The main focus of the project is an anthropological study of the Jewish community in Rybnitsa (Transnistria). Chassidic Rebbe Chaim-Zanvl Abramovich (1902 - 1995), lived in this city in the postwar years. He was the last charismatic Jewish spiritual leader in the territory of the Soviet Union and, possibly, all of Eastern Europe. For thirty years, from 1941 until 1973, the Rebbe lived in Rybnitsa. Almost all native people of the city, both Jews and non-Jews, remember the Rebbe himself and / or numerous folklore narratives about him. Accordingly, one of the most important tasks of the proposed project is to study the influence of a charismatic personality on the Jewish life of a particular city, on the transformation of a “local text”. The background for this study is Rybnitsa itself, the town, that developed as an industrial center, an ideal “socialist city”. The contrast of the tsaddik figure in this modern city is noticeable. The aims of our project include the study of local history of the Jewish community in Rybnitsa from the 1930s up to this day. Participants are going to study archival documents, written sources, and use oral materials collected during field research in Rybnitsa and surrounding cities and towns. The figure of the Ribnitzer Rebbe makes the study of the “Jewish” Rybnitsa very significant from the anthropology of religion’s point of view.
Head of the project team:
Prof. Dov Ber Kerler (Indiana University, USA)
The main participants:
Dr. Maria Kaspina, specialist in Jewish folklore (Moscow, Russian State University for the Humanities).
Prof. Valery Dymshits, researcher at the Interdepartmental Center "Petersburg Judaica" (European University at St. Petersburg), professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (St. Petersburg State University).
Dr. Irina Shikhova, curator of the Jewish Museum in Moldova (Chisinau).
Head of the project team:
Prof. Dov Ber Kerler (Indiana University, USA)
The main participants:
Dr. Maria Kaspina, specialist in Jewish folklore (Moscow, Russian State University for the Humanities).
Prof. Valery Dymshits, researcher at the Interdepartmental Center "Petersburg Judaica" (European University at St. Petersburg), professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (St. Petersburg State University).
Dr. Irina Shikhova, curator of the Jewish Museum in Moldova (Chisinau).