The Jews in Poland and Russia

The history of the Jewish communities of these lands-where most of the Jews of Europe and America originated-is often the subject of wooly thinking and stereotypes. Antony Polonsky recreates this lost world in a way that avoids both sentimentalism and the simplification of the east European Jewish experience into a story of persecution and martyrdom. This is an important story whose relevance extends beyond the Jewish world or the bounds of east-central Europe.