Everyday Jewish Life in Imperial Russia: Select Documents, 17721914 [Paperback]

This book makes accessiblefor the first time in Englishdeclassified archival documents from the former Soviet Union, rabbinic sources, and previously untranslated memoirs, illuminating everyday Jewish life as the site of interaction and negotiation among and between 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 storiesreflecting not only the typical but also the extraordinarythe sources reveal the tensions and ruptures in a vanished society. An introductory survey of Russian Jewish history from the Polish partitions (17721795) to World War I combines with prefatory remarks, textual annotations, and a bibliography of suggested readings to provide a new perspective on the history of the Jews of Russia.

CHAERAN Y. FREEZE is associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. She is the author of Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia. JAY M. HARRIS is Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies and dean of undergraduate education at Harvard University.

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: The Imperial Context I. RELIGIOUS LIFE THE DIVERSITY OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 1. The Cantor of Duvid Twerskys Hasidic Court in Talnoe: The Memoirs of Pinhas Minkovsky 2. Secret State Reports on the Twersky Tsaddikim in Kiev and Volhynia Provinces (186168) 3. The Vurke Hasidic Court in Otwock:The Memoirs of Ita Kalish 4. Yehoshua Heschel Levines TheAscents of Eliyahu (Gaon of Vilna) 5. Memoirs of R. Elijah ben Benjamin Rabinowitz-Teomim, the Aderet (18451905) 6. Tkhines [Supplicatory Prayers] for Women 7. The Cantor of Poltava Choral Synagogue: The Memoirs of Genrikh Sliozberg 8. The Cantor of VilnalóR