The Jewish Underground of Samarkand: How Faith Defied Soviet Rule

This unpretentious narrative—part personal memoir, part Soviet history—is a revised and abridged (by nearly 400 pages) edition of the 2016 English translation of Samarkand: The Underground with a Far-Reaching Impact. Rabbi Zaltzman tells of his humanitarian efforts in the Jewish underground that flourished between 1946 and the 1970s in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and of his eventual immigration to Israel. He calls this underground community “the Israel of the USSR.” He testifies to the religious fervor and personal commitment to Jewish teaching and learning under near-constant threat of persecution. That it was secular Soviet Jews with governmental authority who worked to eradicate the Jewish faithful renders this even more unfathomable. But the narrative also trips into folksy legends, and there’s nothing really new for people who’ve read the previous edition. The book includes an overabundance of quotation marks to express emphasis, which may be off-putting to some readers. There is a glossary, however, which helps with the many Hebrew and Yiddish words.