Author: Gordiejew, Paul

Source: European Judaism, Volume 40, Number 2, Winter 2007 , pp. 43-70(28)

Abstract:

In examining the Jews of the former state of socialist Yugoslavia as a test case, this paper asks a familiar question: can Jews maintain their identity and survive as a distinctive group without the beliefs and practices of the Judaic religion? In their case, the change in the scope of secularization was abrupt and dramatic because of the devastation of the Holocaust and a contemporaneous radical political restructuring of society that denigrated religion. Although there were precedents of secular ideologies and movements, such as Zionism, and new inclinations to participate in broader movements, such as Communism, which influenced Jewish belief and behavior before the Second World War, the abruptness of the secularization and the postwar Jewish leadership's enthusiastic and nearly complete embrace of it put into action what can be called an experiment in secular Jewishness. It is this 'experiment' that is the focus of this paper.

DOI: 10.3167/ej.2007.400205

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