Table of Contents

Foreword by Zvi Gitelman

Note on the Translation and Transliteration

Acronyms and Abbreviation

Preface

Part One: DER NISTER’S JOURNEY FROM MOSCOW TO BIROBIDZHAN

A Wedding on a Migrant Train

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

“With the Second Echelon”

“With the New Settlers to Birobidzhan”

A Man Dieth in a Tent

Russian-Jewish “Hybridization”

Comfort Ye My People

Real Action

Part Two: INVESTIGATION CASE NO. 68

Der Nister Affair

Accused in the Case

Detention Order: BUZI MILLER, June 6, 1949, Birobidzhan

Interrogation Records

Defendant HESHL RABINKOV, July 23, 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant BUZI MILLER, August 5, 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant BUZI MILLER, August 29, 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant BUZI MILLER, September 17, 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant ITSIK FEFER, June 30, 1949, Moscow

Defendant BUZI MILLER, October 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant BUZI MILLER and Defendant HESHL RABINKOV, October 28, 1949, Khabarovsk (Confrontation)

Defendant LUBA VASSERMAN, July 12, 1949, Khabarovsk

Arrestee GRIGORI FRID, April 4, 1938, Minsk (Testimony)

Defendant LUBA VASSERMAN, August 17, 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant SHIMEN SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, October 25, 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November 21, 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November [22–29?], 1949, Khabarovsk

Defendant FAIVISH ARONES and Witness ALEKSANDR DRISIN, November 29, 1949, Khabarovsk (Confrontation)

Resubmission of the Indictment: Defendant BUZI MILLER, December 15, 1949, Khabarovsk

Bill of Indictment: BUZI MILLER, HESHL RABINKOV, ISROEL EMIOT, BER SLUTSKI, LUBA VASSERMAN, SHIMEN SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, and FAIVISH ARONES, April 6, 1950, Khabarovsk (Excerpts)

The Sentence: BUZI MILLER, May 31, 1950, Moscow (Excerpt)

Resolution to Reduce the Prison Term and Release BUZI MILLER from Custody, December 27, 1955, Moscow (Excerpt)

Appendix: Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto” (Yiddish)

Bibliography

Index of Names and Places

About the Author

Ber Kotlerman is Associate Professor at the Department of Literature of the Jewish People, Bar Ilan University, Israel where in 2011-14 he served as Academic Director of the Rena Costa Center for Yiddish Studies. His fields of interest include Jewish history in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Far East, Yiddish and Hebrew literature, Jewish theater and cinema. He is the author of Disenchanted Tailor in illusion: Sholem Aleichem behind the Scenes of Early Jewish Cinema (Bloomington, IN, 2014), The Cultural World of Soviet Jewry (Raanana, 2014), In Search of Milk and Honey: The Theater of Soviet Jewish Statehood (Bloomington, IN, 2009), and Bauhaus in Birobidzhan (Tel Aviv, 2008); the editor of Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 2009 and 2011), Yiddish Theater: Literature, Culture, and Nationalism (Ramat Gan, 2009); and the co-editor of Around the Point: Studies in Jewish Literature and Culture in Multiple Languages (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014)

Reviews

"This book makes a contribution to the study of minorities in general, and Jews in particular, during the early years of the Soviet Union. It is also of use for those interested in issues related to the relationship between writers and Soviet authorities in this period." - International Journal of Russian Studies (2018)