This issue of the magazine includes:

• Memoirs: Unfulfilled Projects

The reminiscences of Natalia Yukhneva, historian, ethnographer, and author of many scholarly works on Russian Jewry, are dedicated to the period of early perestroika (the end of the 1980s). These memoirs discuss the different research and publication projects that were initiated during this unique period of hopes and illusions, but were never put into reality.

• History: Once Again about the Events of the Beginning of 1953

The article provides a detailed analysis of the extensive collection of documents, State Anti-Semitism in the USSR, 1938–1953, published by the Democracy International Fund. Special attention is given to the events around the so-called “Doctors Plot” (January–March 1953). The author of the article argues with some interpretations of the documents given by the collection’s compiler and presents his own version of this historical episode that is so important for the understanding of Stalin’s policy towards Jews.

• Synopses: New Books about the History of Jews in Russia

Brief reviews present two recently published monographs based on newly discovered archival documents–on the history of Russian Jews in the 18th–19th centuries, and on the infamous anti-Semitic movement “Black Hundred,” that appeared as a result of the crisis of the Russian Empire in 1904–1905.

• Jewish Calendar of Significant Dates: January–February 2006

• Bibliography: 55 New Books