Publications

BOOKS | CHAPTERS | ARTICLES

My research to date has focused on the social, cultural, and religious history of the Jews of Eastern Europe, which includes Russia, Poland, and the borderlands: Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia. My first book, Kiev, Jewish Metropolis: A History, 1859-1914, was a study of the Jews of tsarist Kiev, the communal and charitable institutions they built, and their interactions with local authorities and their Christian neighbors.

My second book, Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800-1939, examines the lives and roles of the outcasts of Jewish society in eastern Europe – beggars, madmen and madwomen, disabled people, and poor orphans – and argues that, despite their marginal status, they played an important symbolic role in the process of modernization over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I am also co-editor of Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History, a collection of groundbreaking essays by researchers from Europe, the United States, and Israel that investigate the phenomenon of anti-Jewish violence, the local and transnational responses to pogroms, and instances where violence was averted. 

 

BOOKS

Stepchildren of the Shtetl

Finalist, National Jewish Book Award, History category

Honorable Mention for Outstanding Book Award, Disability History Association

Memoirs of Jewish life in the East European shtetl often recall the hekdesh (town poorhouse) and its residents: beggars, madmen and madwomen, disabled people, and poor orphans. Stepchildren of the Shtetl tells the story of these long overlooked members of east European Jewish society from the dawn of modernity to the eve of the Holocaust. 

Combining archival research with analysis of literary, cultural, and religious texts, Natan M. Meir recovers the lived experience of Jewish society’s outcasts and reveals the central role that they came to play in the drama of modernization. Jewish marginal folk were often made to bear the burden of the nation as a whole, whether as scapegoats in moments of crisis or as symbols of degeneration, ripe for transformation by reformers, philanthropists, and nationalists. Shining a light into the darkest corners of Jewish society in eastern Europe – from the often squalid poorhouse of the shtetl to the slums and insane asylums of Warsaw and Odessa, from the conscription of poor orphans during the reign of Nicholas I to the cholera wedding, a magical ritual in which an epidemic was halted by marrying outcasts to each other in the town cemetery – Stepchildren of the Shtetl reconsiders the place of the lowliest members of an already stigmatized minority. 

Press

Read Rokhl Kafrissen’s column on plague weddingscolumn on plague weddings in Tablet Magazine in which she quotes extensively from Stepchildren of the Shtetl, which she calls “brilliant.”

 

Kiev, Jewish Metropolis: A History, 1859–1914

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Populated by urbane Jewish merchants and professionals as well as new arrivals from the shtetl, imperial Kiev was acclaimed for its opportunities for education, culture, employment, and entrepreneurship but cursed for the often pitiless persecution of its Jews. Kiev, Jewish Metropolis limns the history of Kiev Jewry from the official readmission of Jews to the city in 1859 to the outbreak of World War I. It explores the Jewish community's politics, its leadership struggles, socioeconomic and demographic shifts, religious and cultural sensibilities, and relations with the city's Christian population. Drawing on archival documents, the local press, memoirs, and belles lettres, Natan M. Meir shows Kiev's Jews at work, at leisure, in the synagogue, and engaged in the activities of myriad Jewish organizations and philanthropies.

Kiev, Jewish Metropolis has also been published in Ukrainian by the prestigious academic press Dukh i Litera. 

Reviews

“A home for Jewish merchants and professionals, Imperial Kiev was acclaimed for its cultural, educational, and business opportunities but cursed for its pitiless persecution of Jews. From the readmission of Jews to the city, this book explores the Jewish community’s struggles, shifts, and sensibilities, drawing on archival documents, the local press, memoirs, and belles-lettres.”

“A multidimensional and panoramic picture of Jewish communal life in late Tsarist Kiev. The book is meticulously researched, eminently readable, and rich in detail.”
 — Jeffrey Veidlinger, author of Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire

“Kiev, Jewish Metropolis is a welcome addition to our knowledge of an important city that, [Meir] correctly points out, has remained surprisingly underresearched. Vol. 70.3, Fall 2011”
 — Slavic Review

“Natan Meir’s meticulous new history of Kiev Jewry in the modern period, is an assiduous work of conventional scholarship. Meir provides a thorough, lucid and ultimately heartrending account of the noble successes of Kiev’s Jews in building a solid Jewish community.May 25, 2011”
 — Forward

“Without any doubt this is a very important first monograph on the history of Jews in Kiev, which reveals many new aspects of Jewish life in the city and in the Tsarist Empire and brings one of the largest Jewish communities in Russia into the scholarly orbit. ”
 — Shofar

“Meir has given us a penetrating study. His style of writing is clear and interesting. He knows how to tell a story, arouse curiosity, and sustain interest, a quality that so many academic studies lack. The book merits translation into Hebrew. It is a significant contribution to the historiography of East European Jewry.”
 — Jewish History

“Kiev, Jewish Metropolis . . . is a rich social, cultural, and institutional history of Jewish life in one of its most important and hitherto least understood urban centers. ”
 — The Journal of Modern History

“The author attempted to and succeeded in doing two things: producing 'a history of late-imperial Kiev Jewry and an evaluation of the developent of Jewish life in a Russian city under the last three tsars'. . . . Recommended. April 2011”
 — Choice

“The best books in Russian-Jewish history of recent years continue to question the myths and to look at the facts anew with the help of archival materials and other rare sources. Natan Meir's book does exactly this. . . . As he demonstrates in this book, Natan Meir is a careful and innovative scholar. ”
 — SEER

“Meir's book provides a broad history of Jewish Kiev in the half-century between the loosening of residence restrictions and the outbreak of the First World War, and gives an exceptionally rich portrait of the complex and changing nature of Kiev's Jewish community. ”
 — Revolutionary Russia

“Meir’s book has opened up a number of new perspectives for those interested in Jewish experiences in late imperial Russia, specifically in the city that was then almost equally Jewish, Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish. The book is also indispensable for students of modern Ukrainian history and of Ukrainian-Jewish relations, which has only recently begun attracting serious scholarly attention.”
 — Journal of Ukrainian Studies

“This study . . . represents an important addition to the historiography of Russian Jewry in that it addresses a notable gap in the literature: the Jewish population of late imperial Kiev. . . . Meir’s portrait of Kievan Jewry and its institutional formation is a thoroughly researched study that considers multiple perspectives, namely those of a diverse Jewish community, its competing political leaders, the tsarist government, and provincial and municipal administrators. ”
 — East European Jewish Affairs

“Drawing on archival documents, the local press, memoirs, and belles letters, Meir shows Kiev’s Jews at work, at leisure, in the synagogue, and engaged in the activities of myriad Jewish organizations and philanthropies.74 Winter/Spring 2011”
 — Menorah Review

“There is a great deal to learn and appreciate in this splendid book.Autumn 2013”
 — Journal of Jewish Studies

 

Anti-Jewish Violence

Although overshadowed in historical memory by the Holocaust, the anti-Jewish pogroms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were at the time unrivaled episodes of ethnic violence. Incorporating newly available primary sources, this collection of groundbreaking essays by researchers from Europe, the United States, and Israel investigates the phenomenon of anti-Jewish violence, the local and transnational responses to pogroms, and instances where violence was averted. Focusing on the period from World War I through Russia’s early revolutionary years, the studies in Anti-Jewish Violence include Poland, Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, Crimea, and Siberia.



Reviews

“Some of the newest and most innovative work on the sources of, reactions to, and representations of anti-Jewish violence and pogroms in eastern Europe.”
 — Jeffrey Veidlinger, author of Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire

“Incorporating newly available primary sources, this collection of groundbreaking essays by researchers from Europe, the United States, and Israel investigates the phenomenon of anti-Jewish violence, the local and transnational responses to pogroms, and instances where violence was averted.”

“Anti-Jewish Violence, a major scholarly achievement, is indispensable reading for everybody interested in Russian Jewish history. September, 2011”
 — H-Judaic

“This volume is an important contribution to the study of Jewish-Russian relations from the end of the nineteenth and into the first half of the twentieth century. . . . [T]he articles complement each other and create an interesting and complex narrative of inter-ethnic relations in Eastern Europe and the USSR, drawing on new archival research from across the post-Soviet space. ”
 — Slavonic and East European Review

“[A] very welcome addition to collections on Jewish history and society...”
 — Religious Studies Review

 

CHAPTERS

 

ARTICLES