The Russian Czarist government restricted Russian Jewry to the western provinces of the empire through a series of legislative acts, which came to be known as the Pale of Settlement. Starting in the 1

A dominant feature of religious life of the 20th century has been the centrality of the Yeshiva institution for intensive Torah study. The modern yeshiva is a direct byproduct of its antecedents in th

The Czarist government implemented a policy of censorship of all published material in the empire, whether it was imported or printed locally. Though this was a general policy, there were unique parti

In 1827 Czar Nicholas I implemented the military draft on the Jewish community of Russia as a means of integrating Jews into Russian society. The Jewish kahal was required to supply the young recruits

The cradle of the Chassidic movement was in the areas of the Polish Kingdom which were soon annexed to the Russian Empire during the partitions of Poland in the last quarter of the 18th century. This

The aftermath of the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881 was a watershed time period in Russian Jewish history. A reactionary phase led to the passing of the infamous May Laws which restricted

From the time of the first partition of Poland in 1772, until the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Czarist Russian Empire was host to the largest Jewish population in the world. The generally antisemit

World renowned posek of the 19th century, prolific author and courageous leader, Rav Shlomo Kluger (1785-1869) achieved immortality in the Torah world through his nearly half century tenure as Magid a

As the architect of Orthodoxy in the modern era, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) has an outsized impact on the Torah world until this very day. In his own lifetime his leadership of German Jew

One of the leading halachic authorities of the 19th century, Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein (1829-1908) achieved immortality through his indispensable magnum opus Aruch Hashulchan. He grew up in Bobruisk