TRANSFORMATION OF JEWISH IDENTITY IN POST-WAR CZECH AND LUXEMBOURG GENERATIONS (1945-1990)

The PhD project has been supervised under the regulations of the Cotutelle agreement between the University of Luxembourg (C²DH) and Charles University (the Faculty of Education). The aim of the thesis is to analyze and compare the development and changes of Jewish identity and Jewishness in post-war Jewish generations in the years 1945–1990 born or living in the Czech lands (Czech, Moravia, Silesia) and Luxembourg. The research focuses only on the territory of the Czech lands (Czech Republic) and Luxembourg; it does not include the current Slovak territory. The author's intention is to compare the development of Judaism and Jewish identity between members of the second and third post-war Jewish generations who were influenced by two different political systems – the Western Liberal Democracy and the Eastern Communist regime. The work aims to find similarities and differences in predetermined aspects that directly and indirectly have influenced life in the Jewish communities in both Luxembourg and the current Czech Republic. Individual aspects and factors were determined as follows: the path to Judaism and its formation in two different political regimes; attitude towards the state of Israel; antisemitism. The work seeks to find different comparative parameters for intergenerational analysis of different attitudes towards Israel, the influence of antisemitism on post-war Jewish generations, and to understand the processes involved in the formation and transmission of Czech and Luxembourg Jewish identities. Forty interviews with Czech and Luxembourger Jews refined and completed the quantitative results of a questionnaire fulfilled by 400 respondents. The approach can be described as interdisciplinary, which combines methods of survey and narrative approaches of oral history. The author deals with the analysis of the reflection of historical facts with an emphasis on historical consciousness. This PhD thesis is accompanied by a sociological and historical context so that the reader can better understand the interpretation of the dataset collected in the research. The intention is to point out the range of differences and intersections in relationship to political developments over the course of 45 years.