Confessions of the Shtetl : Converts from Judaism in Imperial Russia, 1817-1906 / Ellie R. Schainker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schainker, Ellie R., Author.

Series:

Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture.

Stanford Studies in Jewish History and C

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian converts from Judaism--Russia--History--19th century.

Christian converts from Judaism.

Jews--Conversion to Christianity--Russia--History--19th century.

Jews.

Jewish Christians--Russia--History--19th century.

Jewish Christians.

Jews--Russia--Identity--History--19th century.

Religious tolerance--Russia--History--19th century.

Religious tolerance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 339 pages).

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Over the course of the nineteenth century, some 84,500 Jews in imperial Russia converted to Christianity. Confessions of the Shtetl explores the day-to-day world of these people, including the social, geographic, religious, and economic links among converts, Christians, and Jews. The book narrates converts' tales of love, desperation, and fear, tracing the uneasy contest between religious choice and collective Jewish identity in tsarist Russia. Rather than viewing the shtetl as the foundation myth for modern Jewish nationhood, this work reveals the shtetl's history of conversions and communal engagement with converts, which ultimately yielded a cultural hybridity that both challenged and fueled visions of Jewish separatism. Drawing on extensive research with conversion files in imperial Russian archives, in addition to the mass press, novels, and memoirs, Ellie R. Schainker offers a sociocultural history of religious toleration and Jewish life that sees baptism not as the fundamental departure from Jewishness or the Jewish community, but as a conversion that marked the start of a complicated experiment with new forms of identity and belonging. Ultimately, she argues that the Jewish encounter with imperial Russia did not revolve around coercion and ghettoization but was a genuinely religious drama with a diverse, attractive, and aggressive Christianity.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1. THE GENESIS OF CONFESSIONAL CHOICE

CHAPTER 2. THE MISSIONIZING MARKETPLACE

PART II. CONVERSION AND THE SHTETL

CHAPTER 3. SHTETLS, TAVERNS, AND BAPTISMS

CHAPTER 4. FROM VODKA TO VIOLENCE

CHAPTER 5. RELAPSED CONVERTS AND TALES OF MARRANISM

CHAPTER 6. JEWISH CHRISTIAN SECTS IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA

EPILOGUE

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2016.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

ISBN:

9781503600249

1503600246

OCLC:

1178770156