From the Shtetl to the Barricades: How Jewish Women Became Political in Russia and Beyond

In this talk, Professor Deborah Hertz describes the living and working lives of young Jewish girls in Russia in the late 19th century. She shows how a commercialized marriage system, the business wife tradition, and neglect of the girls’ Jewish education all contributed to the decisions of many of them to join radical movements. In the second part of the talk, she surveys the political choices they made, with special attention to their conflicts about Zionism.

About Deborah Hertz:
Professor Deborah Hertz is the Herman Wouk Chair in Modern Jewish Studies at UCSD, where she teaches German, Jewish, and women’s history. She is the author of Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin (Yale University Press, 1988) and How Jews Became Germans (Yale University Press, 2007), both of which were translated into German. Her current book project in progress is: “Visionaries, Lovers and Mothers: Jewish Radical Women from Conspiracy to Kibbutz.”