Mi-mahpekhah le-milḥamah: ha-politikah ha-Yehudit be-Rusyah, 1907–1914 by Vladimir Levin (review)

Vladimir Levin’s study From Revolution to War is a detailed, learned analysis of the intricate web of Jewish political organizations and parties that arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to shape the lives and dreams of many of the Russian Empire’s five million Jewish subjects. Based on an impressive array of primary sources in Hebrew, Russian, and Yiddish from archives and libraries located in Israel, Russia, and other locations, Levin’s study fills several lacunae in the academic literature on Russian and Jewish societies and politics at the turn of the century, and significantly broadens our understanding of pivotal developments among the Russian Empire’s Jews in this critical period.

Like many first academic books, this is a well-structured study that owes much to the author’s former dissertation adviser, the late Jonathan Frankel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Acutely aware of his academic genealogy, Levin opens his thick description of Jewish politics by claiming that the book should be read as a direct continuation of Frankel’s seminal study Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews, and many readers will see Frankel’s academic imprint throughout Levin’s work (P. 11).¹ Indeed, much like his former mentor, Levin is primarily concerned with the history of Jewish political organizations, bases his judicious conclusions on a wide range of historical sources, and is intimately familiar with both Jewish and Russian histories and societies.

The book itself focuses on the ostensibly quiet years between the heyday of political activity during the Revolution of 1905 and the outbreak of World War I (P. 16). However, while other scholars have often preferred to pass over this period in favor of studying the events of 1905 or 1917, Levin dives head first into this relatively unexplored chapter in the history of Jewish and Russian politics.² Much to his credit, Levin takes a period that was long thought to be devoid of political relevance and gives it new meaning and life. The end result is a rich study outlining a wide array of political organizations, debates, and activities that together paint a nuanced history of Russian Jewry at the onset of the twentieth century.

True to his goal of writing a political history, the first section in Levin’s tome revolves around Jewish representatives in the Russian State Duma. As part of these efforts, Levin discusses the impact of the political reforms of June 1907, the elections to the Third and Fourth Dumas in 1907 and 1912, and the activities of Jewish delegates in the Duma. Based on a comprehensive review of contemporary periodicals, memoir literature, and different government sources, these chapters carefully reconstruct the efforts and achievements of Jewish leaders and organizations in the last two Dumas. In doing so, Levin demonstrates how versatile many Jewish representatives were as they attempted to secure and protect rights for members of Russia’s Jewish community (P. 37). These goals proved to be particularly difficult as Jewish representatives were forced to negotiate their place between the liberal opposition led by the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets), parties to the right like the Octobrists, and representatives of socialist movements (Pp. 44, 125). Through his discussion of Jewish politics in the State Dumas, Levin shows how the strategies and successes of modern Jewish politics were often dependent on developments in the realm of Russian politics. Hence, while modern Jewish politics may have been born in and aspired to the ideal of Jewish agency, many of its practitioners discovered rather quickly that the actual practice of politics was very often grounded in the art and act of political compromise.³

As part of his efforts to shed light on this long-overlooked historical period, Levin dedicates the second section of his book to detailed discussions regarding the enormous...