Before 1917, the Russian Tsar wielded absolute power over a vast empire, where more than 5 million Jews lived in isolation and segregation. Under the rule of Tsar Nicholas I (1825–1855), policies toward Jews became especially oppressive. Nicholas sought to erase Jewish identity by forcing their conversion to Christianity and promoting assimilation through mixed marriages. One of his most...

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest works of fiction, written long before Homer's ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey,’ the greatest literary masterpiece of the Ancient East, which for the first time describes the myth of the Great Flood. The reader is presented with the story of the glorious deeds of the demigod king-warrior Gilgamesh (whose image is based on a real historical figure, Bilgames, the...

This book is dedicated to the study of the work of the artist and poet Mikhail Grobman. One of the most important representatives of the Moscow artistic and literary avant-garde of the 1960s, he emigrated to Israel in 1971, where he became famous for his performances in the Judean Desert, carried out by the group ‘Leviathan,’ which he founded. Grobman's art occupies a special place between...