ABSTRACT
Interest in religion was the more acute because there were no books on religion available either in bookstores or in the libraries, although there was an abundance of antireligious books. A teacher of English and a technical translator described one police method of combatting interest in religion among the young: Soviet persecution of religion in Odessa was rather virulent. Anti-Semitic discrimination and popular anti-Semitism constituted the most pervasive form of bigotry in Odessa and affected the largest number of people, although it is likely that the author findings on this subject partly reflect the predominantly Jewish ethnicity of informants. Nevertheless, many sources reported that bigotry and discrimination affected other ethnic groups as well. Anti-Semitic discrimination in university admissions had its occasional tragicomic moments. In the stalemate between the forces of a beleaguered religion and official state-sponsored militant atheism, it was, paradoxically, the latter that appeared on the defensive.
