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Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History

Steven J. Zipperstein

3.90 · Rating details · 285 ratings · 60 reviews

So shattering were the aftereffects of Kishinev, the rampage
that broke out in late-Tsarist Russia in April 1903,
that one historian remarked that it was “nothing less
than a prototype for the Holocaust itself.” In three days of violence,
49 Jews were killed and 600 raped or wounded, while
more than 1,000 Jewish-owned houses and stores were ransacked
and destroyed. Recounted in ...more

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Hardcover, 288 pages

Published March 27th 2018 by Liveright

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Feb 10, 2019 Jan Rice rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-out-loud, them-and-us, history, book-club-selection

Map of Bessarabia from the Wikipedia page for Modern history of Ukraine

In 1903, what is now known as a pogrom took place in Kishinev, an event that the author claims looms large, even for those who never heard of it. That's what convinced me to read this book. How could something affect the way I think, even without my knowing anything about it? Not impossible, given our current awareness of misinformation, or disinformation. But I really couldn't think along those lines until after I read the b ...more

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Jul 06, 2020 William2 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 21-ce, race, cultural-studies, eastern-europe, judaism, us, nonfiction, fascism, genocide

Harrowing. Beautifully concise.

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Jul 14, 2018 Steven Z. rated it really liked it

At a time when American society is confronted with pictures of immigrants incarcerated at the US border with Mexico it is a good time to step back and try and understand why people choose to flee their homelands and come to America. In the case of people arriving on our southern borders their motivations are diverse from economic hardship to fear of death. These reasons are in a sense universal when examined from a historical perspective. Earlier in American history we witnessed a flood of Jewis At a time when American society is confronted with pictures of immigrants incarcerated at the US border with Mexico it is a good time to step back and try and understand why people choose to flee their homelands and come to America. In the case of people arriving on our southern borders their motivations are diverse from economic hardship to fear of death. These reasons are in a sense universal when examined from a historical perspective. Earlier in American history we witnessed a flood of Jewish immigrants, roughly two million from Eastern Europe and Russia between 1890 and 1914. This has had a tremendous impact on our history and growth as a nation. This mass migration was due in large part because of the anti-Semitic policies of the Tsarist government that resulted in years of persecution, and violent acts against Jews. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century these acts, labeled “pogroms” seemed to occur on a regular basis fostering the need for Jewish families to begin a chain of migration to America and other areas of the world. Perhaps the most famous pogrom occurred in 1903 in the provincial city of Kishinev located at the edge of the Russian Empire which is the subject of Steven J. Zipperstein’s fascinating and informative new book POGROM: KISHINEV AND THE TILT OF HISTORY.

The term “pogrom” enters the western lexicon toward the end of the 19th century in Russia as violence and scapegoating of Jews proliferates. It would be invoked in numerous towns and villages reaching a crescendo between 1918 and 1920 as 100,000 Jews may have been victimized as they were thought to be Bolsheviks. Jews were supposed to be wealthy, but the vast majority lived in poverty. They were thought to be well educated and involved in commerce, but what the Russians resented the most was their secrecy and refusal to be absorbed into the larger society.

The accusation against Jews that seems to have been the foundation of many pogroms was that of the “ritual killing of Christian children” during the Passover holiday under government sanction. For an interesting novel that highlights this topic see Bernard Malamud’s THE FIXER which presents the major issues that Zipperstein discusses in a fictional format.

The Kishinev pogrom was seen as shorthand for barbarism, “for the behavior akin to the worst medieval atrocities.” It would become the only “significant event embraced by all sectors of the severely fractured Russian Jewish scene.” However, as the author argues throughout the narrative, though agreement was reached concerning the horrors that took place, it became an agreement wrought with myths, half-truths, and outright distortions. The strength of Zipperstein’s presentation is the dissection of the myths and other components by explaining what occurred in the spring of 1903 in the Kishinev district. The author carefully examines all aspects of the tragedy from its causes, the persons responsible, the victims and survivors, and the implication for Jewish history in the future. Kishinev would become the epitome of evil in the west, a jarring glimpse of what the 20th century would hold in store.

The theme of book rests on how “history is made and remade, what is retained and elided, and why.” The author examines how “one particular moment managed to chisel onto contemporary Jewish history and beyond that it held meaning even for those who never heard of the town, know nothing of its details, and nonetheless draw lessons from it.”

Forgeries and myths surround the history of the pogrom that greatly impacted how people who participated and survived viewed what they experienced, what had actually transpired, as well as how it was perceived years later. For example; there was supposedly a letter from the Russian Minister of the Interior, V.K. Plehve instructing the local authorities not to intercede once the massacre began. This is untrue, no letter existed, though a forgery may have appeared. Another example revolves around who wrote and was responsible for the dissemination of the PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION which accused Jews of a worldwide conspiracy to dominate all people and their lives. It was said to have been a creation of the Russian secret police, the Okhrana in 1897, when in fact it was most likely the work of Pavel Krushevan, a publisher, novelist and owner of the newspaper Bessarabets which made the scurrilous lies of the PROTOCOLS available to the public.

Zipperstein’s sources have been mined thoroughly ranging from the literary works of Alexander Pushkin to Serge S. Urussov, the Governor-General of Bessarabia’s diaries. The two most important sources are Hayyam Nahman Bialik, the Jewish national poet who wrote, “In the City of Killing,” describing the massacre; and Michael Davitt, an Irish revolutionary and a reporter for Randolph Hearst’s New York American, who would go on to write WITHIN THE PALE: THE TRUE STORY OF THE ANTI-SEMETIC PERSECUTIONS IN RUSSIA, published in 1903. Zipperstein examines the lives of these two important figures, how they went about their research and who they interviewed. Excerpts of their work dot the narrative as Zipperstein dissects what occurred hour by hour and both men reach a controversial conclusion that Jewish men were weak and cowards.

Bialik’s poem, “In the City of Killing” has impacted Jewish history up until today and even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has referred to it in his speeches. Zipperstein argues that Bialik conflated his entire life experience, particularly his childhood with the plight of Jews – one of helplessness. His “rage leads him to construct the Jews of Kishinev as abject, and in the process to reshape and reconstruct his own identity.” The poem recreates the violence, rape, and plunder perpetrated against the Jews, but the core of the poem is a devastating conclusion concerning Jewish male cowardice. The appearance of the poem would overshadow what had transpired as it focused on the moral failings of Kishinev’s men and soon it became “shorthand for the utter vulnerability of the Jewish people, their devastation of soul and body alike.” Zipperstein examines the poem line by line and concludes that Bialik’s approach is literary poetry, while Davitt ‘s account is accurate as a whole and is first rate journalism, in addition to being reliable history.

Zipperstein asks why did the pogrom occur in Kishinev, a town that was on the outskirts of the Russian empire. He concludes that a number of events, thought processes, and socio-economic relationships are responsible. First, though day to day relations among the population seemed amiable, the peasants felt exploited by Jews engaging in a significant amount of commerce. Second, in the spring of 1903 agricultural prices were on the decline reducing the supply of money. Third, right wing elements were obsessed with Jewish visibility in the town. Four, the supposed “ritual killings” in Dubossary, a town near Kishinev a few months before the pogrom. Five, the fanning of anti-Semitic flames by Pavel Krusheran and his newspaper. Lastly, Pogroms were seen as a reasonable response to a pariah people as rumors of ritual killing swirled. Keeping in mind that in 1897 the population of the Kishinev district was 280,000 of which 54.910 were Jewish; and of the city’s 39 factories, 29 were owned by Jews could help explain people’s exacerbated feelings reactions once the violence spread.

Zipperstein also dissects the political implications of the pogrom. He explores how it was used by different political factions for their own ends be they Zionists, socialists, Labor, Bundists etc. Many saw the pogrom as an opportunity to foster immigration to Palestine, others were resigned to trying to survive in Russia as they hoped the violence was spent. The pogrom also touched off a nasty debate in American politics as the pogrom was compared to the lynchings of blacks in the south. The American left used Kishinev as vehicle to make Americans aware of the treatment of blacks. This also created a schism within the black communities because of its response to Kishinev and dealing with their own issues. Interestingly, as Zipperstein describes at the end of the book, the uproar in the United States and its link to lynching’s helped push for the creation of the NAACP in 1909.

Overall the book is quite comprehensive and incorporates a great deal of information that is knew, i.e., Zipperstein’s acquisition of Krusheran’s teenage diaries among other sources. If you would like to try and understand what occurred in Kishinev, with its historical implications, POGROM: KISHINEV AND THE TILT OF HISTORY is an excellent resource.

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Mar 28, 2018 Shirley Revill rated it it was amazing

Shelves: made-me-cry, factual, non-fiction, thought-provoking, history

Exceptionally well written and thought provoking book. Very highly recommended. I would give more than five stars if I could.

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Jan 12, 2020 Cărăşălu rated it liked it

A bit less than what I expected. Only one of the book's chapters focuses on the events themselves. The rest deals with the impact and aftermath of the pogrom: how Krushevan spread anti-Semite propaganda and authored or co-authored the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, how Haim Bialik wrote his famous poem In the City of Killing, how Irish activist and journalist Michael Davitt came to Chișinău, interviewed the survivors and victims and how his reporting informed the rest of the world, how paralle ...more

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May 09, 2018 Mal Warwick rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction

It was the event that introduced the word "pogrom" to the world outside Russia.

It's name is little known elsewhere today, but among generations of Israelis and in the homes of many older Jews around the world, the murderous rampage that took place in the Eastern European city of Kishinev on April 19 and 20, 1903, is a household word. Four decades before the worst days of the Holocaust, the pogrom in the city now known as Chișinău epitomized the violence directed at the Jewish people in the Russi It was the event that introduced the word "pogrom" to the world outside Russia.

It's name is little known elsewhere today, but among generations of Israelis and in the homes of many older Jews around the world, the murderous rampage that took place in the Eastern European city of Kishinev on April 19 and 20, 1903, is a household word. Four decades before the worst days of the Holocaust, the pogrom in the city now known as Chișinău epitomized the violence directed at the Jewish people in the Russian Empire. Forty-nine Jews were savagely murdered during those two days and at least forty Jewish women raped. While those numbers seem insignificant when compared to the millions who died under Nazi terror, the Kishinev pogrom shocked the world at the time and for years afterward.

Kishinev was the subject of sensational news stories worldwide; several widely read books about the event were written, along with an epic poem taught in Israeli schools for decades. Stanford University history professor Steven J. Zipperstein recalls this tragic event and its historic consequences in his splendid new book, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. "No Jewish event of the time," he writes, "would be as extensively documented. None in Russian Jewish life would leave a comparable imprint" despite the fact that the Kishinev pogrom was "by no means worse than many others at more or less the same time." In fact, the 1903 massacre remained a symbol of the plight of the Jewish people even after the ferocity of the Russian Revolution more than a decade later. For example, Zipperstein notes, " it seems clear that no fewer than one hundred thousand Jews were murdered . . . and at least that many girls and women raped and countless maimed between 1918 and 1920" in the White Terror that followed the Bolshevik coup. Yet Kishinev endured as the epitome of anti-Semitism.

Today, Chișinău houses a population of nearly 700,000. It's the capital of the Republic of Moldova, a country of some three million people tucked between Ukraine and Romania in southeastern Europe. In 1903, the town was on the southwestern fringe of the Russian Empire.The city was the fifth most populous urban center in the Russian Empire at the time, even larger than Kiev. It held a population of nearly 110,000, of which well over one-third were Jews. (Some polls placed the proportion as high as forty-seven percent, according to Zipperstein.) "Jewish stores lined its streets, their stalls filled its marketplaces, and they were spread throughout the city in neighborhoods both poor and rich," the author notes.

The Kishinev pogrom, and the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion that followed it closely, were long thought to have been the work of the secret service of the Russian imperial government. Zipperstein's research reveals that this was almost certainly not the case. "Sufficient evidence exists," he writes, "to point to a clutch of local activists—not the imperial government—closely linked to [a rabidly anti-Semitic newspaper]; it was they who, with the help of right-wing student radicals, likely managed to stir up the riot's start . . ." The man Zipperstein identifies as "the key inspiration" behind the pogrom was a Russian newspaper publisher named Pavel Krushevan. This man "would become, soon after Kishinev's pogrom, the publisher—and almost certainly among the authors—of the first version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. None of the effects of the Kishinev massacre would prove nearly so consequential as this bizarre and spectacularly influential forgery." As Zipperstein explains, "nearly the entire document was lifted [verbatim] from a book [written in French] that had nothing at all to do with Jews." Henry Ford famously paid for the printing of 500,000 copies of a later version that was circulated throughout the United States.

Zipperstein largely centers his book on four individuals. Krushevan was one of them, of course, but two outsiders also played pivotal roles through their written accounts based on extensive research conducted in the wake of the event. An Irish nationalist named Michael Davitt, working as a journalist, wrote a series of sensational articles for William Randolph Hearst's New York American that Zipperstein finds remarkably accurate; a book followed under the title Within the Pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecution in Russia. A Hebrew poet named Hayyim Nahman Bialik's epic, "In the City of Killing," is "widely considered the most influential poetic work written in a Jewish language since the Middle Ages." (Bialik spent five weeks in Kishinev, most of it interviewing victims.) And a local Jewish community leader named Jacob Bernstein-Kogan was responsible for contacting newspapers throughout the world. Immediately after the pogrom, he rushed around town collecting money to pay for the telegrams that brought Davitt and Bialik to the city and brought the massacre to the attention of readers all around the globe.

One of the most consequential after-effects of the Kishinev pogrom was the role it played in the founding of the NAACP (originally the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The outrage caused in the United States by the news of the massacre triggered widespread discussion comparing the murder of Jews in Russia to the lynching of African-Americans. A public campaign to highlight the similarity was promoted by "a remarkable now-little-known couple, William English Walling and [Russian-born and Yiddish-speaking] Anna Strunsky . . . The Wallings were the first to champion the cause of treating black lynching no less seriously than Russia's anti-Jewish pogroms. The founding meeting for what soon would emerge as the NAACP took place in 1909 in their New York City apartment." Walling became the first chairman of the organization. ...more

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Feb 05, 2018 Cheryl rated it really liked it

I had never heard about the riot of Kishinev until reading this book. Mr. Zipperstein has written a well researched book about the anti-Semitic sentiment in Russia. I am grateful to Goodreads Giveaway for being able to learn about this history. It gave me insight into how the stage was being set for the pogroms of Hitler many years later in WWII. We should learn from history and not be nonchalant about history possibly repeating itself, ie) North Korea and Russia today.

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Nov 16, 2017 Margaret Heller rated it it was amazing

Reviewed for Library Journal. Looks grim, but the actual rape and murder part takes up relatively little of the book, the cultural history part is can't put it down. ...more

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Dec 22, 2018 Nate Merrill rated it really liked it

Very good. I expected the descriptions of the pogrom to be exceedingly horrifying, but they weren't, so that was good (I don't mean "good" but you know what I mean. I read the first three chapters in one sitting. The fourth, however, was the most intriguing on its own, with its description of how the pogrom fit into the zionism of ahad haam and bialik, which was a story I had only heard in passing before, and has inspired me to move Daniel Boyarin's Unheroic Conduct up my list. The 5th on krushe ...more

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Apr 16, 2018 James Crabtree rated it it was amazing

The pogrom that took place in Kishinev in what was in 1903 the Russian province of Besserabia was not the first nor the last nor even the worst of the pogroms which periodically rocked the Jewish population living in the Pale of Settlement but it was one which, for the first time, touched the imagination of people around the world to the plight of Jews living in the shadow of the Russian eagle, assuring the entry of the word "pogrom" into the English language. Zipperstein gives the reader an acc ...more

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Jan 29, 2018 Mary Allen rated it really liked it

Shelves: enjoyable-good-easy-read

I won the book thru a GOODREADS giveaway. A good story of what man is willing to do to another, disturbing but I finished it. Glad I did, Good Read/

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Apr 29, 2019 Jonathan Bein rated it liked it

Not a particularly well written book, but it does convey the context of a very important event of history that has been, if not forgotten, then shunted out of the mainstream. My interest in the story is enhanced by the fact that my paternal great grandfather was from Kishinev and immigrated to the U.S. after his business was wiped out in the Pogrom. The author draws the story through the contemporary reportage and subsequent studies of the violence. He draws some conclusions as to responsibility ...more

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Jul 05, 2018 Ruth rated it it was amazing

In April, 1903, 49 Jews were murdered in the small city of Kishinev, the capital of Moldova, in the Pale of Settlement section of the Russian Empire. 600 Jews were raped or wounded, and over 1000 homes and businesses were ransacked.

Unlike previous such incidents (which have precedents going all the way back to the First Crusade and before) this time the Western press mobilized public opinion against the Russian Empire for allowing the carnage. Hearst Newspapers carried one lurid photo after anot ...more

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Jul 31, 2018 Kathy Reback rated it liked it

While I learned so much about this event and the context in which it occurred, I can give it only three stars as the writing and organization of the book were challenging. I gather this was excerpted out of a much longer academic endeavor. Better transitions and clarifications would have been helpful. Also, the footnotes did not contain any information other than where to look. He makes some pretty big claims which we have to take on faith. Still, our coed book club had an excellent discussion o ...more

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Aug 28, 2019 Nathan Scheer rated it liked it

Shelves: religion, jewish, race

I don't usually leave reviews, but I had to get this out of my system. I was genuinely interested in what this book had to offer. I'm a student, with Jewish history being an interest of mine. Three months ago, I completed my thesis for my bachelors in history about the Jewish American community during the American Progressive Era. I came across information about the Kishinev pogrom in my research, specifically the American reactions to the news of the massacre. I was very interested to see Zippe I don't usually leave reviews, but I had to get this out of my system. I was genuinely interested in what this book had to offer. I'm a student, with Jewish history being an interest of mine. Three months ago, I completed my thesis for my bachelors in history about the Jewish American community during the American Progressive Era. I came across information about the Kishinev pogrom in my research, specifically the American reactions to the news of the massacre. I was very interested to see Zipperstein's interpretation on the pogrom itself, its causes and results. I must say, it was rather good. The writing was tolerable, even if the author has a tendency to write in circumlocutions. Perhaps this was his attempt to fit as much information into as few sentences as possible. I have never before read anything with so many parentheses and hyphens. But much of the information was the product of pretty good research.

As part of my thesis, I, much like Zipperstein tries to do in the last chapter, also tried to juxtapose American reactions to the Kishinev pogrom with the reactions to contemporary, domestic anti-black violence. As Zipperstein notes, the Evansville Race Riots occurred only a few months after the pogrom, and yet there were no relief funds for victims or petitions submitted to the government regarding Evansville as there had been for Kishinev. In fact, as Zipperstein correctly states, the mayor and entire city council of the city of Evansville had attached their signatures to the petition circulated by B'nai B'rith of Philadelphia to condemn the violence in Russia. I was excited to hear a fresh take on this connection, of the links between perceptions of Russian pogroms and American lynchings, what people said about it, and how people justified anti-black violence yet expressed unending sympathy to Jewish people suffering half a world away. While Zipperstein did offer some good information, there were a notable number of basic facts that got completely messed up.

The Evansville Race Riots of 1903 took place in the city of Evansville, Indiana. That is not up for debate. It is just a fact. And yet Zipperstein, all the editors, proofreaders, and everyone else that read this glanced over the fact that Zipperstein gave the location of the riots as Evansville, Illinois. When writing about William English Walling and Anna Strunsky's visits to Springfield, Illinois in their coverage of the race riots there in 1908, Zipperstein referred to the city of Springfield as "the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, it was a city Walling had often visited." Zipperstein may have confused a birthplace for a resting place, given that Lincoln's Tomb is located in Springfield, whereas his birthplace is not in Springfield, nor is it in Illinois, but rather in the state of Kentucky.

I understand that these mistakes do not add or detract from the overall bulk of information or its interpretation that the book presents; people make mistakes sometimes. But if Zipperstein could so casually overlook easily correctible mistakes like where someone was born or where a major historical event occurred, then how is anyone to know where else he got sloppy in his research? I'm not saying that the entire book should be rejected at face value. There's some good information here that serves as a great tool to learn about Jewish life in Imperial Russia, the international Zionist movement, the Russian revolutionary scene, the intricacies of anti-Semitism, and the international reactions to the Kishinev pogrom. ...more

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Apr 25, 2019 Davida rated it really liked it

Shelves: jewish

p. 85
"Kishinev was said to have cut wide open a web of wretched, cowardly compromises stretching as far back as the last of the Maccabees, a welter of congealed terrors cleverly disguised that had over the centuries made Jews into who they now were: an overly cautious people who knew well how to negotiate but were incapable of fighting for their own lives or, for that matter, defending the honor of their kinfolk."

p. 111 (talking about Ahad Ha'am)
"This goal amounted to little less than the salvag p. 85
"Kishinev was said to have cut wide open a web of wretched, cowardly compromises stretching as far back as the last of the Maccabees, a welter of congealed terrors cleverly disguised that had over the centuries made Jews into who they now were: an overly cautious people who knew well how to negotiate but were incapable of fighting for their own lives or, for that matter, defending the honor of their kinfolk."

p. 111 (talking about Ahad Ha'am)
"This goal amounted to little less than the salvaging of Jewish civilization. No comparable challenge had faced Jews since the temple's destruction in the first century; this moment was no less momentous And, much as in the distant past, the tools essential for such work were cultural, not political--a marshaling of Jewry's spiritual timber with far-reaching influence on all aspects of Jewish life and profound impact on the rhythm of Jewish life in Palestine. The errors of Herzl's Zionism were not in its focus on Palestine but in its mindless aping of European nationalism."

p. 122 (about Irish writer Davitt)
"And then there were the Jews--harmless where gentiles were clever, such as in the United States, but justly feared in backward Russia. He never did rationalize their oppression, but it was a sufficient argument for Jewish mass migration elsewhere--preferably, as Davitt would come to see it, to Palestine."

p. 163 (from Krushevan's book)
"Yes, he says, there is nothing new to Jewry's self-imposed alienation: Jews have inspired hatred as far back as Kiev in 1092. Nothing has changed since then: "Remember Darwin's idea...that by the laws of heredity, with time humankind will lose its left hand which is increasingly atrophied? Jews are the left hand of the organism of humanity."

p. 188 (possibly on the origins of the word "ghetto," first used for Jews, then later for blacks and others)
"Kishinev's influence on the politics of the American left--with the Yiddish-inflected preoccupations of the Lower East Side suddenly overflowing well beyond its immediate confines--also helped create a lexicon for the condition of America's blacks with comparisons to that of Jews under the most barbaric of autocratic regimes) ...more

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Jun 02, 2018 Jeff Francis rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, non-fiction

I remember considering whether to read Steven Zipperstein’s “Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History,” which I’d heard was good, when I saw that the main blurb came from Philip Roth. That sealed it. Roth had died two days earlier, and I was kind-of perturbed at how little attention his passing received. So at that moment it seemed like the universe was telling me to go ahead.

After reading “Pogrom” I was torn on whether to rate it 3/5 or 4/5, but in the end I decided on the later.

The dilemma w ...more

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Jul 25, 2020 Michael Lewyn rated it it was amazing

As the title indicates, this book is about the 1903 Kishinev pogrom. The first half of the book discusses the pogrom itself- a riot that involving dozens of murders and dozens of rapes as well.

Much of the book, however, focuses on the post-pogrom spin. I had always thought that the Russian government was responsible for the pogrom; although local officials (like American mayors who have often been slow to act) did not act as rapidly as they could, they did try in good faith to stop the pogrom. A ...more

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Jul 06, 2019 M.J. rated it liked it

I give this 3.5 stars. The book tells of a series of massacres that took place over a few days against the Jewish community in 1903 in a "sleepy" part of the Russian empire known as Bessarabia, or modern day Moldova in the capital Chisinau. I am glad the author chose to write on this subject to educate others on the origins of the word "pogrom" and how the 1903 tragic events were known to the world, especially the United States. There are not a ton of available first hand sources and I understoo ...more

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Dec 20, 2018 Mike rated it liked it

Zipperstein's book is a solid social commentary. It is not the sort of book I normally read. I typically read history books as opposed to books that combine heavy social commentary. This book is presented as five discrete essays on the event. The section detailing the actual event was short, too short. Although the events were horrific, it seemed to me that the section was too short to fully describe the horror and the author should have spent more time and detail on it. On the other hand the ca ...more

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Dec 24, 2019 Cristi Vlas rated it it was amazing

Zipperstein gives a comprehensive overview of the different journalistic and literary perspectives on the 1903 Kishinev (Chișinău now) Pogrom, but also its political effects in the Russian Empire and in the US.
Zipperstein makes the case that the bloody Pogrom was the first event that penetrated all the Jews' conscience around the world. It led them to think about the environments they lived in for centuries, whether their future is still bright, causing waves among both the Zionist and the Socia ...more

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Apr 20, 2019 Jeffrey Green rated it it was amazing

Before reading this book, Kishinev was just a name for me, the name of a notorious pogrom, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you the date of the pogrom or where Kishinev is. Now, for me, Kishinev refers to a very real place, and I could probably point to it on a map of what was once Bessarabia, part of the Russian Empire, and what is now Moldova. This book is about much more than what actually happened in Kishinev in 1903. It is about the response the pogrom aroused throughout Western Europe ...more

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Jul 26, 2019 mark rated it really liked it

This summer I've been reading histories of short-lived, dramatic events: the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721 ("The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics"), the sinking of the whaleboat Essex ("In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex"), and this book, about the pogrom in Kishinev in 1905. There is something so interesting when a write delves into a subject like this, trying to figure out the number of things that created the possibilit ...more

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Dec 13, 2020 Cassidy rated it really liked it

Shelves: mimi-cass, owned, jew-ish

Brilliantly composed, this non-fiction (erring on academic) text provides a harrowing account and analysis of the Kishinev pogrom - considered the most gruesome, anti-Semitic act of modern mass violence committed against Jews prior to the Holocaust.

Zipperstein provides the reader with ample social and political context for the Russian pogrom, takes the reader through the difficult days of the pogrom itself, and points to the ways in which Kishinev, indeed, "tilted" Jewish history: in many ways ...more

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Jun 30, 2018 Ruth Adar rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: anti-semitism

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Aug 01, 2018 Judy G rated it really liked it

I am a jewish woman and I read many books about our history.
I think this book has a select audience of readers. It is about an event in 1900 in Russia where the men in a place there named Kishinev set out to destroy the jewish people in every way possible. Mass destruction
It is also about writers from that time who traveled there to record what had happened.
Pogroms were forerunners of the Nazi regime's destruction of the jewish people these were in Russia.
It is very interesting I think that ...more

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Mar 10, 2019 David Findley rated it it was amazing

I learned a lot from reading the book: the Kishinev pogrom was not the first or the last or the worst of the many pogroms within the Pale of Jewish settlement on the western edges of imperial Russia. However, it was the most influential in capturing the interest of the West. It lead to forgeries on both sides of the issue: the antisemites produced the infamous “Protocols” to justify murder of Jews and (according to SZ) the Jewish left (likely) produced a forged letter from Russian government off ...more

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Aug 08, 2018 James rated it really liked it

The book is a must read for people with a serious interest in Jewish or Russian history. The book eloquently describes how the world fell apart for what had, at the time, been probably the largest concentration of world Jewry. A combination of envy, greed and hatred boiled over and resulted in anti-Jewish riots that in many ways foreshadowed the Holocaust, or Shoah.

I have major disagreements with some aspects of the book. The author takes issue with the a poem that popularized the view that the ...more

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Aug 12, 2018 Mary-Helen rated it really liked it

A concise but thorough telling of an atrocity and its ripple effect through history. The story of Kishinev's Jews could be any oppressed people (as the author mentions throughout) treated as an 'other', made less than human, and then attacked because of perceived wrongs. Hence how the ripples of this event on the other side of the world leads to the founding of the NAACP. I read this because I am interested in how people can convince themselves so completely that another race or ethnicity or rel ...more

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Sep 22, 2018 Darlene rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, judaica

This book was all too timely as we see a new rise of anti-Semitism around the world and what it means for Jews in the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and especially in the former Soviet Republics.

We all grew up knowing of the Kishinev Pogrom. It's still remembered during memorial services, and for some of my family from the Bessarabia region of Rumania/Russia/Moldavia it was part of our personal history. Zipperstein digs deep into the research, separating fact from m ...more

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About Steven J. Zipperstein

Steven J. Zipperstein

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“Had the same events occurred a few hundred miles to the east, it is unlikely that they would have had a comparable impact; the details would have been reported on fleetingly and peppered with fewer updates, and the tragedy, like others then and later, would have almost certainly been mourned locally without much resonance beyond the town itself.” — 0 likes

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