Book Release — Jews in Old Rus′: A Documentary History by Alexander Kulik
HURI Books is delighted to announce the publication of Jews in Old Rus′: A Documentary History by Alexander Kulik, a professor in the Department of Russian and East European Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
For the first time, this comprehensive collection features original source texts in Latin, Hebrew, Old Church Slavonic, and Arabic, accompanied by highly accurate and readable English translations. From legal rulings and linguistic acculturation to daily customs, this volume also redefines the position of East European Jews within the larger diaspora of European Jews. The book is currently available in print (hardcover) format only and can be ordered from the HURI Books website.
Jews in Old Rus′: A Documentary History was copublished with the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University.
About the Book
Did Jews actually live in Old Rus′? Or is it a historical myth? If they did, where did they come from? Where did their community originate? Addressing these questions remains challenging, as it requires analysis of all available historical sources on early Eastern European Jewish life. For nearly a century and a half, scholars have investigated Jewish-Slavic discourse, yet many critical questions, such as origins, scope, dating, localization, cultural characteristics of the Jewish population that resided among the Slavs during the Middle Ages, the nature of the relations between Jews and Slavs, and Jewish contributions to the formation of early Slavic cultures, still await answers. Too often, these discussions have been clouded by ideological prejudice, making it incredibly difficult to separate genuine historical facts from political agendas—such as debates over the Khazarian legacy or the existence of unique Hebrew-Slavic translations.
Alexander Kulik’s groundbreaking study, Jews in Old Rus’: A Documentary History, critically intervenes by offering a comprehensive archive for anyone exploring this topic. It brings together every known piece of evidence documenting Jewish presence in Eastern Europe, clearing the fog of myth with hard evidence.
What makes this study different:
A Diverse Resource Hub: A unique compilation of historical sources from various editors, periods, and regions, featuring several texts published here for the very first time.
Tailored Transliteration: Utilizes a user-friendly, modified Library of Congress system for general reading, alongside a specialized academic scheme (SBL style) for deep linguistic analysis.
Seamless Navigation: Packed with extensive cross-references and full manuscript citations to help researchers effortlessly link authors, topics, and regional data (including neighboring Poland).
Comprehensive Analytical Tables: Appendix E offers detailed index tables that categorize primary and secondary sources by date, language, genre, and geography.
Biographical Records: Includes dedicated lists of tracks named Jewish individuals who resided in, migrated from, or traveled through Rus´.
About the Author
Alexander Kulik is a professor and the Chairman of the Department of German, Russian, and East European Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research in diverse fields concentrates on the cross-cultural transmission of texts and ideas. Kulik’s scholarly interests encompass Slavic studies (palaeoslavica, medieval and modern Judeo-Slavica, and broader aspects of Russian and East European cultural history) and Jewish studies (Jewish literature and thought of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, early history of East European Jewry).
Kulik authored three books: Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha (two editions: Society of Biblical Literature: Atlanta GA, 2004 and Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2005), 3 Baruch: Greek-Slavonic Apocalypse of Baruch (Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), Biblical Pseudepigrapha in Slavonic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015; with S. Minov) and edited the collected volume History of the Jews in Russia: From Antiquity to Early Modern Period in the bilingual series with Zalman Shazar Center (Jerusalem) and Gesharim (Moscow). Kulik has founded and headed the Brill book series Studia Judaeoslavica.
His prestigious academic milestones include winning a $1.3 million European Research Council grant for his project "Jews and Slavs in the Middle Ages." Additionally, Alexander Kulik has held numerous visiting positions at world-renowned institutions, including Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford.
Excerpt from Introduction: “Mobility of the Jews of Rus´”
If we compare the entire pool of knowledge available on the Jewish population of medieval Rus´ with what we know about Jews outside the borders of Rus´, the result is strikingly unbalanced. All the Jews of post-Khazarian Rus´ whose names are known to us are ones who left their country—some temporarily, others permanently. Furthermore, most of what we know about local Jewish cultural production or Jewish spoken language is largely based on evidence brought along by these migrants on their wanderings. The imbalance may be explained in various ways.
Although it is possible that we are dealing with a young, dynamic immigrant community that maintained intensive contacts with its “old country,” a different and more technical explanation appears more likely. Probably the local tradition was disrupted, leading to a lack of preservation of local Jewish sources (Slavic sources, by contrast, preserve somewhat more abundant evidence on local Jews). If this assumption is accurate, the disparate pieces of evidence preserved by migrants constitute but the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of the material that once existed. Such a proposal would also support the hypothesis that a significant Jewish presence existed in early eastern Europe prior to the mass Ashkenazi migration eastward in the later medieval period. In striking contrast to the familiar model of an Ashkenazi Drang nach Osten, the early medieval period has actually left us more information about Jews migrating from Rus´ (including immigration into the lands of Ashkenaz) than about Jewish migration from Ashkenaz in the other direction.