Introduction. Crossing Borders: Identity, Gender, and Memory in the Southeast European Jewish Milieu
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Southeastern Europe is an understudied area in both Jewish and European studies.Although this fascinating multi-ethnic and multi-religious region is located at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Balkan, Central, and East European worlds that were once part of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, and includes the Ashkenazic-Sephardic fault-line, it has not yet received sufficient scholarly attention.As the result of the Holocaust and emigration, the not very large Jewish communities in the region were drastically reduced after the Second World War-yet, in spite of these small numbers, researchers face the complex fabric of versatile communities and languages of the surrounding cultures.So far, this seems to have deterred scholars rather than attract them.Moreover, post-World War II communist regimes did not encourage critical and broad approaches to the topic.As an example, in Tito's Yugoslavia the Jewish communities enjoyed relatively favorable conditions and were granted a degree of autonomy not encountered elsewhere in the communist world.Nevertheless, research and publications dedicated to local Jewish history, customs and the tragedy of the Holocaust were primarily carried out internally, by Jewish institutions, primarily the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade, and not by the Yugoslav academic world at large, which was supposed to support the overarching ideology of "brotherhood and unity."Social instability and the civil war
Authors: Mirjam Rajner, Katja Šmid
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: University of Pittsburgh
OpenAlex ID: W4367053941