Reinventing religion: Jewish religion textbooks in Russian Gymnasia

This article examines 10 textbooks used in Jewish religion classesin Russian high schools in the final decades of the 19th century. The textbooks reveal an expectation of a low level of Hebrew background, an interest in promoting the practice of prayer, and two distinct approaches to teaching Judaism. While some of the books introduce students to their religion through Biblical or later Jewish history, others present the religion as a systematic set of beliefs and practices. Although it is difficult to ascertain exactly how the books were utilized in classrooms, they certainly provide a sense of the priorities of a group of educators, as well as of the relative freedom they had in defining Judaism for the next generation.