Jewish Rights, National Rites

"There is a scarcity of scholarship on this important topic, and this makes Simon Rabinovitch's work an important contribution to the field of Jewish political history . . . [T]his is an important work on a proposed political solution to the Jewish problem in the Russian empire, which seemed practical in multi-ethnic and de-centralized surroundings, and which failed due to the centralized trends within East European politics during the period between the world wars." -- Inna Shtakser * Revolutionary Russia *
"Simon Rabinovitch's book is the first comprehensive work about Jewish nationalism and the attempts to establish Jewish autonomy in late Imperial and Revolutionary Russia . . . Rabinovitch's innovative work makes a significant contribution in the fields of Russian and Eastern European Jewish History, Jewish nationalism, and minority rights. The work will be very valuable for scholars and can be used for teaching of university courses in Modern Jewish History, Russian and Eastern European Jewish History." -- Victoria Khiterer * Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity *
"The author has done a wonderful job—thorough, elegant, and vivid. This book is a tribute to the ideals of the era, brought to life by Rabinovitch's careful and judicious treatment." -- Brian Horowitz * AJS Review *
"This fine book focuses on an easily overlooked dimension of Russian Jewish History from the late 1890s to the 1920s: the growing attraction of Russian Jews, especially intellectuals, to the concept of legally guaranteed minority rights . . . The book is comprehensive, thoughtful, meticulous, and well written. It should be in every university library and of interest to researchers and graduate students in fields of nationalism as well as Eastern European and Jewish History." -- R. M. Seltzer * CHOICE *
"Jewish Rights, National Rites is that rare book that makes comprehensible a Jewish world that simultaneously seems familiar to contemporary sensibilities but also was very different. Rabinovitch uses the impressive work of many researchers that preceded him and adds his own deep scholarship to bring to life Jewish aspirations for autonomism and their complex history—including the central role of Simon Dubnow. No period or region is omitted. This is done with impressive clarity, sensitive understanding and penetrating analysis. The objectivity and careful documentation of the book do not limit the intellectual excitement and novel observations that characterize the book. This is a major study worth reading—and rereading." -- Shaul Stampfer * The Hebrew University of Jerusalem *
"Almost a century after his death, the ideas of Russian Jewish nationalist leader Simon Dubnov remain an object of scholarly fascination and a political touchstone for contemporary debates about Zionism. Yet until now we have lacked a proper account of the genesis and fate of Dubnov's actual political movement. In this path-breaking study, Simon Rabinovitch offers a provocative reassessment grounded in meticulous research. The result is a book that sheds new light on the entire drama of modern Jewish politics across late Imperial Russia and the history of modern nationalism in the bloodlands of Eastern Europe." -- James Loeffler * University of Virginia *
"This is the first synthetic history of Jewish autonomism in Eastern Europe. It is best in its political history of its subject—the competing factions and parties that championed autonomism, and the successes and failures of the autonomist idea in various political arenas." -- David Fishman * The Jewish Theological Seminary *
"Jewish Rights, National Rites is a work of genuine importance that should be read not only by all historians of late imperial Russian Jewry and of Jewish nationalism, but by scholars interested in the history of liberal visions in multiethnic imperial Russia and by scholars interested in the global—and as yet unresolved—history of efforts to address national claims beyond the framework of territorial sovereignty." -- Kenneth B. Moss * American Historical Review *