Daughter of the Shtetl: The Memoirs of Doba-Mera Medvedeva - Paperback

by Doba-Mera Medvedeva (Author), Alice Nakhimovsky (Editor), Alice Nakhimovsky (Translator)

Daughter of the Shtetl is an unusual memoir by an uneducated but sharply observant Jewish woman. Through the eyes of Doba-Mera, we experience the class divisions in shtetl and synagogue; pogroms and wars; working conditions in sewing shops; revolutionary circles around 1905; as well as aspects of everyday life such as education, courtship, housing, food, and illness.

Author Biography

Alice Nakhimovsky is Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Colgate University. She is best known for her book Russian Jewish Literature and Identity (Johns Hopkins, 1991). Her latest book, Dear Mendel, Dear Reyzel: Yiddish Letter Manuals in Russia and America (Indiana University Press, 2015), written with Roberta Newman, won a National Jewish Book Award.

Historian Michael Beizer of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, is the author of numerous books and articles on Russian Jewry. His Jews of St. Petersburg, out in three languages, was a groundbreaking study of a group whose existence, at the time, was barely acknowledged. His latest book is Relief in a time of Need: Russian Jewry and the Joint, 1919-1924 (Slavica, 2015).