Investor Presentaiton
emancipation from the Jewish tradition."77 For many Jewish youths, however, obtaining quality
education was exceedingly difficult due to legal and financial limitations.
Kaganovich's early education was fraught with such difficulties. Originally, he was
supposed to study at the heder in the local synagogue, but according to his parents it was
primitive, and they did not want him to study there. 78 To them, the school was primitive because
it lacked Russian classes and did not teach general education topics.79 Russian classes were
particularly important to Kaganovich because the language of his village was Ukrainian, but like
many other youths in the Pale he wished to speak Russian. According to Kaganovich's self-
written personal file from the 1920s, he spoke Russian, Ukrainian, and had "a weak command of
Yiddish."80 While it is unclear if Kaganovich spoke Ukrainian or Yiddish at home, his deep
desire to learn Russian is evident in his memoir.81
On the school system of his village, Kaganovich notes that "the two-class school that
existed in the village did not accept the children of Jewish non-landowners although later I
studied there unofficially."82 Before this, Kaganovich's parents and those of some other Jewish
77 Ibid, 130.
78
Kaganovich provides very little information about the synagogue and never mentions any instances where he or
his family attended services there. Additionally, he offers no indication of ever observing any Jewish traditions or
customs.
79 Kaganovich, Pamiatnye zapiski, 37.
80
Rees, Iron Lazar, 3.
81 The question of what language Kaganovich grew up speaking is particularly confusing because according to the
file he wrote in the 1920s, he spoke Ukrainian but only had a weak command of Yiddish. This would make sense
considering he grew up outside of the Jewish colony in Kabany and would be able to communicate with his
neighbors more easily in Ukrainian than Yiddish. However, Terry Martin describes him as having "a weak
command of Ukrainian" in 1925, and claims Kaganovich told a group of Ukrainian representatives he promised to
learn the language in order to give his next speech in Ukrainian, which he failed to do in 1925. There is no clear
answer to this discrepancy. (Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet
Union, 1923-1939, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), 85.)
82
Kaganovich, Pamiatnye zapiski, 37.
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