Jewish Russian-ness or Russian Jewish-ness: Dina Rubina and the Russian-speaking Alliyah Identity
Jewish Russian-ness or Russian Jewish-ness: Dina Rubina and the Russian-speaking Alliyah Identity

Summary/Abstract: Since the Law of Return was instated on 5 July 1950, Jews from all corners of the globe have immigrated to Israel. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of Communism, the emigration of Russian-speakers to Israel multiplied rapidly. However, just as these individuals were ostracized for their Jewish lineage in the Soviet Union, they would be met with equal discrimination in Israel for being Russian. This cultural identity paradox brings to light many issues of cultural hybridity. Thus one must take into account the ongoing dilemma of Jewish-ness as religion or ethnicity, but also that of Russian-Jewish-ness versus Jewish-Russian-ness. This is precisely the sort of hybridism that we can observe in Jewish communities of the FSU and the Russian-speaking emigres to Israel. My work deals specifically with the new face of the Russian-Jew, or Jewish-Russian within contemporary literature. I focus on the short-stories and novels of Dina Rubina and how she illustrates cultural hybridity in her narratives. Gone now are the days of the Jewish stereotype in Russian literature. Rubina writes exclusively in Russian, giving a new and transformed image of the Russian-speaking Jew.

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