Liberal answers to the 'Jewish Question': then and now

This paper began its journey in 1998 as my master’s thesis under the guidance of Gregory Freeze.¹ This celebratory volume for our teacher, mentor, and friend allows me an opportunity to reconsider the issues explored those many years ago, now in light of events that transpired during the intervening seventeen years. Back in the late 1990s, post-Soviet states were in transition. The Russian Federation—despite bouts of political and economic volatility—appeared to be on a winding path toward economic and political liberalism. My thesis, which explored the “Jewish question” in high-circulation newspapers in late Imperial Russia, resonated with an...