A colorful account of the transformation of one of Europe's
foremost Jewish cities, told through the stories of its
geniuses and villains.
Italian merchants, Greek freedom fighters, and Turkish
seamen; a Russian empress and her favorite
soldier-bureaucrats; Jewish tavern keepers, traders, and
journalists—these and many others seeking fortune and
adventure rubbed shoulders in Odessa, the greatest port on
the Black Sea.
Here a dream of cosmopolitan freedom inspired geniuses and
innovators, from Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel to
Zionist activist Vladimir Jabotinsky and immunologist Ilya
Mechnikov. Yet here too was death on a staggering scale: not
only the insidious plagues common to seaports but also the
mass murder of Jews carried out by the Romanian occupation
during World War II. Drawing on a wealth of original source
material, Odessa is an elegy for the vibrant, multicultural
tapestry of which a thriving Jewish population formed an
essential part, as well as a celebration of the survival of
Odessa's dream in a diaspora reaching all the way to
Brighton Beach. 25 black-and-white illustrations
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