God Himself Was Our Neighbor

“Not sleeping, you wait for me by our child’s cradle/And because of this, I know nothing will happen to me.” These lyrics from Temnaya Noch, the most famous Soviet song about World War 2, were written by a Russian Jew. In fact, much of the popular literature, music, and film dealing with the trauma of war was made by Jews, even though their ethnic identity was hidden from the public and Jews were slandered and repressed by Soviet leadership. Beneath Mark Bernes’ heartfelt war ballads, Yuri Norstein’s explorations of collective suffering in animated short films, and David Samoylov’s somber poems about lost youth, there lies the particular sadness of a people which had confronted its own extinction. The Soviet-Jewish war experience remains a mostly untold story. In America, many Jews associate the war exclusively with the Holocaust, while in Russia, many people grow up learning a story of the war that downplays both Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and the contribution of Soviet Jews to the war effort (militarily and culturally). My podcast aims to disrupt these oversimplified perceptions by revisiting the narrative of Soviet Jews in the war, a story in whichsuffering is wedded to action, fear to bravery, tragedy to eventual triumph. Across 6 episodes, I weave together interviews with scholars, literary excerpts, and accounts of my own family’s experiences, showcasing the contributions of Jews to Soviet society and culture.This project is created as part of COJECO Arts Against Anti-semitism Initiative and is made possible with PATH funding through the Mayor’s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.