A Murder in Lemberg

Introduction 1 PART ONE: THE MURDER AND ITS BACKGROUND Chapter One: Galicia and Its Jews, 1772-1848 9 Chapter Two: Lemberg and Its Jews, 1772-1848 18 Chapter Three: A Reform Rabbi in Eastern Europe 34 Chapter Four: Rabbi Abraham Kohn in Lemberg, 1843-1848 52 Chapter Five: Revolution and Murder 65 PART TWO: THE INVESTIGATION, SENTENCE, AND APPEAL Chapter Six: Abraham Ber Pilpel, Murderer? 81 Chapter Seven: The Indicted Co-Conspirators 97 Chapter Eight: Magdalena Kohn v. the Austrian Empire 107 Conclusion 112 Afterword 121 Acknowledgments 129 Notes 131 Bibliography 143 Index 149 Illustration Section Follows Page 88

Michael Stanislawski is Nathan J. Miller Professor of Jewish History at Columbia University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and Chair of the Interdepartmental Program in Yiddish Studies. His books include "Autobiographical Jews and Zionism" and the "Fin de Siecle".

Stanislawski tells his story with a sharp eye for detail and plot, with the historical context and analysis that students of Jewish history will appreciate. Publishers Weekly Beyond the sheer literary pleasure of his captivating narrative and the inherent novelty of a Galitsianer Jewish murder mystery, the author adds important insights into the complex, now vanished, world that was Jewish Galicia... Michael Stanislawski has written not only an important historical morality tale about the dangers of religious extremism, but also a cautionary tale about the unforeseeable perils unleashed when governments try to force modernity, or, for that matter democracy, on a deeply traditional religious society. -- Allan Nadler Forward Stanislawski ... could not have written this slim, fascinating book without having immersed himself in the municipal archives of Lviv, previously known as Lemberg. -- Sheldon Kirshner Canadian Jewish News A well-paces and dramatic re-examination of the Kohn murder, Murder in Lemberg is, more importantly, a rich and vivid picture of the diverse mid-19th century Jewish life in Eastern Europe, when change was unsettling traditional communities. Jewish Book World In a charming and fascinating book that he has just published--A Murder in Lemberg--Stanislawski says he truly believes that this is not only a fascinating story in and of itself, but also one with abiding importance to all those interested in the modern history and the culture of the Jews, with all of its grandeur and successes, as well as its abundance of tragedy and violence...including internal violence, ultimately stretching from the assassination of Rabbi Abraham Kohn in 1848 to that of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. -- Tom Segev Haaretz In this concise account, Michael Stanislawski expertly uses the crime to show that ideological changes roiling the Jewish world at the time were just as fundamental as those operating on the wider scene, and that these movements acted and reacted