| Description |
1 online resource (xiii, 402 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
Rechitsa and the Jews under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries -- Under Russian rule, 1793-1917 -- The economy of the town in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries -- Demography of the social-economic landscape in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries -- Prerevolutionary Jewish social life and education -- Between revolution and war, 1917-1941 -- Under German occupation, 1941-1943 -- From liberation to the collapse of the USSR, 1943-1991 |
| Summary |
Located on the Dnieper River at the crossroads of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, the town of Rechitsa had one of the oldest Jewish communities in Belarus, dating back to medieval times. By the late nineteenth century, Jews constituted more than half of the town's population. Rich in tradition, Jewish Rechitsa was part of a distinctive Lithuanian-Belorussian culture full of stories, vibrant personalities, achievement, and epic struggle that was gradually lost through migration, pogroms, and the Holocaust. Now, in this meticulously researched history, this forgotten Jewish world is brought to life. Based on extensive use of Soviet and Israeli archives, interviews, memoirs, and secondary sources, this work, originally published in Russian, is presented here in a significantly revised English translation by the author. Details of demographic, social, economic, and cultural changes in Rechitsa's evolution, presented over the sweep of centuries, reveal a microcosm of daily Jewish life in Rechitsa and similar communities. The author looks closely at such critical developments as the spread of Chabad Hasidism, the impact of multiple political transformations and global changes, and the mass murder of Rechitsa's remaining Jews by the German army in November to December 1941. The author also documents the evolving status of Jews in the postwar era, starting with the reconstitution of a Jewish community in Rechitsa not long after liberation in 1943 and continuing with economic, social, and political trends under Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev, and finally emigration from post-Soviet Belarus |
| Notes |
Originally published in Israel as Rechitsa: Istoriia evreiskogo mestechka Iugo-Vostochnoi Belorussii, ©2007 |
|
Winner, Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for Scholarship, Koffler Centre of the Arts |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 367-388) and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Jews -- Belarus -- Rėchytsa -- History
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HISTORY -- Europe -- Eastern.
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HISTORY -- Europe -- Former Soviet Republics.
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HISTORY -- Europe -- Russia & the Former Soviet Union.
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Jews
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| SUBJECT |
Rėchytsa (Belarus) -- History
|
| Subject |
Belarus -- Rėchytsa
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| Genre/Form |
History
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780299289836 |
|
0299289834 |
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