By
– December 14, 2011
This is the first volume of a comprehensive new survey of the history of Jews in Eastern Europe, where for over eight hundred years there have been communities of Jews in the lands of Poland and Russia, from which a majority of the world’s Jews originated.
The life and history of Poland’s Jews was intimately intertwined in the life and history of old Poland, when it was one of Europe’s largest states, and continued under Russian, Austrian, and Prussian rule. Yiddish-speaking Jews contributed substantively to general economic and cultural life in Poland and Russia, while they cultivated their rich East European Jewish heritage. It is a complex story with many threads that is presented with admirable clarity, ethical objectivity, and honesty.
This book is destined to become the standard survey of East European Jewish history for the next generation. It is a lively, well-written work that draws on the wealth of recent scholarly research published in Polish, Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, German, French, and English. Bibliography, glossary, index, maps, notes, tables.
The life and history of Poland’s Jews was intimately intertwined in the life and history of old Poland, when it was one of Europe’s largest states, and continued under Russian, Austrian, and Prussian rule. Yiddish-speaking Jews contributed substantively to general economic and cultural life in Poland and Russia, while they cultivated their rich East European Jewish heritage. It is a complex story with many threads that is presented with admirable clarity, ethical objectivity, and honesty.
This book is destined to become the standard survey of East European Jewish history for the next generation. It is a lively, well-written work that draws on the wealth of recent scholarly research published in Polish, Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, German, French, and English. Bibliography, glossary, index, maps, notes, tables.
Robert Moses Shapiro teaches modern Jewish history, Holocaust studies, and Yiddish language and literature at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. His most recent book is The Warsaw Ghetto Oyneg Shabes-Ringelblum Archive: Catalog and Guide (Indiana University Press in association with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Library and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, 2009). He is currently engaged in translating Polish and Yiddish diaries from the Łódź ghetto and the Yiddish Sonderkommando documents found buried in the ash pits at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
