The Ethnic Status of the Jewish People in the Soviet Union

Abstract

The issue of the Jewish people in the USSR has been extensively examined in the scholarship. In Soviet historiography, the authors focused on the achievements of Soviet Jewish national policy, on overcoming the ethnic inequality of Jews, on their role in power structures and the elite, on their participation in the construction of a new socialist society. Most modern historians study the situation of Jews through the prism of discrimination in political, social, cultural, economic, day-to-day life, and other spheres. The disadvantage of many works is the lack of empirical data and the lack of comparative historical analysis. The condition of Soviet Jews is not compared with the situation of other Soviet peoples and with that of the Jews in other countries, which creates the idea that only Soviet Jews suffered or that they were the most discriminated ethnic group in the country. The author attempts to verify the position of Jews in terms of their ethnic status in the Soviet society on the basis of a variety of statistical data. The status of the Jewish ethnic group, by analogy with the social status of a person in sociology, is evaluated against five important criteria: power, education, prestige, property status, and lifestyle. The author comes to the conclusion that the Jewish community in the Soviet Union was wisely representated in government bodies during some periods and adequately representated in others in other spheres; had always had the highest socio-professional profile, the highest education, and the highest incomes compared to other ethnic groups. They managed to successfully break through the glass ceiling of formal and informal prohibitions, restrictions, and prejudices.

Keywords:

Soviet Union, Jews, ethnic status, education, prestige, property status, lifestyle, participation in government, anti-Semitism