, seeing that there is a definite equality between the various nationalities in dealing with problems that arose between various national groups. Can you tell us about the Jewish co-chos in years or two? The co-chos in the name of the children was named after resolensky, one of the Communist Party activists in the Soviet-Pacific, starting in the late 20s and early 30s, which was actually one of the central centers where the Jews were from some of the North, the other regions of Uzbekistan were transferred to settle on ground, it meant to be a flaxxie of Jewish settlement in the Hanukkah and the Middle East, the Middle East, the region, where it was settled.
And the expectation was that the Jews from the major cities of Uzbekistan will move there and become farmers in one night. And this was of course unrealistic goals, on one hand, the Soviet legislation was actually creating a status of the deprived population, those who were exploring the work and the flow of others before the revolution were considered, they were stripped from the civic pride. Those Jews who were moving had the status but moved to agricultural settlement could actually wash the deprived status of Russian co-chos in the sensei, and become part of the productive population of the USSR. And after a half a year or something, they could come back to the city and to be considered as a normal citizen with all the rights that any other citizen in the USSR will have.
And in this sense, although the authorities invested much effort and money in establishment of this circle also, keeping in mind that probably this part of the Middle Union in its early decades. Well, the settlement on ground and the investment of the authorities in various enterprises that focused on creating a Soviet frame of production to Soviet citizens was actually quite new concept that was introduced all over the Soviet Union. But in Uzbekistan, of course, it faced many specifics that were related to the local realities on ground. And this book actually covers the economic part of this endeavor.
Well, Soviet authorities investing funds on one hand or trying to impose their will and their ideology on public that they're not necessarily interested in their new ways of life on one hand, but trying to convey and to substitute the will of the authorities into something else. And the production and also my book also showing the ways of black economy and the black markets. That's the one probably assumed that never existed in the USSR, but actually on ground, all those realities were part of the ongoing struggle with the authorities. And it was pretty much a game of give and take with local population and the authorities.
While the planning authority in Moscow thought about something else, something concrete, the realities on ground showed something else totally. And this nuclear study that I present actually could be found in many other locations in the USSR. And that's how we protect Ontario. For all of us.
Learn how at Ontario.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca. Paid for by the government of Ontario. You comment on figure two point two, it's on page 48. You allude to it as an advertisement of an anti-religious address held in a club at the Jewish neighborhood of Summercans followed by a screening of a movie entitled Blur.
You comment on figure two point two, it's on page 48. You allude to it as an advertisement of an anti-religious address held in a club at the Jewish neighborhood of Summercans followed by a screening of a movie entitled Blue Express. One interesting thing, many of the images that I use in my book are actually from the museum that was established by one, one, a Jewish ethnographer in the city of Summercans. And the museum was shut down in the late 30s and the ethnographer Iliaria was actually convinced of the Zionist and theistraces disappeared.
I afraid that he probably ended up in some of the books and died there, but the collection of the museum was kept in the museum of Summercans. And part of it, it's the collection of photographs that he made with other photographers and they're part of the collection of this museum. And what it was striking is among many ethnographic images of Jews working living in their premises in the city, there was this image of this advertisement. And what was interesting for me is how this advertisement got into the collection, because what it says, as you already read, it said, the advertisement of an anti-religious talk that will be addressed to the public of the current Jews in the city of Summercans, and after it, that will be shown of a movie.
So what is very interesting in it is that the lecture will be provided by one lecture that according to his family name is Russian, and the translation will be made by a guy who is a bakare of an elitur to a local Jewish dialect, a bbukuri, or judelte jig. And the first question I asked myself, why couldn't this guy deliver the language, the speech by himself? So as it looks like that bakare and jus were not willing to speak against the Jewish religion in front of their public, but to refer that to someone else will say they will only translate. The second part, of course, is interesting is that not only the lecture was needed, but to bring the public, the screening of a Soviet film was needed.
And another thing is that this advertisement was not written on a white paper, but on a Communist newspaper, which probably could manifest the lack of paper available to write even a Soviet advertisement at the time. So the advertisement is written on a Soviet paper in its back language, not in the bakare and Jewish language, in its back language. In Russian, that advertising a lecture for the rest of the Korean Jews, not given on their language, but with translation. And as a carrot after the punishment of the lecture, there will be also a movie.
So probably again, I think that all those layers that I described just now were very much in front of the cameraman who decided to take this shoot and to edit into the collection of the museum in the late 20s, 100 years ago. Luckily for me, I would say it survives to this day. I went, why did Ughara come to be known and renamed as Uzbekistan? Well, when the National Dulamitization arrived to Central Asia and it was divided in the different republics, first Uzbekistan included several autonomous regions.
And Tajik, the what was, Tajik, the autonomous region before the Tajik nationals was part of Uzbekistan. And only a few years later, in the late 20s, the autonomous region was cut from Uzbekistan and became a Soviet republic of Tajikistan. And those two entities are there for the day, but to this day, Ughara, as a smart account, most of their population are still speaking Tajik. Even though they are part of the public of Uzbekistan today.
But even during the Soviet times, it was very important for those back to keep under their control, those central cities, because they are probably the only big centers of local populations for them. So Narcan, as I mentioned also, was part of most of their population of the Slavic countries, was the first capital of Uzbekistan, killed in the 1930s. The Katinjitov into Tajikistan wouldn't be even imagined. The same with the city of Bukhara.
Even though it was a traditional city with endless madrasas and religious representatives in it. And of course, the capital city of the Emirata of Bukhara, which was one of the symbols of the old regime, it kept under the control of Uzbekistan. And Tajik's today is a claim for discrimination and the historic right of Bukhara and Samarkand is being the part of their homeland. What was the Tajikistan plan?
What is its legacy in the history of the Soviet-Tajikistan, in the history of Central Asia, and the history of the Jews in this region? Wow, as I mentioned again, it's a program that never realized. So no one who this day, if they didn't read my book, never hear about it. But when the Soviet authorities were thinking where to settle the Jewish population of Central Asia, to concentrate them on the Kure, some of the waterflend before the Zelensky region settlement of the 100th Stippet, the Middle of the Chute, was a proposal to settle the Jews of Central Asia in Tajikistan, those transforming, or the tens of thousands of Jews that are living all across Central Asia, into this region.
Again, it was a plan that would never realize it was only on the paper, but what it meant. That's again one of those manifestations that every national group entitled of its own land, and also current Jews, if they are considered to be a unique national group, they entitled to their own autonomous region. But the problem was that they are not residing in one place, so the authorities, what they thought, is to move their own, the mall, one place. If they are not going to the land, then they discover that it's not really reasonable, and it's not going to happen, and then they move the focus into the real social origin.
Can you tell us about the Ozette Society? Can you explain it's significance? Yes, I mentioned it already. The Konzeitem Ozette, there were two Soviet organizations.
The Konzeitem Committee of the Settlement on Land for Jews was actually the exact committee that was responsible for the affirmative action, or the Jews, to transform them from a religious minority into a national one. That entitled for a lot of land, a settlement on land, accultivating the land, and through this also for the autonomous religions and autonomous government representation. And the society was established in 1924 in Moscow. The Ozette was the public organization that was actually one of the strats of the Communist Party, and actually not associated with the government, but the public association that was intended to help the government efforts to settle Jews on land.
Both of them of these organizations, Konzeitem Ozette, had representations in various republics in Ukraine and in Belorussia, but also in Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, they were organized in 1926, and from 2026 to the 38, when it was decided that there is no need for them anymore, they were the ones who were responsible for transforming the petite-bores-wise Jews from various cities in South Korea, and making out of them a Soviet modern land, settling them on land, providing the planners for settlements, providing the needs for settlement, transformation, education, etc. And those authorities were unique in the USR that dealt only with Jews. No other national group in the USSR had to do those, in this way, and in this sense they are very important for study.
The focus of your book is the years 1917 to 1939. To the extent of your knowledge, can you comment on the years 1939 to 1945 as the impact it choose in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia? How did World War II manifest continuity and change relative to the unfolding history since 1917? Yeah, my book ends at 1939, not only because it's the beginning of the World War II that changed the realities on ground, but also because in the late 30s, those are the years of the great studying stirrer, and this terror also touched and influenced greatly the authorities that were dealing with the Jewish settlement in the educational also in Uzbekistan, but all over the Soviet Union, all those national activists that were cultivated by the Soviet government, only few years later prior, were now sent to Gulag, and as I already mentioned, the Comsepto authorities were scrapped in 1938, exactly because of this.
Jewish press was a gentle, Jewish school settlement, he was because of it also in many other locations, with just as crap and decided that there is no place in war for separate national enterprises in the Soviet Union. So this is why my book ends at the late 30s, but if looking on the realities of World War II, it's we are introduced new realities, and again, in one place, the Nazi investments never reach Central Asia, but at the same time, all these regions, all these regions became a hub for evacuation of factories, people, that should support the frontlines. Also, this region accepted tens of thousands of refugees who arrived to the region from the frontlines, and also became a hub that needed to deal with those populations, provide them with food, all necessary shelter, all necessary, for them to survive, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Jews who arrived to the region of Central Asia, at that time, survived the war only because of the local hospitality and because of the local authorities who succeeded in most cases, to provide them with basic needs on ground. But all this, it's another project that I focus on my other book.
On page 11, you write as follows, the Russian regime needed the Jews less and less as it consolidated its fold over the Turkestan region, therefore, under pressure from the Muslim population at the outset of the 20th century, the Russians changed their lack of days of cold attitude towards Jewish immigration, and they no longer termed a blind eye to the phenomenon. Authorities tried to restrict Jewish immigration in order to prevent the Jews from taking control of the Russian cities in the Turkestan region, particularly in summertime, and to begin to return illegal immigrants to the Bukharan Emirat. The need to differentiate between quote unquote native Jews who were residents and illegal immigrants led to the coining of a Russian administrative term to Zemyeh, native Jews, for those who resided in the territory under Russian control prior to the colonization in contrast to Bukharan Jews, who were subjects of the Emir who had illegally migrated to the area under their control, thus all the Jews living in the region were required to prove their quote unquote nativeness. To be granted the right to remain in the region under Russian control, this legal definition was the source of the creation of the definition Bukharan Jews, which gradually was transformed from a legal definition into an ethnic description, which today defines the indigenous Jewish community of Central Asia and not limited by the premises of the city, nor the Emirate of Bukharan.
Deliberation of the return of Bukharan Jews to the territory of the Emirate was the subject of appeals and countless lobbying delegations who sought to demonstrate the loyalty of the Jews and the economic benefit to the Russian Empire that their presence carried for the parts, the region under Russian control. The deliberations continued up until the Bolshevik Revolution, while there were no mass expulsions from time to time dates for expulsion were set and then postponed. Can you elaborate on this for us? First of all, I think that, psychologically speaking, it should be a first question, because this one is focusing on the 19th century, a way before my book begins to talk about his introduction.
One is meant is actually when Jews need to describe themselves or the set definition between them and others, Jews call themselves Jews and others, or some other non-related nickname that will demonize them or create them as described in their eyes. The definition of a certain type of Jew within the Jewish public occurs only where in one place there are few representatives of different Jewish communities, like everybody in the world know that they are Jewish, but only when they arrive to Israel, they have to go to the native to describe themselves as Russian Jew, as American Jew, as European, German and so on. So actually, this was the case also with the Russian-Sariist administration, which arrived in the 19th century with Central Asia. We've definitely defined those dimensions, the role of Jews in the economy and the recitling describing the place where Jews could leave the Belo settlement, as we're familiar with.
And when conquering Newlands, they found new Jewish population who didn't look like those Jews who they knew. The Jewish population of Central Asia cooperated and was one of the core cooperative groups with their new authorities, because those authorities promised equality, and for them, in this way, many Jews who previously recited in the presence of Bukharid in Murat, which was under the protectorate of the Russian Empire, but got to conquer directly. It preferred to immigrate and to settle in the cities and regions where the Soviet administration had the direct control. And through this, the definition between the Russian Jews and the Jews of the Emirate of Bukharid was invented and forced to introduce it to show different groups, one with certain derides and another with less rights.
New to Stripe, figure 716, it's on page 226. It depicts a Jewish theater troupe of Samarkan, dated 1930. Well, it is a, also again, it's probably best to show it on screen and not just talk about it. Yeah, I can see what I can do.
Yes, again. But one of the acts of the Soviet government, as I already mentioned, was to develop a national culture. So what should be a national culture for the Bukharid Jews? The Bukharid Jews, of course, had to invent their own national culture and also national dress that prior to this day was not different from the dress and the customs of other local populations.
And in this sense, what the picture shows is the local Jewish theater actually used the dress that resembled as what we today called as Arabs or Bedwins, or population of the nomadic populations of the Middle East. To distinguish themselves as unique national dress of this national group. And of course, as the Jews will use another dress and of course they speak in other languages, etc. But in this paralysis, when they were required to invent actually their own national dress and customs and present them on stage of a national theater, they adopted something that is taught will be closer to the Abrahamic vision of the Jews.
And again, ethnographically, it's very interesting. Of course, this picture shows it very well. It was a sack or a sack of Luria. Can you tell us about him?
Yeah, I already mentioned to him about regarding the museum that the graphic museum in some account that is established focusing on the Bukharid Jews of the region collecting many materials. He arrived from a sanpetable in the 20s and was a ethnographic mission and then decided to stay in some account if first established a library. And then developed it into a unique national museum to present a ethnography of the Khar and Jews. And he was persecuted in the late 30s and vanished from history.
We tried many times to trace his fate, but in vain. What is your book's contribution to the history and historiography of Soviet Central Asia? Well, after the Soviet Union fell apart, there were quite a few studies about the question of nationalities and the formation of national republics all over the Soviet Union. But of course also in South Africa, most of them focused on part of the remarkiness, as I already mentioned, the affirmative action in the Empire, and a few others who looked in the problem as a whole.
A few others looked on various nationalities in the region. I want to start mentioning all the studies that developed from the field, but most of them dealt with the majority group, those back with the tropians, the Czechs and so on and so forth. So my study is among the first that dealing with a minority group within a national republic in the USSR. So in this case, I'm going to one level down on this effort to try to deal with the realities of the Soviet nationalities policies.
How deep did they go down with their principles? And of course, it's also an issue of the relations between various minorities groups within the framework of one majority. If I'm dealing with a Soviet-to-Speakistan, which is part of the Soviet Union republics, within the Spanish region, and there are lots of minority groups and their correlation with central government. And the central government with them are very important for understanding the nationalities policy as a whole.
And in this sense, I think it's the core issue. And again, of course, it's also important in the Jewish studies sense again concentrating on specifically Jewish group that was unpredged with research to this point. And you described the restrictions on Jewish religious observances that took place in post-revolutionary Central Asia, our holidays like Passover and Yom Pippur impacted. Well, again, the restrictions for religion were actually very common for all religions.
As Christians and Muslims and Jews, many religious leaders were persecuted, sent to go to the shut-down spot. Most of the religious places of worship were confiscated and became a Soviet property, but those who were still operating closely overseen by the authorities and regulated. If you ask about specifics of Jewish conduct, baking matters was a criminal offense in the USSR, no matter what. People wanted to bake matters for themselves, had to do it undercover, not working on Saturday, not writing or going to the office.
Also was a criminal offense. So people who had wanted to keep their religion usually kept away from a Soviet administration and dealt with some little jokes, but those who wanted or looked forward into integration or in cooperation with the authorities. And with the development of their own professional life, had to put their keeper down and hide the the authorities that are keeping some traditions in her family premises only. On pages 63 and 64, Yerez follows.
In the view of communist authorities, the Jews in the Soviet Union were a problematic element for several theoretical, as well as pragmatic reasons. They did not respond with the scientific definition of a nation according to communist theories, since they had neither a common territory nor a common economy. Some even claimed that they did not have a common uniform language in addition to Jews, where a nation dispersed among many different nations. Therefore, Jews had connections, positions, and some influence in countries that opposed the revolution, and they were therefore perceived as a factor to be taken into consideration in foreign policy with Britain, particularly following the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and vis-à-vis the United States, where there was a large Jewish community with familial ties in the Soviet Union, a community that sent large amounts of aid to Jews and Jewish refugees and sought to assist the rehabilitation.
In the early 1920s, the Soviet Union had no diplomatic relations with these countries, and the Jewish card was perceived as an important factor in drawing the countries closer together. Jews of the Russian Empire also had a highly developed sense of political awareness and in addition to engaging in communist activity, some were also members of the tip of what were considered to be bourgeois or Zionist parties, such as the Bund and Po'alei Xiong. Can you say more about this, and can you contextualize Jews in Uzbekistan and Central Asia in the context of this? Yes, so again, the definition of the Jewish authorities in the Soviet Union, we already spoke about the 1926 census, so this is exactly the point where the authorities naturally knew how to define the Jewish public of the USSR, because if you take the religion outside of the definition, because religion, according to Marx's ideology, is the opium for the masses, then you are left with white, a lot of Jewish groups who live in very different locations across the USSR, and there are the Jewish refugees, most of the living in the eastern part, the western part of the eastern Europe, and there are the Georgian Jews, and there are the Caucasus Jews, and there are also the Central Asian Jews, all of them, and they don't have anything in common, and those definitions were drafted even before the revolution by stunning, are actually focusing on the scientific definition of a man as a part of a nationality, and of course, all these also had a political role when they were looking at foreign policy audiences.
As we bring today's dialogue to a close, can you tell us about where your time and attention have gone since completing this work? As I mentioned already, my second book, where the project was devoted to the title of evacuation and refugees, and Jewish refugees in South Korea during World War II, and today I am dealing with another project that's focusing on Jewish cemeteries in Central Asian documentation and the grating database that will help us better understand through epitaphs and the changes that those communities underwent during the 1920s. Sounds extremely fascinating and tremendously important as scholarly contribution. As we end today, I'd like to thank you all heartedly for your time, generosity, eloquence, and erudition throughout the course of today's conversation.
Thank you. I could hardly be more grateful. You are so magnanimous and everything you shared. I can hardly convey enough appreciation.
As I end today, I'm signing off as Ari Barb Blackyer, host on the New Books and Jewish Studies podcast. Today, it has been my distinct honor to be in dialogue with Zev Levine. He is a historian specializing in the modern history of Central Asia and the Caucasus. He is the director of the Research Center on Jews in Central Asia and the Iranian Sphere at the Ben Stv.
Institute in Jerusalem. He is also a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Kingbury University of Jerusalem. Today, we've been in dialogue regarding his recently published book, Collectivization and Social Engineering, the Soviet administration and the Jews of Uzbekistan, 1917-1939, published in Light and Netherlands by Dril 2015.