Roots, #3-4
January-December 1995
The section Articles. Researches is opened by a substantial article by Dr. Mariya Nekrasova who analyzes the pre-Revolutionary Russian liberals (B.N. Chicherin) attitude towards state-supported Anti-Semitism as well as towards the stand taken by the Slavophiles (P.Y. Astafyev), the emperors court (K. Palen) and well-known Anti-Semitic figures (V.V. Shulgin).
Prof. B. Tabachnikov (Voronezh) analyzes the contribution of the Soviet Jews into the countrys musical culture. The author names many Jewish musicians of both wide renown and modest fame who worked actively in the 1920 to 1970s.
Igor Gelman from Volgograd researches the reasons that led to Vaticans recognition of the State of Israel. Confronting the authors viewpoint, Moisey Yakerson from Saratov emphasizes the fact that Israel has done its utmost not only for the success of the recognition process, but also for the radical revision of the attitude toward Jews that was held by the Christian church.
The section Lectures includes a lecture delivered by L. Birger in the Samara Jewish lecture club as well as V. Pankovs (Tula) essay on the initial stages in the development of Zionism in Russia, prepared for the Tula lecture club.
The greater part of the section Our Genealogies is occupied by an article by E. Mendelevich (Oryol). The author gives a detailed account of the formation of the Jewish community in Oryol and analyzes the activities of the citys rabbi Y. H. Katznelson who published a Jewish literary magazine The Palm before the Revolution.
In his article From the History of Tula Jewish Community Yevgeni Katz (Tula) cites interesting and little-known facts.
The section Memoirs and Documents includes three articles. Yeva Tsvetova from Samara vividly portrays her family and the school she studied at. Dr. Mikhail Gurovich from Nizhny Novgorod tells about the residents of the house on the Internatsionalnaya Street where his family lived and his ethnic conscience formed. Dr. Steve Gutin-Levin cites interesting data concerning the life of the Saratov Jewish community on the eve of and during World War Two.
Archive research is represented by Dr. Boris Pudalovs article in which he describes the activities of Jewish philanthropic organizations in Nizhny Novgorod during the first years of the Soviet government, and by Anna Simonovas article about the repressions against Zionist organizations in Samara that occurred at about the same time.
The issue contains accounts of activities of city Jewish lecture clubs in the academic year of 1994-95. For the first time the magazine features readers comments and critical reviews of the articles published in the two previous issues. The issue also contains information about its contributors.