Antony Polonsky

The Jews in Poland and Russia is a multi-volume history of Jewish communities and political life in Eastern Europe. It covers religious and cultural development, relations with states and neighbors, antisemitism, wartime destruction, and the Holocaust.

Polonsky specializes in Polish-Jewish history, Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and the history of the Holocaust. His work follows communities across the changing political boundaries of Poland, Russia, and neighboring states.

He treats Jewish communities as an integral part of the social and political history of Poland rather than as a separate subject. The analysis covers everyday life, institutions, political relations, antisemitism, and the destruction of Jewish communities during the Second World War.

The multi-volume study provides the longer political and social background needed to understand wartime destruction. It places the Holocaust within the history of Jewish communities, state policies, antisemitism, and Eastern European politics.