Academic Studies Press

“A fitting conclusion to a well-researched and meticulously edited memoir translation.” — Kirkus Reviews

“You have to read this book… It’s not like anything you read before.” — Tablet Magazine

Set in Ukraine, Crimea, and Israel, this unique two-volume autobiography offers a fascinating, detailed picture of life in Tsarist Russia and Israel during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Goldenshteyn (1848-1930), a traditional Jew who was orphaned as a young boy and became a shochet (kosher slaughterer) as a young man, is a master storyteller. Folksy, funny, streetwise, and self-confident, he is a keen observer of his surroundings. His accounts are vivid and readable, sometimes stunning in their intensity. 

The memoir is brimming with information. Goldenshteyn’s adventures shed light on communal life, persecution, family relationships, religious practices and beliefs, social classes, local politics, interactions between Jews and other religious communities, epidemics, poverty, competition for resources, migration, war, technology, modernity and secularization. In chronicling his own life, Goldenshteyn inadvertently tells a bigger story—the story of how a small, oppressed people, among other minority groups, struggled for survival in the massive Russian Empire and in the Land of Israel.

Volume two begins in 1873, when Goldenshteyn obtains his first position as a shochet in Slobodze, and it follows him to the Crimea, where he endures 34 years  of vicissitudes. In 1913, he fulfills a dream of immigrating to the Land of Israel, hoping to find tranquility in his old age. Instead, he is met with the turbulence of the First World War, as battles rage between the retreating Ottoman Turks and the advancing British forces.

Informed by research in Ukrainian, Israeli and American archives and personal interviews with the few surviving individuals who knew Goldenshteyn personally, The Shochet is a magnificent new contribution to Jewish and Eastern European history.

Since 2020, there have been various calls to action in the instruction of East European and Eurasian Languages to address the predominantly white demographics in the fields of Slavic and Eurasian studies and long-standing disparities in access and opportunities for students of the global majority. Despite these acknowledgements and drive to change the nature of the field, there persists a great deal of investigation and interrogation needed to realize the potential benefits of the inclusive East European and Eurasian language classroom. Inclusive Strategies and Critical Pedagogies for East European and Eurasian Languages offers new pathways for affirming and representing diversity, both in the regions of inquiry and in classrooms. 

Emerging from the shadows of empire and memory, this groundbreaking study reveals how contemporary Eastern European film and television use neo-noir to confront unresolved trauma, power, and injustice in the post-Soviet world.

This collection explores for the first time the pervasive presence of neo-noir film and TV series (including releases on widely popular streaming channels) in recent Balkan, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian cinema and television. Classic western noir’s structural pessimism was driven by a utopian desire for a just society, a quality which made it attractive to all eastern European countries. The films and series in the collection present modern iterations of a still-relevant colonial past, such as the repression of dissent and of sexual minorities, culpability in World War II, and the activities of the security services. Contemporary narratives reveal the effects of the violence released after the collapse of the Soviet Union—the continuing trauma and scars of an unprocessed past, social dysfunction, organized crime, ecological degradation, exploitation of indigenous populations, and restorative nostalgia for previous systems of governance.

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance, originality, and success of current Polish female directors, whose bold, vivid features have taken the film industry by storm. Film’s Feisty Femmes spotlights nine of the most productive, internationally acclaimed women in a profession traditionally dominated by men but characterized in 21st-century Poland by receptivity to creative talent regardless of gender. With the transition to a market economy, institutional innovations appreciably transformed the country’s filmmaking—a transformation of which audiences are the primary beneficiaries.

The volume’s seven chapters combine textual analysis with assessment of camerawork, situating each director’s major works in a cultural context that includes significant developments in Poland as well as international trends in cinema and gender politics. A major issue addressed throughout entails the directors’ relationship to feminism in narratives that are unapologetically gynocentric.

In the early twentieth century, when the dream of Jewish cultural nationalism in the Diaspora was growing among champions for Yiddish, its leading intellectuals included the “Yiddish historians” who helped to uncover the history of East-European Jews. Before the Holocaust, their mission was to discover and present the formative history of a living people for an audience of educated lay leaders, drawing where possible on Jewish sources of information, in order to help build and fortify a Yiddish-speaking nation. After the Holocaust, their mission became to console its surviving remnant with information about the struggle to survive under German occupation. This book makes Yiddish writings by these historians available in English for the first time, with translations by historian Mark L. Smith.

The book also includes a revealing Conversation with Series Editor Michael Berenbaum and an informative foreword by Samuel Kassow.

Lea Koenig, one of the most loved and appreciated Jewish actresses among audiences and critics alike, sat down with Dr. Yaniv Goldberg for conversations about theater and life. In the conversations, Lea talks about her experiences from World War II, life in a communist regime, the choice not to have children, her professional path, and her way of working on roles. She also discusses the choice to give up her mother tongue, Yiddish, and perform in Hebrew. Lea shares her perspective on Judaism, Zionism, and Israeliness, and about the way she observes the world.

In an exciting and humorous way, Lea recalls defining moments of her life, difficult moments and happy ones, weaves memory after memory, and discovers how life and the theater are intertwined, and as Shakespeare's cliché says, indeed, the whole world is a stage.

This story is the stage of the life of the great Israeli actress Lea Koenig.

And if you look closely, the tale reflects the stage of our lives...

Polanim’s literary journalism/reportage draws on extensive interviews with Israelis of Polish origin and their children, with each chapter organized around a particular experience of Poland and of Palestine/Israel, or around memories passed on. Some had gotten away from pre-war antisemitism, some found post-war devastated Poland unbearable, and some were pushed out in 1968. Through those individual experiences, Przewrocka-Aderet gets at Jewish life in Poland from the 1920s into the 1990s, and at their experiences in Palestine/Israel of these Polanim. Leaving at and arriving at different moments, they also differed in social class, education, gender, political affiliation, and age at the moment of emigration—but they also differed in the unpredictable variety of human experience beyond any social categories.

Newly-translated works from modern Yiddish historians that seeks to expand the scholarship about eastern European Jewry.

In the early twentieth century, when the dream of Jewish cultural nationalism in the Diaspora was growing among champions for Yiddish, its leading intellectuals included the “Yiddish historians” who helped to uncover the history of East-European Jews. Before the Holocaust, their mission was to discover and present the formative history of a living people for an audience of educated lay leaders, drawing where possible on Jewish sources of information, in order to help build and fortify a Yiddish-speaking nation. After the Holocaust, their mission became to console its surviving remnant with information about the struggle to survive under German occupation. This book makes Yiddish writings by these historians available in English for the first time, with translations by historian Mark L. Smith.

The book also includes a revealing Conversation with Series Editor Michael Berenbaum and an informative foreword by Samuel Kassow.

In this volume we focus on the years following Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012. This has been a more active period than his first two terms, including the annexation of Crimea and, ultimately, the invasion of Ukraine. Thus, this period may be characterized as the  run-up to that war. The core issue discussed in this volume is Putin’s redefinition of “democracy” as the foundation of society and government in the Russian Federation. Putin argues for a strong central government in which unity is characterized as the absence of dissent. In so doing, Putin seeks to recast Russian national identity, relying on a vision of Russia as the victim of Western aggression.

October 7 cast a destructive shadow not only over the men, women, and children caught on the battlefields of Gaza but also over the educators and journalists expected to explain why and how it happened. Despite its brutality, Hamas won substantial support on campuses, in the media, and from an array of progressive movements. The Hamas attacks, astonishing in their ambition, can only be fully understood by examining the world’s responses to them, and telling the full story of October 7 requires data-driven and textual analysis. This is a rare combination, but one that makes this volume distinctive and essential for all those who want to understand how such a nightmare both reflects our twenty-first-century world and permanently changes it. 

Education after October 7: Essays about Teaching and Learning in the Jewish Diaspora is the first book dedicated to exploring how the October 7, 2023, terror attacks affected teaching and learning about Israel in the Jewish diaspora. The first three sections of the edited volume bring together quantitative, qualitative, and ethnographic research conducted at schools and camps by scholars from a diverse set of disciplines. These studies consider the perspectives and experiences of learners, parents, teachers (North American and Israeli), and camp directors and counsellors to reveal how terror and war necessitated changes in teaching and learning. The concluding section of the volume contains three chapters that offer educational models that chart new directions for the future of Jewish and Israel education.

Among scholars of Jewish Studies, the process, history, and literature of exiting one’s native religious community is increasingly recognized as a new area within the field which, ironically, has a history stretching back to antiquity. By presenting scholarship from a diverse range of disciplines—including history, sociology, psychology, and gender studies—this volume deepens and broadens readers’ understanding of the complexity of the topic of taking leave of the Orthodox community in which one has been raised and establishing a different kind of life that is outside of its borders.

In today’s America, a disturbing surge in anti-Semitism is making alarming inroads into the national mainstream. This book explores the many factors fueling this hostility while also questioning why the American Jewish community has been largely reticent in its response. The author offers a fresh perspective by linking this reticence to the psychological challenges faced by minority groups under constant attack, showing how these pressures have led to historically ineffective responses.

Drawing on historical research and psychological analysis, the work highlights a recurring pattern of vulnerability within the Jewish Diaspora and suggests new ways to build a more proactive and resilient community. Whether you’re an academic, a community leader, or simply someone who cares about social justice, this book provides an essential look at how anti-Semitism takes root and points the way forward for a stronger collective response.

Lea Koenig, one of the most loved and appreciated Jewish actresses among audiences and critics alike, sat down with Dr. Yaniv Goldberg for conversations about theater and life. In the conversations, Lea talks about her experiences from World War II, life in a communist regime, the choice not to have children, her professional path, and her way of working on roles. She also discusses the choice to give up her mother tongue, Yiddish, and perform in Hebrew. Lea shares her perspective on Judaism, Zionism, and Israeliness, and about the way she observes the world.

In an exciting and humorous way, Lea recalls defining moments of her life, difficult moments and happy ones, weaves memory after memory, and discovers how life and the theater are intertwined, and as Shakespeare's cliché says, indeed, the whole world is a stage.

This story is the stage of the life of the great Israeli actress Lea Koenig.

And if you look closely, the tale reflects the stage of our lives...

The mysteries of creation—that is, of the Earth’s formation and the emergence of humans—have perplexed humanity for a long time. This book explores the profound transformations of Earth's geological and ecological structures and their lasting impact on human societies. These geocosmic shifts from the Pleistocene to the Holocene have shaped the different regions of Eurasia, influencing the cultural worldviews of their inhabitants as seen through archaeology and history. Originally published in Russian in 2020, this book offers a thought-provoking analysis of the Earth’s evolution and its role in the development of civilizations.

Nationalism’s global resurgence has upended societies. With the rise of the Polish nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, and American Jewry’s swift reaction to its law punishing people who allege Polish complicity in Holocaust crimes, both sides have revived old stereotypes. Stark-Blumenthal argues that American Jews’ disgust with Polish nationalism ought to be checked by America’s centuries-old embrace of white supremacy. Poles and Jews: A Call for Myth Reconstruction confronts both the anti-Polonism deeply embedded in the American Jewish community and Poland’s enduring relationship with antisemitism. Armed with two decades of research and in-depth interviews with scholars, community leaders, and laity in Poland and the U.S., Stark-Blumenthal dispels myths and considers new approaches to this relationship.

This book examines Russian and Ukrainian feature films to trace the roots and consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It argues that the cultural war stems from a colonial past, where Russia viewed Ukraine as an inferior "little brother." By examining cinematic representations of the countries’ shared history, this book reveals how Russia has used cinema to promote a strong, unified state and patriotic narratives, while Ukrainian cinema seeks to overcome colonial trauma and build a distinct national identity. It also investigates how cultural memories of Kyivan Rus, the Cossacks, World War II, the Soviet past, and the Russian war in Ukraine are depicted differently in Russian and Ukrainian cinema.

This book explores how modern religious thought and religious Zionism have addressed the profound question of evil, with a particular focus on the Holocaust. It delves into the theological and philosophical challenges posed by absolute, undeniable, and inexplicable primal evil. The awareness of this primal evil serves as the foundation connecting the chapters, which trace the perspectives of influential thinkers such as Rabbis Zvi Yehuda Kook, Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, and Eliezer Berkowitz, as well as figures like Rabbi David Hartman and Eliezer Goldman.

Through a combination of philosophical and theological inquiry alongside historical and conceptual analysis, the book creates a rich mosaic of religious thought in the modern era. It also examines the responses of leaders and activists to the enduring question of evil in the shadow of Auschwitz.

“Bethea’s book conveys the story of an amazingly ambitious attempt to preserve the humanities while also saving the future of disadvantaged high school students in Chicago. … Highly recommended.” — Library Journal (starred review)

These “cognitive cross-training” strategies involve introducing students from Hispanic and Black neighborhoods in the west and south sides of Chicago to the Russian culture and language, with an emphasis on poet, playwright, and novelist Alexander Pushkin. Through the lens of modern evolutionary thought, students adopt not only a new and different language and culture, but also a different sort of literary hero, one whose African heritage within the majority culture speaks to them directly. This inspiring and compelling story provides fascinating insights into Russia's national poet, brings the sciences and humanities together, and provides new directions in teaching young people from historically disadvantaged backgrounds.

“Bethea’s book conveys the story of an amazingly ambitious attempt to preserve the humanities while also saving the future of disadvantaged high school students in Chicago. … Highly recommended.” — Library Journal (starred review)

The twelfth-century Andalusian philosopher Averroes sought to understand the divine in a way independent of religious theology, by turning to the philosophical works of Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, Plato. In doing so, he established standards of scientific inquiry into God that were and remain highly influential on Jewish and Christian thought. Averroes, however, does not provide much in the way of demonstrative knowledge of God, and most of his arguments remain dialectical, rhetorical, or political. This volume explores the various pathways towards attaining divine knowledge that we find in Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle’s De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, and on Plato’s Republic, along with Averroes’ Epistle on Divine Knowledge, Decisive Treatise, and more.

Modern Orthodoxy is a form of American Judaism that affirms the traditional tenets and practices of Orthodox Judaism while at the same time maintaining an openness to contemporary cultural and intellectual developments. Beginning in the post-World War II era, Living in Both Worlds shows how a fledgling Modern Orthodoxy carved out an identity separate and apart from unacculturated ultra-Orthodoxy to its right and Conservative Judaism to its left, and follows its development through the first quarter of the twenty-first century as new, divisive issues such as feminism, LGBTQ rights, and the spread of academic biblical scholarship challenged its coherence, and a rejuvenated ultra-Orthodoxy contested its religious legitimacy.

Building Bridges Among Abraham’s Children honors the extraordinary career of Professor Michael Berenbaum, a luminary in Holocaust studies, museum design, filmmaking, and interfaith dialogue. With contributions from renowned scholars and close friends, the short and highly readable essays in this collection delve into the core themes that have defined Professor Berenbaum’s work: biblical and postbiblical narratives, rabbinic thought and action, Jewish commitment to education, interreligious relations, and Holocaust remembrance. From his role in building the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to his pioneering work in preserving survivor testimonies through film, Professor Berenbaum’s influence is profound and multifaceted, and the compelling essays in this volume serve as a tribute to a scholar whose enduring legacy continues to make a global impact.

Building Bridges Among Abraham’s Children honors the extraordinary career of Professor Michael Berenbaum, a luminary in Holocaust studies, museum design, filmmaking, and interfaith dialogue. With contributions from renowned scholars and close friends, the short and highly readable essays in this collection delve into the core themes that have defined Professor Berenbaum’s work: biblical and postbiblical narratives, rabbinic thought and action, Jewish commitment to education, interreligious relations, and Holocaust remembrance. From his role in building the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to his pioneering work in preserving survivor testimonies through film, Professor Berenbaum’s influence is profound and multifaceted, and the compelling essays in this volume serve as a tribute to a scholar whose enduring legacy continues to make a global impact.

Mark Neider, a young Ukrainian-born American IT specialist, finds himself in crime-ridden Yeltsin’s Russia, hot on the trail of wheeler dealers who swindled him out of a small fortune back in New York. In Moscow, Mark survives an aborted coup in October 1993 and encounters a mysterious stranger who claims to have had a hand in the recent constitutional crisis. Tasha, Mark’s Moscow daredevil girlfriend, helps him retrieve the money at a significant body count, but Mark is only allowed to leave the country with 10K, a mere fraction of the loot now in his possession. Tasha and her film scholar aunt hatch a plan. Tasha’s aunt keeps the money while her wealthy Chicagoan ex disburses the equivalent amount to Mark in return for Mark’s interviewing the elderly sister of Greg Davis, an American film director who is the subject of Tasha’s aunt’s scholarly interest. But there’s more than meets the eye to Greg Davis’s sister who takes Mark on a journey he may or may not return from.

ENG:

Up to now, the conflict has been highly dynamic: militarily and politically. Ambitions, objectives, and achievements have been as dynamic as the policy of the stakeholders involved. While not a military player itself, the EU has appeared as a significant actor by aiding the Ukrainian war effort, supporting refugees, sanctioning Russia, and turning Ukraine into one of the candidates for EU membership.

Our ambition with this reader is to track these developments concerning the key aspects of the war from a European perspective. Beyond the causes and consequences of the war, we should explore how Europe, and more specifically, the EU perform in the conflict, which will determine the future of our continent in many ways.

UKR:

Жінки та війна. Листи з України до вільного світу

EN:

"This book is the story of 38 Ukrainian women who have decided to choose what they want to become, and it will grip and inspire you from first page to last." — Stephen Fry 

What kind of letter would one write to those who live in peace and freedom and do not know what war is? Forty Ukrainian women between the ages of 10 and 72 have answered this question by writing letters that are now available in all their power. Heartbreaking, but also passionate, surprising, and inspiring stories about parents who desperately drive for days to get children to safety. Couples split by the war hug one last time at the border in heart-wrenching goodbyes, wondering if they will see each other again. Young women decide to fight at the front against the invaders. These are the voices of a people ready to do anything to protect freedom and democracy.

UA: 

«Ця книжка — історії 38 українських жінок, які вирішили обрати, ким вони хочуть стати, і вона захопить і надихне вас від першої до останньої сторінки». — Стівен Фрай, британський актор і письменник

Якого листа написати тим, хто живе в мирі та волі й не знає, що таке війна? Тридцять вісім українок віком від 10 до 72 років зробили це, розповівши свої історії, які тепер декількома мовами доступні ширшому загалу. Карколомні, але водночас потужні, дивовижні та захопливі історії. Про батьків, які відчайдушно намагалися убезпечити дітей. Про пари, котрі, роз’єднані війною, востаннє обіймалися на кордоні, болісно прощаючись, і думаючи, чи побачать одне одного знову. Про молодих жінок, що вирішують воювати на фронті проти загарбників. Ці листи – голоси людей, готових діяти для захисту свободи та демократії.

ENG

Aside from the near-complete devastation of a sovereign state and reversal of the global balance of power, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is leading to a radical transformation in the Eastern European and Eurasian regions – including Russia itself.

The 13 chapters in this volume examine the main geopolitical consequences of the resurgent imperialist aspirations of the Russian Federation. They examine the ideological tools of history falsification as an integral part of hybrid warfare. Turning to the economy, the book discusses how the war and economic sanctions imposed on Russia are redrawing the geopolitical map and how economic relations would change following a regime transformation. The book discusses the reactions of members of the international community to the invasion, whether threatened or neutral parties or allies. The collection therefore offers a comprehensive picture of the main consequences of the resurgent imperialist aspirations of the Russian Federation. Equipped with the conceptual tools of the analysis with a focus on the patronal features of the political-economic system, the book considers the aftermath of the war.

This collection complements the book entitled Ukraine's Patronal Democracy and the Russian Invasion.

UA

Pосійське повномаштабне вторгнення в Україну 2022 року стало причиною радикальних перетворень у східноєвропейському та євразійському регіонах, зокрема й перетворень у самій Росії. У 13 розділах цього тому розглядаються основні геополітичні наслідки відродження імперіалістичних прагнень Російської Федерації. 

Застосовуючи концептуальний інструментарій аналізу з акцентом на патрональних рисах політико-економічної системи, автори досліджують ідеологічні інструменти фальсифікації історії як невід’ємну частину гібридної війни, аналізують як війна та економічні санкції, накладені на Росію, трансформують геополітичну мапу та як зміняться економічні відносини після трансформації режиму. У книзі також йдеться й про реакцію членів міжнародного співтовариства на вторгнення.

Ця збірка є продовженням до “Патрональної демократії в Україні та російського вторгнення. Російсько-українська війна. Том перший”.

Mark Neider, a young Ukrainian-born American IT specialist, finds himself in crime-ridden Yeltsin’s Russia, hot on the trail of wheeler dealers who swindled him out of a small fortune back in New York. In Moscow, Mark survives an aborted coup in October 1993 and encounters a mysterious stranger who claims to have had a hand in the recent constitutional crisis. Tasha, Mark’s Moscow daredevil girlfriend, helps him retrieve the money at a significant body count, but Mark is only allowed to leave the country with 10K, a mere fraction of the loot now in his possession. Tasha and her film scholar aunt hatch a plan. Tasha’s aunt keeps the money while her wealthy Chicagoan ex disburses the equivalent amount to Mark in return for Mark’s interviewing the elderly sister of Greg Davis, an American film director who is the subject of Tasha’s aunt’s scholarly interest. But there’s more than meets the eye to Greg Davis’s sister who takes Mark on a journey he may or may not return from.

Патрональна демократія в Україні та російське вторгнення. Російсько-українська війна. Том перший

The authors of this edited volume, leading Ukrainian scholars supplemented by colleagues from Hungary, examine the chances of an anti-patronal transformation after the war. The book provides an overview of the development of Ukraine's political-economic system: color revolutions in 2004 and 2014 brought democratic transformation, but no change in the patronage system The result was patronal regime cycles instead of the emergence of a Western-type liberal democracy in the country. Building on the conceptual framework of the editors' The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes (CEU Press, 2020), the 12 chapters examine the impact of the war on patronal democracy, the relational economy, clientelist society, and the international environment in which Ukraine operates.

This collection is complemented by the book entitled Russia's Imperial Endeavor and Its Geopolitical Consequences, forthcoming in Ukrainian translation as well.

UA: Російське повномасштабне вторгнення загрожує незалежності України та прозахідному розвитку, проте героїзм українського народу та зміцніла національна ідентичність створює безпрецедентно потужне підґрунтя для повороту на Захід. Після перемоги пріоритетом стане побудова міцних основ ліберальної демократії. Окрім розв’язання невідкладних проблем, Україна також має переглянути свою посткомуністичну спадщину та подолати обмеження патроналізму.

Автори цього видання, провідні українські науковці та їхні колеги з Угорщини, досліджують шанси антипатрональної трансформації після війни. У книзі представлено огляд розвитку політико-економічної системи України: кольорові революції 2004 та 2014 років принесли демократичні перетворення, але не змінили систему патронажу, а результатом революцій стали цикли патронату замість появи ліберальної демократії західного типу. Спираючись на концептуальну основу «Анатомії посткомуністичних режимів» (CEU Press, 2020) Балінта Мадяра та Балінта Мадловіча, автори 12 розділів досліджують вплив війни на патрональну демократію, економіку відносин, клієнтелістське суспільство та міжнародне середовище, в якому перебуває та діє Україна.

Ця серія доповнена збіркою «Російська імперія та її геополітичні наслідки», що також буде доступна в українському перекладі.

EN: The unanticipated and unsolicited Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 highlighted the urgency of updating general assumptions about post-communist countries. The war has revealed the inadequacy of the terms and concepts employed for western democracies for describing, understanding, and predicting the developments in the “hybrid” regimes of Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Magyar and Madlovics strongly argue for a vocabulary and grammar tailored to the specifics of the countries of the former communist bloc. In this concise companion to the 800-page The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes (CEU Press, 2020), they develop a conceptual framework in 120 propositions with (1) a typology of post-communist regimes and (2) a detailed presentation of ideal-type actors and the political, economic, and social phenomena in these regimes. Each of the 120 propositions contains a statement and a succinct discussion supported by illustrative tables, figures, and QR-codes that connect the interested reader to the more detailed analysis in the Anatomy. In a condensed form, the holistic approach of the Anatomy is retained by treating political, market, and communal spheres as parts of a single, coherent whole. An analysis of twelve countries illustrates the concrete application of the method. 

UA: Неочікувана та неспровокована агресія Росії проти України в лютому 2022 року підкреслила необхідність оновлення загальних уявлень про посткомуністичні країни. Війна оприявнила неадекватність термінів і понять, які використовуються для опису західних демократій, розуміння та прогнозування розвитку подій гібридних режимів Східної Європи та колишнього СРСР. Мадьяр і Мадловіч рішуче пропонують терміни й граматику, що адаптовані до специфіки країн колишнього комуністичного блоку. У цьому короткому путівнику до 800-сторінкової «Анатомії посткомуністичних режимів» (CEU Press, 2020) вони розробляють концептуальну основу у 120 положеннях із (1) типологією посткомуністичних режимів і (2) детальним представленням акторів ідеального типу, а також та політичних, економічних та соціальних явищ у цих режимах. Кожне зі 120 положень супроводжується коментарем, ілюстративними таблицями, малюнками та QR-кодами, які залучать зацікавленого читача до більш детального аналізу. У стислому вигляді цілісний підхід анатомії зберігається завдяки розгляду політичної, ринкової та комунальної сфер як частин єдиного, узгодженого цілого. Аналіз дванадцяти країн ілюструє конкретне застосування методу. 

EN: Based on extensive field work, this book analyzes how ISIS – a widely hated, massively outnumbered, and ludicrously outgunned organization – managed to occupy over 120 cities, towns, and villages from the Southern Philippines to Western Libya. Seeking to understand ISIS’s combat effectiveness, Omar Ashour focuses on the military and tactical innovations of ISIS and their predecessors in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Egypt. The author explains how their capacity to mix conventional military tactics with innovative guerrilla warfare and urban terrorism strategies allowed ISIS to expand and endure beyond expectations. This Ukrainian translation is supplemented by a special introduction on Russia’s war against Ukraine and the ISIS tactics adoption by Russian troops (2014-2022).

UA: Ґрунтуючись на значній кількості польових досліджень, автор аналізує, як ІДІЛ, така ненависна, нечисельна та погано озброєна організація, змогла окупувати понад 120 міст, містечок і сіл від південних Філіппін до західної Лівії. Прагнучи зрозуміти боєздатність ІДІЛ, Омар Ашур аналізує військові та тактичні інновації ІДІЛу та їхніх попередників в Іраку, Сирії, Лівії та Єгипті. Автор пояснює, як поєднання конвенційної та партизанської війни, а також стратегій міського тероризму дозволили ІДІЛ розширитися та вистояти попри всі обставини. Український переклад доповнено спеціальним вступом про війну Росії проти України та застосування російськими військами тактик ІДІЛ (2014-2022). 

This groundbreaking volume bridges ancient wisdom and contemporary Jewish spirituality, offering fresh insights into Hasidic homilies as dynamic sources of meaning and renewal. Featuring nineteen scholars and educators, the book delves into the mystical depth and poetic imagination of these texts, revealing their power to inspire ethical and spiritual growth. Through close readings and practical reflections, the contributors explore innovative pedagogies for hermeneutical and existential transformation. With a programmatic introduction by Elie Holzer, this collection offers a rare look at the lived experience of teaching Hasidic homilies, addressing classroom dilemmas and spiritual impact. Essential for seekers and educators, it opens new pathways to renewed Jewish spirituality and divine-centered living.

“A fitting conclusion to a well-researched and meticulously edited memoir translation.” — Kirkus Reviews

“You have to read this book… It’s not like anything you read before.” — Tablet Magazine

Set in Ukraine, Crimea, and Israel, this unique two-volume autobiography offers a fascinating, detailed picture of life in Tsarist Russia and Israel during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Goldenshteyn (1848-1930), a traditional Jew who was orphaned as a young boy and became a shochet (kosher slaughterer) as a young man, is a master storyteller. Folksy, funny, streetwise, and self-confident, he is a keen observer of his surroundings. His accounts are vivid and readable, sometimes stunning in their intensity. 

The memoir is brimming with information. Goldenshteyn’s adventures shed light on communal life, persecution, family relationships, religious practices and beliefs, social classes, local politics, interactions between Jews and other religious communities, epidemics, poverty, competition for resources, migration, war, technology, modernity and secularization. In chronicling his own life, Goldenshteyn inadvertently tells a bigger story—the story of how a small, oppressed people, among other minority groups, struggled for survival in the massive Russian Empire and in the Land of Israel.

Volume two begins in 1873, when Goldenshteyn obtains his first position as a shochet in Slobodze, and it follows him to the Crimea, where he endures 34 years  of vicissitudes. In 1913, he fulfills a dream of immigrating to the Land of Israel, hoping to find tranquility in his old age. Instead, he is met with the turbulence of the First World War, as battles rage between the retreating Ottoman Turks and the advancing British forces.

Informed by research in Ukrainian, Israeli and American archives and personal interviews with the few surviving individuals who knew Goldenshteyn personally, The Shochet is a magnificent new contribution to Jewish and Eastern European history.

This book interrogates the relations between nostalgias of today and past utopias in the context of the space age of the 20th century and its cinematic representations in the USSR and in post-Soviet Russia. The author analyzes over 30 Soviet science fiction films, foregrounding their structures of utopia and their evolution over time, in order to trace both their transnational positionalities, transmedial resonance, and impact on post-Soviet Russian films about the space age.

RUS

В своей книге Наталия Майсова исследует связь между ностальгией сегодняшнего дня и утопиями прошлого в контексте космической эры XX века и ее репрезентации в кинофильмах СССР и постсоветской России. Автор анализирует более 30 советских научно-фантастических фильмов, выделяя их утопические структуры и эволюцию с течением времени, чтобы проследить их транснациональную значимость, медийный резонанс и влияние на постсоветские российские фильмы о космической эре.

The Russian intelligentsia is the historic phenomenon of an educated opposition, and it has provoked a substantial body of Russian and Western publications. This book focuses on the intelligentsia’s Myth, Mission, Metamorphosis as discovered in literature, journalism, and theater. The chapters define essential elements of the myth of the intelligentsia as a distinctive social group and a spiritual formation claiming high moral standards and expectations for the self and for society. Second, contributions explore how the intelligentsia sees its mission on various historical stages as inextricably linked with Russia’s (and the Soviet Union’s) cultural destiny, especially its literary and other artistic creations. Finally, the volume addresses the metamorphosis of the intelligentsia over centuries, as socio-political factors shaped its persistence and its perpetual transformation.

Zionism and Jewish Culture examines the history of Zionism from a new perspective, arguing that Zionism was not only a political project, but also a major cultural force in modern Jewish life. To understand the growth of this movement and its success in establishing a modern Jewish state, the book examines the cultural world of pre-state Zionist activists, offering an understanding of the basic ideological challenges they faced—challenges that Israel is still grappling with today. It asks, how did the early Zionists define the relationship between Israel and Jewish tradition? How did they envision the ideal balance between the Jewish people’s welfare and the Land of Israel? What was their view on Western versus Eastern principles in defining the state? And what was their vision for the future of the Jewish state? In exploring these topics, this book enables a deeper understanding of the forces that continue to shape Zionism and Israel today.

What was it like to work as a Jewish district attorney in provincial Soviet Ukraine in the post-Stalinist eras? What role did antisemitism and Holocaust memories play in solving and investigating the criminal cases? How does a detective’s mind work? The answers to these and many other fascinating questions are found in this book. Mikhail Goldis (1926-2020) worked as a detective and district attorney for 30 years in Ukraine and wrote his memoirs after immigrating to the US in 1993. Translated by Marat Grinberg, a prolific scholar of Russian and Jewish literature and cinema, the memoirs tell the rich and poignant story of Goldis’s life and what it took for a Jew to navigate and survive in the halls of Soviet power. 

In the early 1920s, Soviet writers and literary theorists were convinced that adventure fiction held the key to developing a new kind of narrative. The call for a "Russian Stevenson" (Lev Lunts) profoundly impacted the theory of prose and different notions of the literary hero. It also led theorists like Shklovsky to write dime novels and convinced writers of various backgrounds to explore Soviet topography in a new light, harnessing the synergies between imperialism and adventure. Despite the inherently anarchist nature of adventure and its bourgeois offspring, the magic of adventure found its way into socialist realism under different guises, demanding recognition and resisting neglect, especially in the case of socialist realist film.

This book offers a critical historical reconstruction of the early Soviet adventure craze and its lasting popularity in socialist realism. It also offers innovative theoretical propositions for a philological analysis of adventure fiction that arise from this unique historical context.

The essays collected in this book constitute a new contribution to our understanding of the originality and significance of Chekhov’s prose. A close textual analysis of his work is provided, and especially of previously neglected works—some long overdue for in-depth investigation—that Chekhov himself rightfully considered to be masterpieces. Analysis of both these and other previously analyzed works offers a new interpretation which contrasts with those offered by previous Chekhov scholars.  

Works examined include those dealing with Chekhov’s astonishingly accurate and artistic portrayal of a wide variety of illnesses—without the use of any medical terms. These works are shown to be not mere “clinical studies,” but genuine, impressive works of art. The author, who suffered half of his life from tuberculosis, effectively portrayed many characters afflicted with this disease which was incurable at the time. Many of these works reveal an indisputable symbiosis of the doctor and the artist. Chekhov maintained that “in Goethe the poet lived amicably side by side with the scientist”—a fitting description of him as well.

Doctors, the most frequently portrayed characters in Chekhov’s oeuvre are appropriately subjected to extensive analysis, as are the themes of fate and death and dying that figure so prominently in Chekhov’s work. Attention is accorded to imaginative fictional works dealing with philosophy and the theme of crime and punishment, as well as The Island of Sakhalin, a narrative of non-fictional sociological content.

This book examines the relationship between the rabbinate and politics in religious Zionism during the early years of the State of Israel. What fundamental issues did the rabbis of the party face? Did all religious Zionist rabbis follow the same ideological line? Why did the relationship between rabbis and politicians experience ups and downs? And is there a chance for rabbis to have significant influence over religious Zionism in the future? Rabbinism and Politics in Religious Zionism seeks to answer these questions.

Building Bridges Among Abraham’s Children honors the extraordinary career of Professor Michael Berenbaum, a luminary in Holocaust studies, museum design, filmmaking, and interfaith dialogue. With contributions from renowned scholars and close friends, the short and highly readable essays in this collection delve into the core themes that have defined Professor Berenbaum’s work: biblical and postbiblical narratives, rabbinic thought and action, Jewish commitment to education, interreligious relations, and Holocaust remembrance. From his role in building the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to his pioneering work in preserving survivor testimonies through film, Professor Berenbaum’s influence is profound and multifaceted, and the compelling essays in this volume serve as a tribute to a scholar whose enduring legacy continues to make a global impact.

From Tiberias With Love is a journey to rediscovering the magic and mystery, the intimacy and depth of a lost moment in the history of a remarkably relevant conscious community in the Galilee that still has much to teach us. In the year 1777, a group of spiritual seekers from Eastern European set sail in search of a promised land, far away from the internal and external conflicts plaguing those souls seeking the infinite within this finite world. Some who set sail identified with the burgeoning Jewish spiritual renewal movement of Hasidism, while others seem to have just come along for the ride. Weathering challenges both socioeconomic and geographic, this emigrating group sought to establish a center for a burgeoning hasidic ethos that would radiate to the Diaspora from its renewed center in the Holy Land in Palestine. Tiberian Hasidism provides a model of an intensive contemplative life that is particularly appealing to contemporary spiritual seekers for many reasons, including: its deep focus on mystical theology; devotional practice; and the ecstasy of deep friendship rather than allegiance to an institutionalized religion. This volume focuses on the teachings of letters of love from Vitebsker and Kalisker in Tiberias to their disciples in Eastern Europe known as the Iggrot Qodesh, still so ripe for excavation, offering an authentic roadmap to future contemplative pathways ripe for our age.

This book investigates the hybrid, multiform nature of contemporary poetry with particular emphasis on recent Russian lyric and its translations into German and English. Poetry translation, thriving and obstinately open-ended, is not so much a defined process as a practice of ongoing transit across linguistic and national borders. The book’s innovative format invites contemporary poets into dialogue with literary translators, editors, publishers, and scholars; the conversations among their wide-ranging essays, poems, and exchanges both model and investigate the work of transcultural dialogue. As a kind of transition, poetry translation engages the composition and disintegration of forms, revises relations of producers to receivers, mixes and rethinks genres and media, translates itself as multilingual writing or language experiment. Multiple translations of a poem do not compete but interact, reshaping the putative gulf between source and target language. In the end this volume underscores the aesthetic productivity of poetry translation and the need to nurture it. A must-read for anyone interested in the dynamic interplay of poetry, language, and culture.

This book calls on educators to teach the whole child by including their faith as integral to their identity and offers suggestions for how to honor faith within a nurturing learning environment. Part One describes the concept of faith honoring as an extension of historical educational approaches and offers a framework for how to teach in ways that are faith-honoring. Part Two is a collection of personal essays reflecting on experiences of faith honoring and faith silencing.

Ancient China and Greece are two classical civilisations that have exerted far-reaching influence in numerous areas of human experience and are often invoked as the paradigms in East-West comparison. This book examines gender relations in the two ancient societies as reflected in convivial contexts such as family banquets, public festivals, and religious feasts. Two distinct patterns of interpersonal affinity and conflict emerge from the Chinese and Greek sources that show men and women organizing themselves and interacting with each other in social occasions intended for collective pursuit of pleasure. Through an analysis of the two different patterns, Yiqun Zhou illuminates the different socio-political mechanisms, value systems, and fabrics of human bonds in the two classical traditions. Her book will be important for readers who are interested in the comparative study of societies, gender studies, women's history, and the legacy of civilisations.

RUS

Древний Китай и Древняя Греция — две классические цивилизации, оказавшие существенное влияние на многие области человеческого опыта и часто упоминаемые в качестве парадигмы при сравнении «Восток — Запад». В данной книге упомянутые древние общества рассматриваются с точки зрения гендерных отношений, отражающихся в таких контекстах общения, как семейные пирше- ства, общественные праздники и религиозные празднества. В китайских и грече- ских источниках прослеживаются две различные модели межличностной близо- сти и конфликта, которые показывают, как мужчины и женщины самоорганизу- ются и взаимодействуют во время социальных мероприятий, предназначенных для получения коллективного удовольствия. Через анализ этих моделей Ицюнь Чжоу освещает различные социально-политические механизмы, системы ценностей и структуру человеческих связей в двух классических цивилизациях. Эта книга станет важным источником информации для тех, кто интересуется гендерными исследованиями, историей женщин, сравнительным анализом древних обществ и наследием цивилизаций.

The Destruction of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland offers a comprehensive examination of the history of Jewish cemeteries in Poland, shedding light on an overlooked aspect of Holocaust history. Beginning with the settlement of Jewish communities in Poland, the book covers the establishment and subsequent destruction of over 1,200 Jewish cemeteries within the country's present borders. Krzysztof Bielawski draws on meticulous research and firsthand experience to explore the complex dynamics behind the destruction, exposing the roles played by various actors. Through a detailed analysis of texts, iconographic sources, and archival materials, the book not only documents the destruction but also seeks to identify the perpetrators, challenging common misconceptions and offering a nuanced perspective on this dark chapter in history.

You may support the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage, where the author works, at www.fodz.pl.

What was it like to work as a Jewish district attorney in provincial Soviet Ukraine in the post-Stalinist eras? What role did antisemitism and Holocaust memories play in solving and investigating the criminal cases? How does a detective’s mind work? The answers to these and many other fascinating questions are found in this book. Mikhail Goldis (1926-2020) worked as a detective and district attorney for 30 years in Ukraine and wrote his memoirs after immigrating to the US in 1993. Translated by Marat Grinberg, a prolific scholar of Russian and Jewish literature and cinema, the memoirs tell the rich and poignant story of Goldis’s life and what it took for a Jew to navigate and survive in the halls of Soviet power. 

The Destruction of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland offers a comprehensive examination of the history of Jewish cemeteries in Poland, shedding light on an overlooked aspect of Holocaust history. Beginning with the settlement of Jewish communities in Poland, the book covers the establishment and subsequent destruction of over 1,200 Jewish cemeteries within the country's present borders. Krzysztof Bielawski draws on meticulous research and firsthand experience to explore the complex dynamics behind the destruction, exposing the roles played by various actors. Through a detailed analysis of texts, iconographic sources, and archival materials, the book not only documents the destruction but also seeks to identify the perpetrators, challenging common misconceptions and offering a nuanced perspective on this dark chapter in history.

You may support the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage, where the author works, at www.fodz.pl.

Drawing upon theories on the novel in Bakhtin's Dialogic Imagination, this book examines Nuevo Romanticismo through the lens of Russo-Soviet littérature engagée. The term Nuevo Romanticismo originated in José Díaz Fernández's eponymous essay and has been applied to a group of writers who exemplified a rehumanization of the field of Spanish cultural production. In contrast with the dehumanized tendencies noted by Ortega y Gasset, writers César Arconada, Ramón J. Sender, and Lusia Carnés combined avant-garde aesthetics and a deep preoccupation with the human condition, creating a model of politically engaged art in part through transcultural dialogues with Russian literary models. This study explores the deep connection between Spanish and Russian narratives immediately before and during the Second Republic, as well as themes as relevant today as nearly a century ago: the ethics of war, the new woman, and responses to machine culture in the modern age. Lynn C. Purkey is an Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

RUS

Термин Nuevo Romanticismo («новый романтизм») возник в одноименном эссе Хосе Диаса Фернандеса как обозначение группы писателей, ставшей рупором регуманизации в испанской культуре. Опираясь на теорию романа, представленную в работах Бахтина, Линн Пёрки рассматривает Nuevo Romanticismo сквозь призму русской и советской литературы. В противовес дегуманизированным тенденциям, отмеченным Ортегой-и-Гассетом в испанской литературе, писатели Сесар Арконада, Рамон Х. Сендер и Лусия Карнес соединили в своих текстах авангардную эстетику и сосредоточенность на человеке, создав модель политически ангажированного искусства — отчасти благодаря транскультурному диалогу с русскими литературными текстами. В книге исследуется глубокая связь между испанскими и русскими нарративами, созданными непосредственно до и во время Второй республики, а также неизменно актуальные для обеих культур в последнее столетие темы: этика войны, феминизм, растущая механизация цивилизации.

Jewish Partisans of the Soviet Union is a classic compilation of original Russian and Jewish sources on the anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe. It is rooted in decades of research motivated by a desire to set the record straight on Jewish participation in resistance movements, a phenomenon often overlooked when not actively concealed. As the son of Jewish partisans in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, Jack Porter presents here the result of his decades-long research: first-hand accounts and interviews with survivors and partisans, as well as some of their original work, and a seminal English translation of Partisan Brotherhood, a historical document gathered by Russian-Jewish intellectuals in 1948 at the height of anti-Semitic hysteria, written mainly by non-Jewish Soviet partisan commanders recounting the deeds of the Jewish fighters in their units.

RUS

В основе этой книги лежат десятилетия исследований, вызванных к жизни желанием внести ясность в вопрос об участии евреев в партизанском движении. Будучи сыном еврейских партизан, Джек Портер собрал в своем исследовании рассказы из первых рук, интервью с выжившими и с партизанами, а также мемуарные публикации и выдержки из «Партизанской дружбы» — исторического документа, составленного российско-еврейской интеллигенцией в 1948 году в разгар антисемитской истерии и написанного в основном нееврейскими советскими партизанскими командирами.

A wide-ranging and original introduction to the Anthropocene (the Age of Humanity) that offers fresh, theoretical insights bridging the sciences and the humanities. Using history, art, literature, religion, philosophy, ethics, and justice as the focal points, Merchant traces key figures and developments in the humanities throughout the Anthropocene era and explores how these disciplines might influence sustainability in the next century. Wide-ranging and accessible, this book from an eminent scholar in environmental history and philosophy argues for replacing the Age of the Anthropocene with a new Age of Sustainability.

RUS

Могут ли история, искусство, литература, религия, философия, этика и правосудие повлиять на экологическую устойчивость в следующем столетии? Задаваясь этим вопросом, Кэролин Мёрчант исследует взаимодействие традиционных областей человеческой мысли и экологии. Ее масштабная и доступная книга позволяет увидеть неизбежность смены эпохи антропоцена новой эпохой устойчивого развития.

This is the first book-length study of masculinity in Imperial Russia. By looking at official and unofficial life at universities across the Russian empire, this project offers a picture of the complex processes through which gender ideologies were forged and negotiated in the Nineteenth Century. Masculinity, Autocracy and the Russian University, 1804-1863 demonstrates how gender was critical to political life in a European monarchy.

RUS

Рассматривая официальную и неофициальную жизнь университетов Российской империи, Ребекка Фридман показывает картину сложных процессов, в ходе которых формировались и обсуждались гендерные идеологии в XIX веке. Книга «Маскулинность, самодержавие и российский университет. 1804–1863» демонстрирует, насколько эти аспекты были важны для политической жизни европейской монархии.

RUS: Еврейское коммунистическое движение в период с 1920-х по 1950-е годы играло важную роль в политике еврейских общин в таких американских городах, как Бостон, Чикаго, Лос-Анджелес, Нью-Йорк, Филадельфия. Опираясь на книги, газеты, периодические издания, памфлеты и другие материалы на идише, Генри Сребрник рассказывает о той идеологической и материальной поддержке, которую Еврейской автономной области Биробиджана оказывали две американские организации — Организация еврейской колонизации в России и Американский Биробиджанский комитет.

RUS: Книга Эндрю Колина демонстрирует, что корни разрушения человеком природы напрямую связаны с происхождением капитализма – социальной системы, в которой воспроизводство капитала в глобальном масштабе разрушительно для окружающей среды. Автор начинает с философского анализа роли, которую разум и страсть играют в социальных системах, а затем прослеживает экологические последствия стимулируемой ими деятельности. Колин утверждает, что перед современными государствами стоит глобальная задача – разработать жизнеутверждающую политику, которая функционировала бы как альтернатива глобальному опустошению.