{"title":"Anna Shternshis","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"when-sonia-met-boris-book-anna-shternshis-9780190223106","title":"When Sonia Met Boris","description":"Russian-speaking Jews from the former Soviet Union are a peculiarity in the Jewish world. After decades living in a repressive, nominally atheistic state, these Jews did manage to retain a strong sense of Jewish identity--but one that was almost completely divorced from Judaism. Today, more than ten percent of Jews speak or understand Russian, signaling the importance of an ever-vexing question: why are Russian Jews the way they are?   In pursuit of an answer, Anna Shternshis's groundbreaking When Sonia Met Boris draws on nearly 500 oral history interviews on the Soviet Jewish experience with Soviet citizens who were adults by the 1940s. Soviet Jews lived through tumultuous times: the Great Terror, World War II, the anti-Semitic policies of the postwar period, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But like millions of other Soviet citizens, they married, raised children, and built careers, pursuing life as best as they could in a profoundly hostile environment. One of the first scholars to record and analyze oral testimonies of Soviet Jews, Shternshis unearths heartbreaking, deeply poignant, and often funny stories of the everyday choices Jews were forced to make as a repressed minority living in a totalitarian regime. Shternshis reveals how ethnicity rapidly transformed into a disability, as well as a negative characteristic, for Soviet Jews in the postwar period.   That sense of Jewish identity has persisted well into the twenty-first century, influencing the children and grandchildren of Shternshis's subjects, the foundational generation of contemporary Russian Jewish culture. An illuminating work of social and cultural history, When Sonia Met Boris traces the fascinating contours of contemporary Russian Jewish identity back to their very roots.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50999658643729,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999661494545,"sku":"NIN9780190223106","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52488691056913,"sku":"NLS9780190223106","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190223103.jpg?v=1750779635"},{"product_id":"when-sonia-met-boris-book-anna-shternshis-9780197601082","title":"When Sonia Met Boris","description":"Russian-speaking Jews from the former Soviet Union are a peculiarity in the Jewish world. After decades living in a repressive, nominally atheistic state, these Jews did manage to retain a strong sense of Jewish identity--but one that was almost completely divorced from Judaism. Today, more than ten percent of Jews speak or understand Russian, signaling the importance of an ever-vexing question: why are Russian Jews the way they are?   In pursuit of an answer, Anna Shternshis's groundbreaking When Sonia Met Boris: An Oral History of Jewish Life under Stalin draws on nearly 500 oral history interviews on the Soviet Jewish experience with Soviet citizens who were adults by the 1940s. Soviet Jews lived through tumultuous times: the Great Terror, World War II, the anti-Semitic policies of the postwar period, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But, like millions of other Soviet citizens, they married, raised children, and built careers, pursuing life as best they could in a profoundly hostile environment. One of the first scholars to record and analyze oral testimonies of Soviet Jews, Shternshis unearths heartbreaking, deeply poignant, and often funny stories of the everyday choices Jews were forced to navigate as a repressed minority living in a totalitarian regime. Shternshis reveals how ethnicity rapidly transformed into a disability, as well as a negative characteristic, for Soviet Jews in the postwar period, and shows how it was something they needed desperately to overcome in order to succeed.   That sense of self has persisted well into the twenty-first century, and has impacted the Jewish identities of the children and grandchildren of Shternshis's subjects, the foundational generation of contemporary Russian Jewish culture. An illuminating work of social and cultural history, When Sonia Met Boris traces the fascinating contours of contemporary Russian Jewish identity back to their very roots.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999901290769,"sku":"NIN9780197601082","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52516069146897,"sku":"NLS9780197601082","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0197601081.jpg?v=1751227635"},{"product_id":"soviet-and-kosher-book-anna-shternshis-9780253218414","title":"Soviet and Kosher","description":"Explores the formation of a unique Soviet Jewish identity","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51735506092305,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51735506714897,"sku":"CIN0253218411G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51735507075345,"sku":"CIN0253218411VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780253218414.jpg?v=1752316625"},{"product_id":"jews-in-the-soviet-union-a-history-book-anna-shternshis-9781479844531","title":"Jews in the Soviet Union: a History","description":"Offers a compelling account of how Soviet Jews rebuilt their lives amid postwar devastation, rising hostility, discrimination and the repressive final years of Stalin's rule  At the beginning of the twentieth century, more Jews lived in the Russian Empire than anywhere else in the world. After the Holocaust, the USSR remained one of the world's three key centers of Jewish population, along with the United States and Israel. While a great deal is known about the history and experiences of the Jewish people in the US and in Israel in the twentieth century, much less is known about the experiences of Soviet Jews. Understanding the history of Jewish communities under Soviet rule is essential to comprehending the dynamics of Jewish history in the modern world. Only a small number of scholars and the last generation of Soviet Jews who lived during this period hold a deep knowledge of this history. Jews in the Soviet Union, a new multi-volume history, is an unprecedented undertaking. Publishing over the next few years, this groundbreaking work draws on rare access to documents from the Soviet archives, allowing for the presentation of a sweeping history of Jewish life in the Soviet Union from 1917 through the early 1990s.  Focusing on the final eight years of Stalin's rule, Volume 4 offers a gripping account of the complex realities of Soviet Jewish life in the aftermath of World War II. Soviet Jews emerged from the devastation of the Holocaust and the battlefield to face new struggles. The volume traces the lives of key figures and ordinary citizens as they returned to hometowns emptied of their communities, facing the rising tide of hostilities, exclusion, persecution of Jewish cultural leaders, and state-led crackdowns.  The book highlights elements of thriving Jewish life despite official repression, from the unprecedented growth of Yiddish theatres to Jewish successes in science, literature, and the arts. It uncovers the deep contradictions of Soviet life– at once enabling and at times even celebrating Jewish achievements in industries and public sphere, while systemically repressing Yiddish culture and identity. With unparalleled depth and insight, historian Anna Shternshis brings to light the resilience and survival strategies of Soviet Jews during one of the most challenging periods in their history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53073472487697,"sku":"NGR9781479844531","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53502643142929,"sku":"NIN9781479844531","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53611506762001,"sku":"NLS9781479844531","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781479844531.jpg?v=1769649058"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-anna-shternshis.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}