Commemorative Activities of the Great War and the Empowerment of Elderly Immigrant Soviet Jewish Veterans in Israel

Abstract

This study deals with the commemoration of the "migrating past" in a new country. The case in focus is the group of Red Army WWII veterans who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s. These elderly immigrant ex-soldiers turn to their combat past, the main symbolic capital in their struggle for belonging in the host country. Performing commemorative work that is embedded in the mnemonic praxis of Soviet veteran culture, the elderly immigrants construct individual, collective and civic identities in their new homeland. The study sheds light on veterans' commemorative practices as a venue for struggling with the rupture created by the interweaving of old age and migration. The study objectifies the experience of war as a powerful symbolic resource for individual empowerment and social mobilization in the contexts of nation-states and flourishing militarism.

Inclusion through Exclusion

“…Hereby, the interviewees challenge the dominant Israeli view of the weak Jew living in exile and replace it with their notion of the heroic and victorious (Jewish) Soviet soldiers fighting in WWII, which was an integral part of Soviet practices of commemoration and which the immigrants had experienced themselves (cf. Rapoport/ Lomsky-Feder 2007; see also Roberman 2007). In this context, the interviewees also tended to "normalise" personal anti-Semitic experiences (Rapoport/ Lomsky-Feder 2007).…”

“…of European origin (e.g. Roberman 2007;Almog 2000). Basically, this "new Hebrew" reflected the physical and mental condition of those who emigrated to Mandate Palestine-the contribution of women silenced in this maledominant notion-and was constructed as a counter-image of the weak and poor "Shtetl Jew", commonly described in Jewish diaspora and Israeli literature.…”

Mediating international and domestic demands: mnemonic battles surrounding the monument to the fallen of the wars of the 1990s in Belgrade

“…Memory sites and monuments represent "territorialized memories" that make a place sacrosanct (Roberman 2007(Roberman , 1055. According to Young, "with monuments, we honor ourselves" (Young 1993, 3).…”

Identity, Old(er) Age and Migrancy : A Social Constructionist Len

“…As a consequence, questions of identity could potentially be rather different, such as the question of how one settles into life in a new country in old age (as in e.g. Li et al 2010;Roberman 2007aRoberman & 2007b or where "home" is after a long life in a second home country (as in e.g. George & Fitzgerald 2012;Leavey et al 2004).…”

“…One may also expect differences in relation to the whens, whos and hows of the identity categories of old(er) age and migrancy. As the present dissertation is interested in the negotiation of the identity categories of old(er) age and 67 The complete list is as follows: Bartholomew 2012, Bolzman et al 2006, Delucchi 1998, Gardner 2002, George & Fitzgerald 2012, Kambar 2013, Kawakami 2012, Maynard et al 2008, Peterson-Veatch 1999, Roberts 2010, Tammeveski 2003, Varverakis 2011 The complete list is as follows : Elias 2005, Feinberg 1996, Li & Chong 2012, Oliver 2011, Remennick 2003, Roberman 2007a, Roberman 2007b, Shternshis 2013, Sokolovsky 2003 migrancy, those included in the sample had to have been living in Sweden for a long time: they had to have had the chance to settle in, get to know Sweden and learn the language in order to ascertain that they had experiences of migrancy to share (see Chapter 5 for more). As will be seen, the sample of the present study includes older migrants who migrated earlier in life (when aged between 15 and 45) and have been living in Sweden for a long time (between 18 and 61 years) (see Table 5.1, Chapter 5).…”