Visibility and Invisibility in Modern Jewish History: A Comment on The Jewish Century

Reviews Yuri Slezkine's 'The Jewish Century' (2004), which fits into an emerging approach to traditional analytical paradigms in which Russian historians have concluded that "Russian imperial history cannot be written without the Jews" and Jewish historians have realized that Russian-Jewish history needs to be viewed in the broader context of Russian imperial culture. Slezkine examines both the "transformation of the Jewish people from a world of corporate autonomy and rabbinic Judaism to their participation as individuals in a modern secular world" and this modern world itself - along with the role that Jews played in its transformation. Although disagreeing with Slezkine about distinct boundaries between Mercurians and Apollonians, the reviewer considers his interpretation of the "Jewish century" as a story of three pilgrimages to be a powerful thesis.