A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present - Hardcover

Gitelman, Zvi Y.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0253338115 ISBN 13: 9780253338112

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2001

Synopsis

A century ago the Russian Empire contained the largest Jewish community in the world, numbering about 5 million people. Today, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union has dwindled to half a million, but remains probably the third largest Jewish community in the world. In the intervening century the Jews of that area have been at the centre of some of the most dramatic events of modern history - two world wars, revolutions, pogroms, political liberation, repression, and the collapse of the USSR. They have gone through dizzyingly rapid upward and downward economic and social mobility and experienced great enthusiasms and profound disappointments. In startling photographs and lively narrative, "A Century of Ambivalence" traces the historical experience of Jews in Russia from a period of creativity and repression in the second half of the nineteenth century through the paradoxes posed by the post-Soviet era.

About this title

Review

"Anyone with even a passing interest in the histoy of Russian Jewry will want to own this splendid ... book." --Janet Hadda, Los Angeles Times " ... illuminated by an extraordinary collection of photographs that vividly reflect the hopes, triumphs and agonies of Russian Jewish life." --David E. Fishman, Hadassah Magazine "Wonderful pictures ... an uplifting [book] for a broad and general audience." --Alexander Orbach, Slavic Review

About the Author

Zvi Gitelman is Professor of Political Science, Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, and Director of the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He is author of, among other works, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 and editor of Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR (Indiana University Press).

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0253338115
• ISBN 13: 9780253338112
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 320