This issue of the magazine includes:

• Memoirs: On the History of Jewish Press in Russia

The magazine continues to publish fragments from the memoirs of the prominent Jewish historian and journalist Saul Ginsburg (1866–1940). The memoirs deal with the history of Der fraynd—the first Yiddish daily in Russia. The latest fragment describes the attempts of the czarist government to bribe the editors and to use Der fraynd, the most widespread and influential Jewish newspaper in the beginning of the 20th century, for encouraging mass emigration of the Jews out of the country.

• Problem: Anti-Semitism in France, a View from Russia

The article discusses Michel Wieviorka’s book, The Anti-Semitic Temptation: Hatred of Jews in Contemporary France, published recently in Russian translation. The reviewer compares the French phenomenon of “new anti-Semitism,” which is connected mostly with leftist ideology, with the situation in Russia where, because of the general crisis in the left wing and the absence of a large Arab population, anti-Semitism has a different social and ideological basis.

• Point of View: Isaac Babel and Sholem Aleichem

This article presents an argument with Alexander Zholkovsky’s new book dedicated to the analysis of Isaac Babel’s short stories and, in particular, Sholem Aleichem’s influences on Babel. The author of this article finds that Yiddish literature is still terra incognita for Russian philologists who, for many years, have ignored its existence as an integral part of the Russian literary process.

• Response: Some Nuances of Art-Criticism

This article discusses an album of paintings by the prominent Jewish artist Yehuda Pen (1854–1937), which was recently published in Minsk. The author strongly criticizes the introduction to this album for its attempts to underestimate the “Jewish identity” of Yehuda Pen’s artistic and public activity.

• Jewish Calendar of Significant Dates: September–October 2007

• Bibliography: 45 New Books