The Russian-jewish Tradition ― Intellectuals, Historians, Revolutionaries

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.

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.