This issue of the magazine includes:

• Review: New Archival Guide Came out of Press

The program of preparing and issuing Jewish archival guides has been existed in the post-Soviet countries for nearly 20 years. From 1997 to 2009 five volumes were published dedicated to the archives of Moscow, Belarus, Kiev, and several areas of Ukraine. Recently, the 6th volume was released, starting the new three-volume series of guides entitled Jewish Documentary Sources in Saint Petersburg Archives. The reviewer analyzes some limitations and omissions of the volume’s structure and content but his general conclusion is positive: the appearance of one more archival guide is an occasion to celebrate for all those interested in the history and culture of Jews in Russia.

• Memoirs: Jews and Others, or, Ten Years at a Jewish Newspaper

In this issue, the magazine finishes publishing a series of excerpts from a new book of memoirs by the journalist and public figure Nikolay Propirny. The author’s recollections about the formation of Jewish community institutions in the USSR during the early years of Perestroika are full of humor and irony, and sometimes bitter sarcasm.

• Looking Through Russian Literary Magazines: Novels and Articles of Jewish Interest

• Response: A Rich Man’s Folly

The author of this article sharply criticizes the new collection of Itzik Manger’s poems and ballads in translations from Yiddish into Russian that was recently published in Moscow. The publishers attempted to prepare a “collector’s edition”—they used enameled paper, spared no expense for gold and silver paint, and issued just 250 copies that are packed in special cardboard boxes. Despite all this, the dilettantism of both the publishers and translator is obvious. The reviewer concludes: “It is not so rare when a book with tiny print-run becomes a significant cultural event. The new Manger’s collection will not become such an event. It will stay someone’s expensive but senseless toy, naughtiness, a rich man’s folly.”

• Jewish Calendar of Significant Dates: July–August 2011

• Bibliography: 55 New Books