Publisher's Synopsis
This is a history of the life of Russian Jews during the last 100 years. It documents their life using many previously unpublished photographs which depict village dwellers and urban Jews, political activists, artists and craftsmen, shopkeepers and beggars, family scenes and crowded synagogues. The accompanying text describes the trouble and achievements of this community and relates the major events of each era of their history, from Tsarist times and the Revolution to life under Stalin and Krushchev. The non-European Jews of Georgia and Central Asia are also discussed and the growing movement for the right to emigrate that emerged after the Six Day War in 1967. A concluding chapter takes up the question of "glasnost" and what it means for Soviet Jews.