Everyday Jewish Life in Imperial Russia: Select Documents, 1772-1914 (Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry)

This book makes accessible--for the first time in English--declassified archival documents from the former Soviet Union, rabbinic sources, as well as previously untranslated memoirs, illuminating everyday Jewish life as the site of interaction and negotiation among neighbors, society, and the Russian state, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to World War I. Focusing on religion, family, health, sexuality, work, and politics, these documents provide an intimate portrait of the rich diversity of Jewish life. By personalizing collective experience through individual life stories--reflecting not only the typical but also the extraordinary--these sources reveal the tensions and ruptures in a vanished society. An introductory survey of Russian Jewish history from the Polish partitions (1772-1795) to World War I, along with prefatory remarks, textual annotations, and a bibliography of suggested readings, combine to provide a new perspective on the history of the Jews of Russia.