200 Years Together I: The Jews Before the Revolution

The history of the 'Jewish Problem' in Russia (and Russia only?) is above all else exceptionally rich. Talking about it means listening to new voices and passing them on to the reader. (In this book, the Jewish voices will be heard more often than those of the Russians.)

But the whirlwinds of the social climate force us towards the razor's edge. You can feel the weight of both sides, all the grievances and accusations, plausible as well as improbably, which grow as they go.

The purpose that guides me throughout this work on the life common the Russians and the Jews consists of looking for all the points necessary for a mutual understanding, all the possible voices which, once we get rid of the bitterness of the past, can lead us towards the future.

Like all other people, like all of us, the Jewish people is at the same time an active and passive element of History; more than once they have accomplished, be it unconsciously, important works that History has offered them. The 'Jewish Problem' has been observed from diverse angles, but always with passion and often in self-delusion. Yet the events which have affected this or that people in the course of History have not always, far from, been determined by this one people, but by all those who surrounded it.

An attitude that is too passionately for one party or the other is humiliating to them. Nevertheless, there cannot be problems that man can't approach with reason. Speaking openly, amply, is more honest, and, in our case precise, speaking about it is essential. Alas, mutual wounds have piled up in popular memory. But if we look at the past, when will the memory heal? As long as popular opinion does not find a pen to shed light thereupon, it will stay a vague rumour, worse: menacing.

We cannot cut ourselves off from the past centuries permanently. Our world has shrunk, and, whatever are the dividing lines, we find ourselves neighbours again. For many years I have delayed writing this book; I would've been glad not to take this burden upon me, but the delays of my life have neared exhaustion, and here I am.