Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire

Cover

Jeffrey Veidlinger Je wish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire Veidlinger Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire INDIANA INDIANA University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis http://iupress.indiana.edu 1-800-842-6796 Russia & Eastern Europe / Judaica The flowering of a grassroots Jewish secular culture in the last years of the Russian Empire The Modern Jewish Experience Paula Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore, editors Cover photo from the Archives of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York “This ambitious study offers a new perspective on the construction, ethos, and dynamics of a burgeoning Jewish public sphere following the Revolution of 1905.” —Chai-Ran Freeze, Brandeis University In the midst of the violent, revolutionary turmoil that accompanied the last decade of tsarist rule in the Russian Empire, many Jews came to reject what they regarded as the apocalyptic and utopian prophecies of political dreamers and religious fanatics, preferring instead to focus on the promotion of cultural development in the present. Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire examines the cultural identities that Jews were creating and disseminating through voluntary associations such as libraries, drama circles, literary clubs, historical societies, and even fire brigades. Jeffrey Veidlinger explores the venues in which prominent cultural figures—including Sholem Aleichem, Mendele Moykher Sforim, and Simon Dubnow—interacted with the general Jewish public, encouraging Jewish expression within Russia’s multicultural society. By highlighting the cultural experiences shared by Jews of diverse social backgrounds—from seamstresses to parliamentarians—and in disparate geographic locales—from Ukrainian shtetls to Polish metropolises —the book revises traditional views of Jewish society in the late Russian Empire. Jeffrey Veidlinger is Associate Professor of History, Alvin H. Rosenfeld Chair in Jewish Studies, and Associate Director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University Bloomington. He is author of The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage (Indiana University Press, 2000). The flowering of a grassroots Jewish secular culture in the last years of the Russian Empire Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire The Modern Jewish Experience Paula Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore, editors a Jewish Public Culture b in the Late Russian Empire Jeffrey Veidlinger Indiana University Press Bloomington and Indianapolis This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e-mail iuporder@indiana.edu© 2009 by Jeffrey Veidlinger All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Veidlinger, Jeffrey, date– Jewish public culture in the late Russian empire / Jeffrey Veidlinger. p. cm. — (The modern Jewish experience) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-35287-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-22058-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Jews—Russia—Intellectual life. I. Title. DS135.R9V43 2009 305.892’404709034—dc22 2008032577 1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10 09 ...