Lev Levanda was born in Minsk. He studied in a local Jewish school and a rabbinical school in Vilna, after which he took a teaching job in Minsk, where he also assisted with editing state textbooks for Jewish children. He began to write articles and fiction in the early 1860s for various Jewish publications in Odessa, St. Petersburg, and Vilna. While he was an assimilationist rather than traditionalist at the beginning of his career, he later became a proponent of Jewish self-defense during pogroms, critic of extreme assimilation, and spokesperson for early Zionism. Levanda’s best known work is the novel Seething Times (1873), which depicts the Jewish response to the Polish uprising of 1863.

Brian Horowitz attended New York University and University of California, Berkeley where he studied Slavic Languages. He holds the Sizeler Family Chair and is professor of Jewish Studies at Tulane University. A recipient of many major awards including Yad Hanadiv, Lady Davis, Alexander Von Humboldt, and Fulbright, he is the author of six books including Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Russian Years (2020); Russian Idea-Jewish Presence (2013); Empire Jews (2009); and Jewish Philanthropy and Enlightenment in Late-Tsarist Russia (2009). His present research is focused on the radical right-wing Zionism in the Mandate period.

“Beautifully translated, and eruditely introduced, An Amateur Performance is a fundamental source for anyone interested in the history of Jewish culture and identity in nineteenth-century Russia. Written by Lev Levanda, one of the most prominent Jewish writers in the Russian language, and a pioneer proponent of the Jewish integrationist dream, this semi-autobiographical novella captures the quandaries of modernization, russification, and reform that faced the Jewish minority in the Russian empire, at a time when optimism began to give way to disillusionment.”

— Elissa Bemporad, Jerry and William Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History and the Holocaust, Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center

“Lev Levanda was one of the most important Russian Jewish intellectuals of his generation; he was a colorful and poignant writer and ideological proponent of the Russian language. Horowitz should be commended for introducing him to the English reading public with An Amatuer Performance, Levanda's portrait of mid nineteenth-century student life in the state sponsored Vilna rabbinical academy.”

— Jeffrey Veidlinger, Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan