Review: Ellie R. Schainker, Confessions of the Shtetl: Converts from Judaism in Imperial Russia, 1817-1906 (Stanford University Press, 2017)
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
10-30-2017
Publication Title
Church History
Volume
86
Issue
3
First page number:
931
Last page number:
33
Abstract
Rooted in archival and published sources from post-Soviet countries, Israel, and the United States, this book makes a compelling case that converts from Judaism to various Christian confessions “left an outsized imprint on the cultural map of East European Jews” (231), and that conversions reveal “the social and geographic interconnectedness of Jews and Christians in the [Russian] empire's western provinces” (242). The result is a rich portrait of religious interaction and exploration that offers a valuable social and cultural history of toleration in the Russian Empire.
Language
eng
Repository Citation
Werth, P. W.
(2017).
Review: Ellie R. Schainker, Confessions of the Shtetl: Converts from Judaism in Imperial Russia, 1817-1906 (Stanford University Press, 2017).
Church History, 86(3),
931-33.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0009640717001901