Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
Biographic Data
| ID | 524377 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern |
| GIVEN NAMES | Yohanan |
| FAMILY NAME | Petrovsky-Shtern |
| SIGNATURE | PETROVSKY-SHTERN Y |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northwestern University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Ein Tag, der die Welt veränderte: Ukrainer, Juden und der 25. Jahrestag von Babyn Jar. Ukrainians, Jews and the 25th anniversary of Babi Yar
On 29 September 1966, a large number of Ukrainians and Jews gathered at Babi Yar to commemorate the Jewish victims of the massacre of 1941. The communist party regime responded with repressive measures. Yet for those who took part, this demonstration of courage, humanity and dignity marked the beginning of a new relationship between Ukrainians and Jews. A public realm was created in which both groups were able to express their self-awareness. Jew…
War and peace of Iosif Trumpeldor: From zionist hagiography to cultural history
Petrovsky-Shtern’s essay revisits three aspects of Yosef Trumpeldor’s life domineering his biographic and hagiographic narratives. Using heretofore unexplored military archival sources, the author allows more accurately to reconstruct Trumpeldor’s army career, debunk the myth of his Russian officer rank, and contextualize the impact of the Russian army experience on his Zionist endeavors. Trumpeldor’s reliance on so far underestimated influence o…
Solomon Schechter's Art of Hasidism: Tradition, Parody, and Transmission
This paper introduces and explores the earliest extant work by Solomon Schechter (1847-1915). The conventional reading of Schechter presents him as a scholar, a practitioner of the Science of Judaism. However, Schechter's parody of the Hasidic movement, its masters and its adherents, written in the mid-late 1870's, suggests that even as Schechter engaged in rigorous scholarship he also worked as a creative artist. He associated with Jewish thinke…
Lenin's Jewish Question
In this first examination of Lenin’s genealogical and political connections to East European Jews, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern reveals the broad cultural meanings of indisputable evidence that Lenin’s maternal grandfather was a Jew. He examines why and how Lenin’s Jewish relatives converted to Christianity, explains how Lenin’s vision of Russian Marxism shaped his identity, and explores Lenin’s treatment of party colleagues of Jewish origin and the …
The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe
Lenin's Jewish Question
In this examination of Lenin's genealogical and political connections to East European Jews, the book reveals the broad cultural meanings of indisputable evidence that Lenin's maternal grandfather was a Jew. It examines why and how Lenin's Jewish relatives converted to Christianity, explains how Lenin's vision of Russian Marxism shaped his identity, and explores Lenin's treatment of party colleagues of Jewish origin and the Jewish Question in Eur…
Hasidei de'ar‘a and Hasidei dekokhvaya’: Two Trends in Modern Jewish Historiography
Gershon Hundert, one of the leading scholars of Eastern European Jewry, has portrayed Hasidism as “one of many movements of religious enthusiasm that arose in the eighteenth century.” Though most scholars today agree with this description, they diverge regarding the goals of the movement, the causes of its emergence and spread, and its impact on Eastern European Jewry. Simon Dubnow, the father-founder of modern Eastern European Jewish historiogra…
On Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Middle Path’
The Literary and the Historical: Reflections on a Jewish Memoir
Journey to a Nineteenth-Century Shtetl: The Memoirs of Yekhezkel Kotik. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by David Assaf. Translated from the Yiddish by Margaret Birstein and edited by Sharon Makover-Assaf
The Drama of Berdichev: Levi Yitshak and his Town
The Master of an Evil Name: Hillel Baעal Shem and His Sefer ha-Ḥeshek
Back in 1993, as senior librarian at the Vernadsky Library in Kiev, Ukraine, in charge of cataloguing a newly uncovered Judaica collection, I came across an enigmatic manuscript entitled Sefer ha-ḥeshek. It did not match the bulk of the Judaica holdings. Nor did it fit in Abraham Harkavy's collection of medieval manuscripts. It was too Ashkenazic for Abraham Firkovich's Karaite papers, and too early for most of S. Ansky's nineteenth-century folkl…
Hasidism, Havurot, and the Jewish Street
It took Hasidism only two or three decades to establish an efficient, long-lasting leadership in the Jewish communities throughout the territory of pre-partitioned Poland. This rapid spread of the new movement within the traditionally homogeneous Jewish society required much more than an appealing religious ideology.1 To gain power over East European Jewry, Hasidism had to become a full-fledged social movement as well. The transformation of Hasid…
The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe
The Master of an Evil Name: Hillel Baעal Shem and His Sefer ha-Ḥeshek
Back in 1993, as senior librarian at the Vernadsky Library in Kiev, Ukraine, in charge of cataloguing a newly uncovered Judaica collection, I came across an enigmatic manuscript entitled Sefer ha-ḥeshek. It did not match the bulk of the Judaica holdings. Nor did it fit in Abraham Harkavy's collection of medieval manuscripts. It was too Ashkenazic for Abraham Firkovich's Karaite papers, and too early for most of S. Ansky's nineteenth-century folkl…
Hasidism, Havurot, and the Jewish Street
It took Hasidism only two or three decades to establish an efficient, long-lasting leadership in the Jewish communities throughout the territory of pre-partitioned Poland. This rapid spread of the new movement within the traditionally homogeneous Jewish society required much more than an appealing religious ideology.1 To gain power over East European Jewry, Hasidism had to become a full-fledged social movement as well. The transformation of Hasid…
Hasidei de'ar‘a and Hasidei dekokhvaya’: Two Trends in Modern Jewish Historiography
Gershon Hundert, one of the leading scholars of Eastern European Jewry, has portrayed Hasidism as “one of many movements of religious enthusiasm that arose in the eighteenth century.” Though most scholars today agree with this description, they diverge regarding the goals of the movement, the causes of its emergence and spread, and its impact on Eastern European Jewry. Simon Dubnow, the father-founder of modern Eastern European Jewish historiogra…
The Drama of Berdichev: Levi Yitshak and his Town
The Master of an Evil Name: Hillel Baעal Shem and His Sefer ha-Ḥeshek
Back in 1993, as senior librarian at the Vernadsky Library in Kiev, Ukraine, in charge of cataloguing a newly uncovered Judaica collection, I came across an enigmatic manuscript entitled Sefer ha-ḥeshek. It did not match the bulk of the Judaica holdings. Nor did it fit in Abraham Harkavy's collection of medieval manuscripts. It was too Ashkenazic for Abraham Firkovich's Karaite papers, and too early for most of S. Ansky's nineteenth-century folkl…
Hasidism, Havurot, and the Jewish Street
It took Hasidism only two or three decades to establish an efficient, long-lasting leadership in the Jewish communities throughout the territory of pre-partitioned Poland. This rapid spread of the new movement within the traditionally homogeneous Jewish society required much more than an appealing religious ideology.1 To gain power over East European Jewry, Hasidism had to become a full-fledged social movement as well. The transformation of Hasid…
On Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Middle Path’
The Literary and the Historical: Reflections on a Jewish Memoir
Journey to a Nineteenth-Century Shtetl: The Memoirs of Yekhezkel Kotik. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by David Assaf. Translated from the Yiddish by Margaret Birstein and edited by Sharon Makover-Assaf
Hasidei de'ar‘a and Hasidei dekokhvaya’: Two Trends in Modern Jewish Historiography
Gershon Hundert, one of the leading scholars of Eastern European Jewry, has portrayed Hasidism as “one of many movements of religious enthusiasm that arose in the eighteenth century.” Though most scholars today agree with this description, they diverge regarding the goals of the movement, the causes of its emergence and spread, and its impact on Eastern European Jewry. Simon Dubnow, the father-founder of modern Eastern European Jewish historiogra…
Lenin's Jewish Question
In this examination of Lenin's genealogical and political connections to East European Jews, the book reveals the broad cultural meanings of indisputable evidence that Lenin's maternal grandfather was a Jew. It examines why and how Lenin's Jewish relatives converted to Christianity, explains how Lenin's vision of Russian Marxism shaped his identity, and explores Lenin's treatment of party colleagues of Jewish origin and the Jewish Question in Eur…
The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe
Lenin's Jewish Question
In this first examination of Lenin’s genealogical and political connections to East European Jews, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern reveals the broad cultural meanings of indisputable evidence that Lenin’s maternal grandfather was a Jew. He examines why and how Lenin’s Jewish relatives converted to Christianity, explains how Lenin’s vision of Russian Marxism shaped his identity, and explores Lenin’s treatment of party colleagues of Jewish origin and the …
Solomon Schechter's Art of Hasidism: Tradition, Parody, and Transmission
This paper introduces and explores the earliest extant work by Solomon Schechter (1847-1915). The conventional reading of Schechter presents him as a scholar, a practitioner of the Science of Judaism. However, Schechter's parody of the Hasidic movement, its masters and its adherents, written in the mid-late 1870's, suggests that even as Schechter engaged in rigorous scholarship he also worked as a creative artist. He associated with Jewish thinke…
Ein Tag, der die Welt veränderte: Ukrainer, Juden und der 25. Jahrestag von Babyn Jar. Ukrainians, Jews and the 25th anniversary of Babi Yar
On 29 September 1966, a large number of Ukrainians and Jews gathered at Babi Yar to commemorate the Jewish victims of the massacre of 1941. The communist party regime responded with repressive measures. Yet for those who took part, this demonstration of courage, humanity and dignity marked the beginning of a new relationship between Ukrainians and Jews. A public realm was created in which both groups were able to express their self-awareness. Jew…
War and peace of Iosif Trumpeldor: From zionist hagiography to cultural history
Petrovsky-Shtern’s essay revisits three aspects of Yosef Trumpeldor’s life domineering his biographic and hagiographic narratives. Using heretofore unexplored military archival sources, the author allows more accurately to reconstruct Trumpeldor’s army career, debunk the myth of his Russian officer rank, and contextualize the impact of the Russian army experience on his Zionist endeavors. Trumpeldor’s reliance on so far underestimated influence o…
History (10 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (8 works) · Judaism (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · Art (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · History (5 works) · Literature (5 works)