Investor Presentaiton

72 desire for literacy and a modern secular education, with an emphasis on learning Russian. 2 Other important traits were a move away from the rural home towards industrial cities and urban jobs, and a more metaphorical move away from traditional beliefs and orthodox behavior towards revolutionary belief and activities.73 While Kaganovich was not raised in an extremely devout religious family, his experiences nevertheless align with the Jewish revolutionary trajectory in an interesting way which places him in a unique position as a young Jewish man living amidst both the Bolshevik and Jewish revolutions. Education Education is one of the ways that Kaganovich's life overlaps most significantly with others within the Jewish revolution. In the Jewish Century Slezkine argues "the Russian Revolution was a combination of popular uprisings, religious crusades, ethnic wars, colonial conquests, and clashing coalitions. One part of the mix was the Jewish revolution against 9974 Jewishness." Inseparable from the Jewish revolution against Jewishness was Jewish integration into Russian high culture and new educational and intellectual pursuits. Or in other words, "an eager conversion to the Pushkin faith," as Slezkine describes. 75 Receiving a modern secular education and learning the Russian language were vital if one wanted to rebel against Jewishness because "speaking was the key to reading; reading was the key to everything else."76 that "the Jewish tradition of emancipation through reading had been extended to the This meant 72 Shtakser, The Making of Jewish revolutionaries, 41-43. 73 Slezkine, The Jewish Century, 206. 74 Ibid, 167. 75 Ibid, 127. 76 Ibid, 129. 22

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