Michael Stanislawski. A Murder in Lemberg: Politics, Religion, and Violence in Modern Jewish History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2007. Pp. vi, 152. $21.95

Sometimes a single event sheds light on an entire historical era. Clearly Michael Stanislawski sees the murder of Reform Rabbi Abraham Kohn in Lemberg (now L'viv, Ukraine) on September 6, 1848 as one such epoch-revealing occurrence. Kohn died from eating soup that had been poisoned, probably by Abraham Ber Pilpel, who, Stanislawski argues, objected to Kohn's innovations in ritual practice. For Stanislawski the murder reveals tensions within the Lemberg Jewish community, in particular between traditional Jews and new trends in Judaism that challenged old practices and beliefs. The city of Lemberg provides a unique case study because of its overwhelmingly traditional community located within the Austrian state where the Jewish Reform movement had numerous adherents (mainly, of course, in the western, German-speaking part of the state). Thus the story of Kohn's murder in mid-nineteenth-century Lemberg provides a snapshot of...