Making Jews Modern

On the eve of the 20th century, Jews in the Russian and Ottoman empires were caught up in the major cultural and social transformations that constituted modernity for Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewries. What did it mean to be Jewish and Russian, Jewish and Ottoman, Jewish and modern? To answer these questions, Sarah Abrevaya Stein explores the texts most widely consumed by Jewish readers: popular newspapers in Yiddish and Ladino. This skilful comparative study yields new perspectives on the role of print culture in imagining national and trans-national communities and the diverse ways in which modernity was envisioned under the rule of empire.Sarah Abrevaya Stein is Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Henry M. Jackson School at the University of Washington.