Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOverall, Going to the People proves itself a useful addition to scholarship on Jewish folklore and ethnography by introducing major issues in these fi elds, as well as the historical figures and contemporary scholars who have shaped (and continue to shape) their development.
* Western Folklore *
The high scholarly standard of these essays is a remarkable achievement, demonstrating the vitality of Jewish folklore and ethnographic studies a hundred years after An-sky's pioneering expedition.
* Folklore *
This book's essays portray the various threads and trends in Jewish ethnography in Poland and Soviet Russia, the US, the new Jewish State of Israel and, eventually, in postcommunist societies. The endurance and evolution of Jewish folk culture is analyzed using techniques applicable to all groups and communities. . . . Recommended.
* Choice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction \ Jeffrey Veidlinger
Part I. History of the Ethnographic Impulse
1. Thrice Born, or Between Two Worlds: Reflexivity and Performance in An-sky's Jewish Ethnographic Expedition and Beyond \ Nathaniel Deutsch
2. Between Scientific and Political: Jewish Scholars and Russian-Jewish Physical Anthropology in the Fin-de-Siècle Russian Empire\ Marina Mogilner
3. To Study Our Past, Make Sense of Our Present and Develop Our National Consciousness:" Lev Shternberg's Comprehensive Program for Jewish Ethnography in the USSR \ Sergei Kan
4. "What Should We Collect?": Ethnography, Local Studies, and the Formation of a Belorussian Jewish Identity \ Elissa Bemporad
5. Yiddish Folklore and Soviet Ideology during the 1930s \ Mikhail Krutikov
6. After An-sky: I.M. Pul'ner and the Jewish Section of the State Museum of Ethnography in Leningrad \ Deborah Yalen
7. "Holy Sacred Collection Work": The Relationship between YIVO and its Zamlers \ Sarah Ellen Zarrow
8. The Last "Zamlers": Avrom Sutzkever and Shmerke Kaczerginski in Vilna, 1944-1945 \ David E. Fishman
Part II. Findings from the Field
9. Ethnography and Folklore among Polish Jews in Israel—Immigration and Integration \ Haya Bar-Itzhak
10. The Use of Hebrew and Yiddish in the Rituals of Contemporary Jewry of Bukovina and Bessarabia \ Alexandra Polyan
11. Food and Faith in the Soviet Shtetl \ Jeffrey Veidlinger
12. Undzer Rebenyu: Religion, Memory, and Identity in Postwar Moldova \ Sebastian Z. Schulman
Part III. Reflections on the Ethnographic Impulse
13. Ex-Soviet Jews: Collective Autoethnography \ Larisa Fialkova and Maria Yelenevskaya
14. Family Pictures at an Exhibition: History, Autobiography, and the Museum Exhibit on Jewish Łódź "In Mrs. Goldberg's Kitchen" \ Halina Goldberg
15. Seamed Stockings and Ponytails: Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork in a Contemporary Hasidic Community \ Asya Vaisman Schulman
Part IV. By Way of Conclusion
16. From Function to Frame: The Evolving Conceptualization of Jewish Folklore Studies \ Simon J. Bronner
List of Contributors
Index
