Jews and Revolution
Tuition: $360 | YIVO members: $270**
This is a live, online course held on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, recordings of class sessions, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English, and any readings will be in English.
Instructor: Tony Michels
For more than a century, the Russian Revolution has commanded the attention of Jews around the globe. In the eyes of its admirers, the “Soviet experiment” had liberated workers, women, and national minorities from ancient oppressions. It had registered great achievements in the realms of culture and education and proved that rational economic planning was possible. To its detractors, the Bolshevik party-state had produced economic chaos and a totalitarian bureaucracy. It had quashed workers’ liberty, artistic and intellectual creativity, and all forms of individuality. The one thing observers could agree on was the fact that the revolution’s significance extended far beyond Russia. This course will explore the ways in which Jews in the United States and Russia engaged with revolutionary ideologies and political movements during the first half of the twentieth century. We will consider a variety of historical documents—polemics, reportage, autobiographies, party programs, etc.—representing multiple political perspectives.
Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.
Questions? Read our 2026 Winter Program FAQ.
Tony Michels teaches American Jewish history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also serves as director of the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies. He is author of A Fire in Their Hearts: Jewish Socialists in New York, editor of Jewish Radicals: A Documentary History, and co-editor of The Cambridge History of Judaism. Volume Eight: The Modern World, 1815-2000.
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