Center for Jewish Studies

On March 1, 1881, a radical party called The People�s Will threw a bomb at the carriage of the Russian Czar Alexander II. Later that day he died of his injuries. Two days later a 29-year old Jewish woman named Gesia Gelfman was arrested in the safe house she and several comrades had been renting. After her arrest, Gelfman was condemned to death. But because she was pregnant, her punishment was commuted to a life sentence of hard labor. Her baby died in prison in October, and Gelfman herself died in prison a year later.
Just after the czar was killed, a wave of pogroms devastated Russian Jewry. At the time and later, observers have concluded that popular anger at Gelfman contributed to the intensity of the pogroms. In Podolia, attackers shouted: �the Jews killed the tsar; the fat-bellied Jewess {pregnant Gesia Gelfman} is guilty. She was not hanged; the Jews will free her. So we, the people, just settle accounts with the Jews.� In this talk I explore Gesia Gelfman�s life story as a window into the world of radical populism during the 1870s in Russia.

Deborah Hertz received her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1979. Since then she has taught at the State University of New York at Binghamton, Sarah Lawrence College and, since 2004, has held the Herman Wouk Chair in Modern Jewish Studies at the University of California at San Diego. She has held visiting professorships at the Hebrew University, Harvard University [twice], Haifa University and Tel Aviv University. Her talk is taken from the first chapter of her book in progress, WHY JEWISH WOMEN BECAME RADICALS IN RUSSIA AND BEYOND.

Co-Sponsors: St Paul Jewish Community Center, Temple of Aaron, National Council of Jewish Women St Paul Section, Beth Jacob Congregation, U of M Department of History
Center for Jewish Studies: 612-624-2914 or jwst@umn.edu
Beth Jacob Congregation: (651) 452-2226