FROM THE PUBLISHER

Throughout the Cold War￯﾿ﾽi.e., during the aftermath of the Nazis￯﾿ﾽ attempt to exterminate all Jews who fell under their rule during World War II￯﾿ﾽpublic discussion of Jews and Judaism was virtually taboo within the Soviet Union proper, and permitted only under stringent controls in the rest of Eastern Europe. Local, regional, and geopolitics all played their parts in turning the "Jewish question" into one of the most conspicuous "blank spots" of an entire era. Until the second half of the 1980s, specialists in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were deprived of the most fundamental research tools￯﾿ﾽaccess to Judaica library and archival collections, and the opportunity to study the languages of Jewish scholarship: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish. Since then, they and their Western and Israeli counterparts have made an impressive start on filling in the blank spots, as a perusal of this book reveals, but much work remains to be done.

Judaica in the Slavic Realm, Slavica in the Judaic Realm will familiarize you with:

The Jewish Archival Survey￯﾿ﾽa remarkable cooperative venture of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the Russian State University for the Humanities￯﾿ﾽwhich searches for records of the Russian-Jewish past in former Soviet repositories the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts￯﾿ﾽ ongoing efforts to acquire microfilms of Hebrew manuscripts in Eastern European and former Soviet repositories

Jewish book publishing in the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic republics after 1990

The collecting activities of the library of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research over a ten-year period

Jewish periodicals in the Ukraine￯﾿ﾽthe largest region in the Tsarist Empire to which Jews were restricted until 1917

Bibliographical projects in Polish-Jewish studies

Attempts to document the genealogical records of Eastern European Jews￯﾿ﾽand the outcomes of those attempts and more!

In addition, you￯﾿ﾽll find three extensive bibliographies, each of which reflects rich and varied facets of the Slavic-Jewish encounter. These are:

Shimon Iakerson￯﾿ﾽs listing of 38 Hebrew incunabula (books printed before the year 1501) in the Asiatic Museum of St. Petersburg

Vladimir Karasik￯﾿ﾽs checklist of 311 Jewish periodicals published in the Ukraine from 1860 to the present￯﾿ﾽtheir schematic breakdown into five different periods represents the bibliographer￯﾿ﾽs reflections on the lives and fates of Jews in the Russian empire, the Soviet Union, and the post-Soviet Ukraine

Nikolai Borodulin￯﾿ﾽs classified bibliography of several hundred Jewish books and periodicals (in a variety of languages) from the post-Soviet republics

Judaica in the Slavic Realm, Slavica in the Judaic Realm is a one-of-a-kind book that no one interested in the hidden archival records of this century￯﾿ﾽand this historically significant part of the world￯﾿ﾽshould be without.

SYNOPSIS

Rediscover the history that the Soviets tried to erase!

This important book addresses topics that may be unfamiliar even to specialists in Slavic or Jewish Studies. Here you￯﾿ﾽll find essays, bibliographies, and research studies illustrating the state of Jewish-related publishing ventures in Eastern Europe (especially Poland) and the former Soviet Union in the post-WWII era. Judaica in the Slavic Realm, Slavica in the Judaic Realm: Repositories, Collections, Projects, Publications also documents the efforts of Judaic scholars, librarians, and genealogists to provide access to archival collections in those countries.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for anyone doing advanced research on the Jews of the former Russian and Soviet empires. Zachary Baker, the world's leading bibliographic authority on the Jews of the region, has done the scholarly world a great service by bringing together leading experts to produce this invaluable guide. Encompassing Ukrainian, Polish, and Belarusian materials as well as Russian sources, this work is also a wonderful introduction to significant holdings in Jerusalem's Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, the Jewish National and University Library, and New York's YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. GRADUATE STUDENTS AND SEASONED ACADEMICS WILL BENEFIT TREMENDOUSLY. . . THIS IS AN EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT COLLECTION, SURE TO BECOME A PRIMARY REFERENCE GUIDE.—University Library Scholar of Judaica; Associate Professor of History and Judaic Studies, Florida Atlantic University  — Henry Abramson