The Jewish community of the multiethnic and multiconfessional port city of Odesa, the fourth largest city in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century, experienced four-days of deadly violence at the height of the revolution that nearly toppled the tsarist autocracy in October 1905. While antisemitism and anti-Judaic sentiments had long characterized relations between Jews and gentiles in the city, religious animosity did not spark the anti-Jewish pogrom. Rather, a confluence of social, economic, and political factors, in particular the mobilization of pro-tsarist and revolutionary forces and the straitened circumstances of the regime, explains the paroxysm of unplanned violence that left hundreds of Jews dead and many more wounded.

Bob Weinberg is Isaac Clothier Professor of History and International Relations at Swarthmore College, where he teaches courses on Russian, European, and Jewish history. His research has focused on the Jewish Question in tsarist and communist Russia, with particular emphasis on pogroms and revolution, antisemitism, ritual murder, anti-religious campaigns, and efforts to provide a territorial homeland for Soviet Jewry. His books include: The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa (1994); Stalin's Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland (1998); Revolutionary Russia: A History in Documents (with Laurie Bernstein, 2010); Ritual Murder in Late Imperial Russia: The Trial of Mendel Beilis (2013); Ritual Murder in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Beyond: New Histories of An Old Accusation (with Eugende Avrutin and Jonathan Dekel-Chen, 2017); Jews Under Tsars and Communists: The Four Questions (2024).

Pre-Circulated Papers and Registration

The pre-circulated papers will be available one-week prior to the workshop. The paper will be available to the Princeton University community via SharePoint. All others should request a copy of the paper by emailing Shachar Gannot at [email protected].

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