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The Jews of St. Petersburg

Excursions through a Noble Past

edited with an introduction and maps, by Martin Gilbert

The Jewish Publication Society Philadelphia, New York- 1989

From the flap:

"...In this richly detailed and illustrated volume the author leads the reader on six long and lively excursions through a fascinating period of Russian Jewish history, 1880-1930. These were the years when many Jews left their small towns - shtetls - and came to St. Petersburg, the Czarist capital. As these Jews became better educated, attained greater prosperity, and became close to the highest Russian authorities, their influence was felt even among their brethren who still lived in the Pale of Settlement. St. Petersburg became the center for Jewish publications, organizations, and social services that had an impact far beyond the boundaries of the city. These were also years of great flourishing in cultrural life of St. Petersburg Jews - in Hebrew writing, in Jewish ethnography and history, in drama, art and music. Out of this community came such creative luminaries as S. Y. Ansky, Simon Dubnov, Marc Chagall, Yasha Heifetz, Osip Mandelstam, and Isaak Babel. All of these personalities, and more, come alive in Beizer's pages."