Jews in Old Rus′

Did Jews actually live in Old Rus′? Or is it a historical myth? For a long time, researchers and historians have wrestled with two extreme theories while working with evidence: from completely denying the presence of Jewish communities in early Eastern Europe, to exaggerating their size and role in the ensuing formation of Eastern European Jewry.

The sources presented in Jews in Old Rus′: A Documentary History do not corroborate either of these extreme interpretations of absence or presence. In this book, Alexander Kulik adopts a framework that enables readers to conclude the existence of a Jewish settlement in Rus´.

By bringing together primary sources in Latin, Hebrew, Old Church Slavonic, and Arabic, this volume provides the definitive scientific answer to one of Eastern Europe’s most debated historical questions.