This past Spring, researchers from the Center for Jewish Art carried out an epic, more than 4,000-kilometer journey along the Volga River researching Jewish material heritage. The preliminary, 63-page report from the trip is now available online.
The team, led by CJA Director Vladimir Levin, traveled between May 23 and June 9 along a route that started northwest of Moscow and followed the river to the Caspian Sea. They visited 13 towns and cities along the way, carrying out a documentation of 16 synagogues, 13 Jewish cemeteries , and four collections of Judaica.
The places visited included: Tver, Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhnii Novgorod, Kazan, Ulyanovsk (former Simbirsk), Samara, Buzuluk, Syzran, Saratov, Volgograd (former Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad), and Astrakhan.
The research trip along the Volga was a continuation of a systematic documentation of Jewish material culture beyond the old centers of Jewish settlement, which the CJA launched with a trip to Siberia in 2015, the report states.
Taken in the conceptual framework of “Frontier Jews,” i.e. the Jews who settle in areas without established Jewish communities, the research on the material culture of new Jewish collectives enables to ask questions about the transfer of traditions and culture, about adjusting the customs and habits brought from the old home to the new environment, about the emergence of new local identities and the creation of relationships with new surrounding populations, which had no previous experience of dealing with Jews. Material culture is an effective means for answering these questions.
The report includes separate sections for each town or city, with photographs and textual description of the Jewish heritage that was documented. All but two of the synagogues — one in Astrakhan and one is Saratov — were closed by the Soviets in the 1930s and converted for secular use. With the post-communist revival of Jewish life, some are now being used again as synagogues.
Regarding cemeteries, it notes that among thirteen cities visited, only one “old” Jewish cemetery is still preserved — the old Jewish cemetery in Astrakhan, dating from the middle of the nineteenth century.
All other older cemeteries were demolished during the Soviet era. The cemeteries surveyed during the research trip were established either in the last decades of the nineteenth century or after World War Two.
There are also extensive summaries of the history of Jews along the Volga, up until today, as well as a general discussion of synagogue architecture and Jewish cemetery styles.
12 comments on “Russia: Jewish heritage along the Volga River — the preliminary report from a 4,000-km research trip by the Center for Jewish Art is available online”
I deeply appreciate all of this information and everyone’s shares here. My great grandparents were Volga Germans, with the Jewish last name Gossman. Sadly, it seems it was necessary for their safety to stop identifying as Jewish, but my mother and I have both found our way back to our faith.
history shows that in 1900 odessa had 57 per cent jewish people. my family had to suddenly leave in 1903. their names were schumacher Hoffmann and renner. all jewish sounding..weve also wondered if we were jewish. my grammar id was destroyed but they claimed to be lutheran.
Hi Kathy,
Can you point me towards where you got this statistic from?
My great grandfather worked for Czar Nicholas. His namw was Nickolas Bieber his wife Etkaterina Leachman. The fled Russia in the Rothamel area in 1915 to America. I know I have ashkenazi jewish blood through 23 and me. I am very curious to see if there are any relatives left in that region. They literally left in the the middle of the night abd fled to America. 3 years later Czar Nicholas’s family was murdered.
My Grandfather and others of his family emigrated to the US from he Saratov area. We were raised as Lutheran but our family name – originally spelled Scheuermann shows Ashkenazic Jewish heritage. My Great-grandfather on my father’s side was Befus/Bafus. His wife, also born in Russia was Paffenroth/Poffenroth…. I’m curious about the connection and where the German family came from before they arrived in and lived in Yagodnaya Polyana, Saratov, Russia and where both sides of my family were born.
Are you Wesley’s Sister
Germany
Heidi! We are in the same boat! Lots of jewish surnames in my ancestry and they are forsure from saratov on the volga. I know Christian germans settled thier but my family has no religious traditions. My grandparents and great grandparents say that we were just not relgious but we have jewish cultural traditions. So curious about this as i have always been drawn the the jewish people. Let me know of you know anything!
My grandmother, Pauline Job, was descended from that “prophet of the gentiles” in sacred texts (Job/Ayub). Her family practiced Jewish faith, but her father later converted to Christianity. When they emigrated they were part of the Lutheran “Volga Triangle” that settled in that area of the Dakotas. My own mother was born in Hosmer, S.D.
Yes, same here.
Hello,
I would appreciate some help if someone out there knows anything about my family. I am a Jew-by-choice, but I believe that some of my ancestors on my mother’s side were German/Russian Jews from areas around the southern part of the Volga. My grandmother’s maiden name was Anschutz. I recently learned that I have quite a bit of Russian blood. Thank you to anyone who might have information. I would so love to be a real Jew.
Heidi
Heidi, I do believe you are Jewish. I too have Jewish family who are Germans from Russia (though it was a largely Lutheran community) who lived in the Volga area. I encourage you to keep researching your family names, there is more information added all the time. Blessing and shalom to you.