1. The possible existence of a pre-Ashkenazic and/or early Ashkenazic Jewish community (or, to be precise, several separate Jewish enclaves) in medieval Russia remains a matter of scholarly controversy. Still open are such specific questions as the origin, nature, number, and religious adherence (that is, primarily Rabbanite or Talmudist versus Karaite) of Jewish settlers in medieval Russia, even if their presence in limited numbers is assumed or deemed plausible. The following remarks, offered by someone not familiar with relevant Hebrew sources but conversant with Old Russian writings, are aimed at shedding light on at least a few of these questions by examining or rather reexamining some of the scanty documentary evidence of the vernacular sources. In addition to telling about Jewish life in the towns of medieval Russia (notably Kiev), these sources, as we might expect, testify to considerable anti-Jewish sentiments among the indigenous East Slavic population, thus revealing contemporary attitudes towards the small Jewish community in medieval Russian society. Our discussion will therefore also take note of this early manifestation of Slavic anti-Semitism (deliberately using the term here with its modern, that is, racist, implication, and not merely its connotation of religious intolerance).2. Most modern outlines of Jewish history-for example, the recent presentation by Abba Eban, written for a general public but based on independent research and thorough acquaintance with secondary literature-assume the existence of a Jewish settlement in southern Russia formed mainly by immigrants from the Orient during the first centuries of documented Russian history (tenth through thirteenth centuries);1 in this, on the one hand, they
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