Newsletter
Apr
3
2022
This week: The introductory letter from the Jewish Currents Soviet Issue, which argues that we need to interrogate the concept of “post-Soviet Jews,” is now online (subscribe now to receive the issue in your mailbox). Ari M. Brostoff reports on an attempted eviction on their block in Crown Heights, with echoes of the tensions that produced the neighborhood’s infamous riots. In the latest episode of our staff podcast, On the Nose, David Klion hosts Linda Kinstler, Julia Alekseyeva, and Helen Betya Rubinstein for a discussion on the significance of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish identity.
Plus, from the newsletter, Alex Kane talks to an Israeli refugee rights activist about how Israel is altering its policies to accept more non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees—and how refugees from other regions aren’t seeing any of the benefits. And Joshua Leifer interviews historian Joel Beinin about the long and complex relationship between Russia and parts of the Israeli and Palestinian left.
David Klion speaks with a panel of writers and contributors to the new Soviet Issue of Jewish Currents—Julia Alekseyeva, Linda Kinstler, and Helen Betya Rubinstein—about Zelensky’s Jewishness and the meaning of Jewish identity in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine.
