This book argues that Jews were not a people apart but were culturally integrated in Russian society. In their diasporic cultural creations Russia’s Jews employed the general themes of artists under tsars and Soviets, but they modified these themes to fit their own needs. The result was a hybrid, Russian-Jewish culture, unique and dynamic. Few today consider that Jewish Eastern Europe, the “old world”, was in fact a power incubator of modern Jewish consciousness. Brian Horowitz, a well-known scholar of Russian Jewry, presents essays on Jewish education (the heder), historiography, literature and Jewish philosophy that intersect with contemporary interests on the big questions of Jewish life. The book lets us grasp the meaning of secular Judaism and gives models from the past in order to stimulate ideas for the present.
Table of Content
Introduction, William Craft Brumfield
Part I: Russian-Jewish Historians and Historiography
1. The Return of the Ḥeder among Russian-Jewish Education Experts, 1840–1917
2. ‘Building a Fragile Edifice’: A History of Russian-Jewish Historical Institutions, 1860–1914
3. Myths and Counter-Myths about Odessa’s Jewish Intelligentsia during the Late Tsarist Period
4. Saul Borovoi’s Survival: An Odessa Tale about a Jewish Historian in Soviet Times
5. The Ideological Challenges of S. M. Dubnov in Emigration: Autonomism and Zionism, Europe and Palestine
Part II: Russian–Jewish Intelligentsia’s Cultural Vibrancy
6. Semyon An-sky—Dialogic Writer
7. Russian-Jewish Writers Face Pogroms, 1880–1914
8. M. O. Gershenzon, Alexander Pushkin, the Bible, and the Flaws of Jewish Nationalism
9. Battling for Self-Definition in Soviet Literature: Boris Eikhenbaum’s Jewish Question
10. Vladimir Jabotinsky and the Mystique of 1905
11. Vladimir Jabotinsky and Violence
Part III: Jewish Heritage in Russian Perception
12. Vladimir Solov’ev and the Jews: A View from Today
13. Fear and Stereotyping: Vasily Rozanov and Jewish Menace
About the author
Brian Horowitz is the holder of the Sizeler Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans. He is an expert on the Jews of Eastern Europe and author of a number of books, including
Empire Jews,
Jewish Philanthropy and Education in Late-Tsarist Russia, and
Russian Idea – Jewish Presence.
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