Beyond the Pale
The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia
Description:... Due to the Russian Jewry's complex social structure, as well as to the lack of civil society in tsarist Russia, the solution to the "Jewish question" followed a path of selective integration of Jews. In its course, many Jews settled beyond the Pale of Jewish Settlement and gained some rights which the majority of Russian Jews lacked. Deals with the Jews who settled in large Russian cities beyond the Pale, e.g. Moscow and Kiev. Pt. 2 (pp. 81-198), "The Jews of St. Petersburg, " deals with the Jews who lived in the Empire's capital. The influx of Jews to the city in the 1860s-80s caused an antisemitic backlash. The pogroms of 1881-82 were an unprecedented challenge to the city's Jewish leadership, and many maintained that the notables failed to react adequately to them. Describes the scandal caused by the staging in 1900 of the antisemitic play "The Smugglers, " based on V. Krylov's drama "Sons of Israel." Pt. 3 (pp. 199-307), "Jews, Russians, and the Imperial University, " shows how the government policy of quotas for Jewish students was shaped in the 1880s-90s, and how it thwarted the idea of making universities a tool for "merging" Jews with Russians. Russian students were basically indifferent to extra-academic antisemitism, but supported Jews in their struggle for non-discriminatory admission. Pt. 4 (pp. 309-366), "In the Court of Gentiles, " discusses, inter alia, hindrances in admission of Jews to the bar.
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