Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History [Hardcover]

So shattering were the aftereffects of Kishinev, the rampagethat broke out in late-Tsarist Russia in April 1903,that one historian remarked that it was nothing lessthan a prototype for the Holocaust itself. In three days of violence,49 Jews were killed and 600 raped or wounded, whilemore than 1,000 Jewish-owned houses and stores were ransackedand destroyed. Recounted in lurid detail by newspapersthroughout the Western world, and covered sensationallyby Americas Hearst press, the pre-Easter attacks seized theimagination of an international public, quickly becoming theprototype for what would become known as a pogrom, andproviding the impetus for efforts as varied as The Protocols ofthe Elders of Zion and the NAACP. Using new evidence culledfrom Russia, Israel, and Europe, distinguished historian StevenJ. Zippersteins wide-ranging book brings historical insight andclarity to a much-misunderstood event that would do so muchto transform twentieth-century Jewish life and beyond.Impressive, heart wrenching.... The genocide of World War II has come to act like a screen across the middle of the 20th century. But Zipperstein reminds us that it is important to understand the catastrophes that preceded. And theres no better place to start than Kishinev.... [A] masterly work.The story of the Kishinev pogrom is a useful reminder that fake news, conspiracy theories, and rumor-mongering did not begin with the rise of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Indeed, the era of the pogrom was, as the distinguished historian of Russian Jewry Steven Zipperstein emphasizes, in some ways where all this began.... a wide-ranging survey bya major historian of one of the defining events of modern Jewish history.The methodical slaughter of forty-nine Jews on the streets of Kishinev, the capital of Moldova, over the course of three days in April, 1903, was a pivotal event in the history of modern anti-Semitism, the rise of Zionism, and, as a symbol of racist violence, a catalyst for the rl3œ