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Amber Nickell on Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History Steven J. Zipperstein. Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. New York: Liveright, 2018. 288 pp. $27.95, cloth, ISBN 978-1-63149-269-3. Reviewed by Amber N. Nickell (Purdue University) Published on H-Judaic (June, 2019) Commissioned by Barbara Krawcowicz (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) Over the course of a few abnormally warm miliation, abuse, serial rape, and ultimately mur‐ April days in 1903, the residents of Kishinev (now der. Chisinau, Moldova) perpetrated one of the most in‐ How is it that the site of this seemingly formu‐ famous pogroms in global Jewish memory. Steven laic pogrom came to occupy such a unique space J. Zipperstein presents a comprehensive and en‐ in Jewish memory? News of the pogrom, some‐ gaging survey of this pogrom and its complicated times exaggerated or falsified, rapidly spread afterlife in Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of Histo‐ across the Atlantic. Stories of the heroic rabbi ry. By early 1903, as Edward A. Judge argues of Moshe Kigel shielding Torah scrolls from the on‐ Kishinev, these pogroms had a basic anatomy.[1] slaught until his last breath; allegations that a Kishinev’s timing, circumstances, and progression tsarist official, Vyacheslav von Plehve, issued a let‐ mirrored that of those that reverberated through‐ ter warning police against intervention on behalf out the Russian Empire in the decades leading up of Jews; and depictions of Jewish male cowardice to and following 1903. As Gentiles prepared to cele‐ inundated readers. Zipperstein demonstrates that brate Easter and Jews planned for Pesach, rumors Kigel’s death was embellished, the Plehve letter was of ritual murder swirled in conversations, pam‐ a forgery, and a large group of Jews staged a phlets, classrooms, and the headlines of newspa‐ valiant self-defense effort in Kishinev. He argues pers, like the Kishinev-based Bessarabets. A small that these stories amalgamated with other in‐ group of children and teens started throwing stances of Jewish and non-Jewish suffering in the stones at Jewish businesses near the center. Older Russian Empire and abroad, as the pogrom both residents and seminary students joined in, pro‐ predated and outlived its occurrence, becoming gressing to the plunder of liquor, tobacco, and oth‐ reimagined, used and abused across space and er material goods. In a drunken revel-like state, time. A canon of Jewish victims and tsarist/Rus‐ they publicly raped women and extorted and beat sian killers emerged, entering into Jewish and non- Jewish merchants and shopkeeps. Things seemed Jewish vernaculars alike. For those who fled the to calm down, as news of the day’s mayhem slowly Pale in the 1880s, often from sites unaffected by the spread to Lower Kishinev, where most of the city’s rash of pogroms that raged through South Russia Jews actually lived. The next day, large swaths of at that time, Kishinev became a stand-in for the vi‐ the city joined in, moving from building to building olence they cited as a catalyst for emigration. The and block to block. Ransacking devolved into hu‐ Plehve forgery validated claims that the Russian H-Net Reviews Empire plotted against them. A few years later, the from exposing the Plehve forgery and countering bloody wave of pogroms of 1905 would be read assertions of a tsarist “conspiracy theory” to chal‐ and projected backward onto Kishinev. Prior to the lenging the origins of the most pervasive piece of Holocaust, Kishinev had become so entrenched in anti-Semitic propaganda to date, The Protocols of diasporic and public memory that “no place-name the Elders of Zion.[2] As opposed to propagating evoked Jewish suffering more starkly”; it became a stories of clandestine meetings, where tsarist se‐ synonym for Jewish sufering (p. xiii). cret police huddled over drafts of the Protocols, Writing to both contemporary Jewish and aca‐ Zipperstein roots them in Kishinev. Paul Krushe‐ demic audiences, Zipperstein aims to “defamiliar‐ van grew up in Kishinev, with Jewish neighbors ize a familiar story”—that of Kishinev, anti-Jewish and schoolmates, prior to a short stint in the near‐ violence, and Jewish life in the Russian Empire as by city of Odessa (now Odesa), where more than a told and retold across borders and generations (p. third of the city’s population was Jewish. He xiv). He parses out myth and memory, firmly root‐ formed and developed his anti-Jewish and anti- ing the Kishinev Pogrom in its own place and time Zionist sentiments here, at the geographic periph‐ while simultaneously tracing long-lasting effects ery of empire and in the heart of eastern European on global Jewish memory, anti-Semitism, and so‐ Jewry. For years, prior to going bankrupt, he owned cial movements. To do this, he breaks the book the Kishinev-based Bessarabetz newspaper, the into six “essay-like” chapters. As if peering through pages of which he populated with anti-Semitic driv‐ the lens of a kaleidoscope, Zipperstein takes read‐ el. His salacious rhetoric inspired Kishinev’s Gen‐ ers through the same moment(s) to the same tiles’ distrust of their Jewish neighbors, long before place(s) with the same people repetitively, turning they took to the streets armed with clubs, crow‐ the lens ever so slightly to illuminate a new, yet bars, rocks, and unchecked masculinity. Fleeing his still connected, narrative and argument each time. financial failures, Krushevan set up shop in St. Pe‐ He pens each chapter episodically, in easy-to-di‐ tersburg, where he set to work on the Protocols. As gest, potentially stand-alone bytes. This methodol‐ the Bessarabetz did in Kishinev, Krushevan’s most‐ ogy augments Zipperstein’s overarching claims ly plagiarized Protocols would inspire anti-Jewish concerning Kishinev’s role, real and imagined, in sentiments and violence across the globe. Jewish diasporic development and a collective Zipperstein also treats two well-known publi‐ memory rooted in mutual suffering. It makes the cations detailing the pogrom—Hayyim Nahman book more accessible to readers with limited Bialik’s “In the City of Killing” (1904) and Michael blocks of time, easily understood in five-minute Davitt’s Within the Pale: The True Story of Anti- subway rides. Yet, the first and last chapters bow Semitic Persecutions in Russia (1903). Oscillating under the weight of their dual roles, as introduc‐ between their biographies and literary products, tion, conclusion, and stand-alone essays. Zipper‐ Zipperstein underscores the impact of their own stein’s enthralling episodes often leave the reader political evolutions on both publications, from to perform much of the analytical work. Perhaps Davitt’s Irish anti-imperialism, to Bialik’s budding there is a subtle brilliance to this. It leaves popular Zionism. Both men conducted substantial inter‐ audiences a sense of investment in and satisfac‐ views and observations in the wake of the pogrom tion with the argument’s outcome, as if they came with the intent of producing publishable reports. to it all on their own. Bialik, instead, penned an emotionally charged Throughout the text, Zipperstein engages some poem. Zipperstein highlights the reoccurring theme of the most pervasive myths concerning anti-Jew‐ of Jewish male cowardice, in response to violence ish violence, and propaganda in the Russia Empire, and rape, throughout Bialik’s prose. While Davitt made similar comments in his personal notes, he 2 H-Net Reviews excluded them from print. Zipperstein insightfully stein recently facilitated the Hoover archive’s ac‐ chalks this difference up to Bialik’s Zionist ambi‐ quisition of the collection. tions and emotional investment in anti-Jewish vio‐ Zipperstein demonstrates how the examina‐ lence; his overstatement of Jewish male cowardice tion of a singular event can unearth the complexi‐ signified his goal of shocking Jews out of their per‐ ties of a moment, a place, and the event's after‐ ceived passivity and into national political action. shock and afterlife. The linguistic variety and However, alongside his analysis of Bialik’s critique structural depth of his sources substantiate the of Jewish men, Zipperstein habitually refers back network of historiographically poignant argu‐ to rape victims, whom he treats more extensively ments he references throughout the text. Some‐ in prior chapters. Overwhelmingly, he writes these how, he manages to situate this all within a clear, women in as passive actors, raped by Gentiles, and poetically written, accessible, and succinct text— spurned by their husbands and potential suitors consumable by popular and academic audiences after. Men rape them and men, like Bialik and alike. A true exemplar of the historian’s craft, any Davitt, collect and tell their stories after. Zipper‐ historian seeking to sharpen their skills could stein’s treatment of men and women, and sexual glean lessons from this text. More specifically, violence in particular, would have benefited from those interested in the Russian Empire, Jewish life the sizable body of gender theory scholarship, in‐ and death in the imperial borderlands, the rise of cluding works that specifically engage the relation‐ global anti-Semitism, the Jewish diaspora, the rela‐ ship between violence and gender—pogrom and tionship between violence and memory, Jewish- rape—in Kishinev and elsewhere.[3] African American relations, the NAACP, and lynch‐ This book is clearly the product of decades or ing in America should read Pogrom: Kishinev and more of research and thought. Zipperstein’s prima‐ the Tilt of History. Additionally, this book would be ry and secondary source selection underscores a a worthwhile addition, in whole or in part, to both preexisting wealth of experience working, think‐ undergraduate and graduate courses addressing ing, and writing in and about Jewish life in the re‐ the aforementioned topics and should be consid‐ gion. Researching in English, Russian, Hebrew, Yid‐ ered for courses on historical research and writing dish, and German, Zipperstein astutely leverages methodologies.
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