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Fewer Jews Makes Brighton Beach Less 'Little Odessa,' More 'Small Soviet Union'
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jun 7, 2012
Modified Jun 7, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jun 7, 2012
Modified Jun 7, 2012
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Speaking of Brighton Beach, when we think of that Brooklyn neighborhood we normally think of its Russian Jewish population. But, apparently, that is more about our memory than reality. In the past two decades an influx of Russian-speaking non-Jews have been moving into the area in larger and larger numbers—"drawn by the gravitational pull of the common language—a legacy of the Soviet education system."
A group of grad students at Columbia (Anna Kordunsky, Michael Larson, Ariel Stulberg and Bingling Liao) recently took a look at area's population and shared the following video of their findings with us. And, as non-Russian speakers, we found it edifying:
Brighton Beach first got its Russian character in the 1970s when the Soviet Union relaxed emigration policies for Jews. Seeking refuge from ethnic discrimination, hundreds of thousands of them moved to the States, and many obviously settled in the Coney/Brighton area. "There was nothing here when we came," Yana Veksler, 46, who arrived with her family in 1979, still lives in the area and works at the Brighton Beach Neighborhood Association, told the students. "There were burned buildings, writing on the trains. These buildings were all empty, so we filled them."
Once the first generations started to get old and their kids started to leave, however, the area didn't lose its Russian flavor. Instead, a new breed of Russian-speakers started to trickle in. And that trickle continues today:
These new immigrants have incorporated their own culture into the neighborhood. Lagman and manty, Central Asian-style soup and dumplings, have joined borsch and bliny on local restaurant menus, and holidays like Nowruz are celebrated with flair. Uzbek entertainers are brought in to perform alongside celebrities from Russia and Ukraine. And among themselves, many young men and women from Central Asia converse in their native languages.
Heck, the population of Central Asian Russian speakers in the area has grown enough in the past few years to support their own 24-hour TV station. Luckily, bound by a common tongue, the newcomers seem to be getting along with the older Jews just fine.
"Not only people from Odessa live on Brighton Beach anymore," Ilkhom Kenjabaev, the director of Uz TV says. "There are now Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Tajiks. They all come here, united by the Russian language. Brighton Beach—one could say it’s like a small Soviet Union."
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Garth Johnston
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