An Answer to the Slav

Educated in both a European and a traditional Jewish fashion, Reuben (Ruvim) Kulisher was one of the first Jewish students to graduate from a Russian university. A physician, he served in the Russian army medical corps and, from 1860, was on the staff of the Kiev Military Hospital. He also published widely in the Russian and Hebrew press on medical topics, Jewish history, communal living, and education. While still a student, Kulisher penned the famous poem “Otvet slavianinu” (“An Answer to the Slav”), a work that circulated in manuscript form for decades before being published in 1911. There he expresses the alienation of the Jew in Russian society, demands equality, and condemns Slavic antisemitism. His memoirs were serialized in the Russian Jewish journal Voskhod (1892–1894) and published in expanded book form in 1896.