Roman Katsman is an Israeli scholar of Hebrew and Russian literature. He was born in Ukraine in 1969, repatriated to Israel in 1990, and is currently a full professor at Bar-Ilan University and head of the program for Jewish-Russian literature. His most recent books, published by Academic Studies Press, examine Israeli Russian-language literature.

Maxim D. Shrayer, bilingual author, scholar, and translator, is a professor at Boston College. Shrayer was born in Moscow in 1967 and immigrated to the US in 1987. His recent books include A Russian Immigrant: Three Novellas and Of Politics and Pandemics. Shrayer’s new literary memoir, Immigrant Baggage, was published in 2023.

Roman Katsman is an Israeli scholar of Hebrew and Russian literature. He was born in Ukraine in 1969, repatriated to Israel in 1990, and is currently a full professor at Bar-Ilan University and head of the program for Jewish-Russian literature. His most recent books, published by Academic Studies Press, examine Israeli Russian-language literature.

Maxim D. Shrayer, bilingual author, scholar, and translator, is a professor at Boston College. Shrayer was born in Moscow in 1967 and immigrated to the US in 1987. His recent books include A Russian Immigrant: Three Novellas and Of Politics and Pandemics. Shrayer’s new literary memoir, Immigrant Baggage, was published in 2023.

“Russian-Israeli literature is, perhaps, the most fascinating of all the literatures to have been created and still being created in the Russian language outside the boundaries of the Russian Empire, the USSR and the post-Soviet spaces. While the title of this book contains the modest term ‘studies,’ the book in fact carries out a tremendously complex task: to conceptualize the corpus of Russian-Israeli literature by concentrating the work along two principal axes, historical-cultural and generic. Additionally challenges faced by the book’s editors and contributors had to do with the fact that a significant part of Russian-Israeli literature resists cross-cultural translation into any of the dominant languages of contemporary culture. Much of what has been created by Russian-Israeli writers could be translated as ‘thoughtcrime.’ The project of delineating the historical contours of Russian-Israeli literature and to understand its provenance and development lies at the very heart of this remarkable book.”

—Dennis Sobolev, Professor, University of Haifa, author of The Split World of Gerard Manley Hopkins

“While this book features many different authors and diverse objects of investigation, it also creates a panoramic view of Russian-Israeli literature—both in style and in chronology. The book should be of great interest to scholars and general readers alike. The very notion of ‘Russian-Israeli literature’ (similarly to the notion of ‘Russian-American literature’) will doubtless illicit questions. Some readers might even ask: And where does the writer belong if she or he has two addresses, sometimes even simultaneously, in two different countries? In what category should we place translations into the Russian language? What is the principal difference between Russian-Israeli literature and, say, Yiddish-Israeli or Polish-Israeli literatures? In other words, this book not only offers a great deal of new materials but also invites us to think of the directions of further research.”

—Gennady Estraikh, Professor, New York University, author of Transatlantic Russian Jewishness