Reviews
Review
Review of Sasha Senderovich's How the Soviet Jew Was Made
In this recently-published study, Senderovich challenges this fixed notion of the Soviet Jew, and recounts a complex prehistory of the Soviet Jew in the immediate context of interwar Soviet culture.
Feb 27, 2023
Review
Review of Marina Mogilner’s A Race for the Future: Scientific Visions of Modern Russian Jewishness
With a focus on Russian Jewish race scientists, Mogilner traces how biology informed notions of Jewish difference mobilized by communal organizations and political activists in imperial Russia and the early Soviet period.
Jun 02, 2023
Review
Review of Shira Gorshman's Meant to Be, translated by Faith Jones
This is the first book-length collection of Gorshman’s work to be translated into English, with only a handful of stories elsewhere.
Feb 19, 2024
Review
Review of The Dream of Social Justice and Bad Moral Luck: Eight Jewish Lives Under Stalin by Alice Nakhimovsky
“Justice” – with all its transformations and many faces – is a key notion for understanding Soviet history. It was social justice that the Bolshevik Revolution was after. It was “the dream of social justice” that attracted so many people, including numerous Jews, to join the revolution or to immigrate to Soviet Russia. And the stronger the belief in social justice the new order brought, the stronger was the shock caused by the injustice of the selective enforcement of Soviet laws.
Apr 01, 2025