A Portrait of the Jewish Community of Ekaterinodar before 1917

Today one of the topical problems of the history of the Jews in Russia is the question of the structure of the Jewish communities in small cities of the Russian province in the XIX-the beginning of the XXth. centuries. We could explain it by lack of documental materials which would help us to look into the Jewish community and to examine it from inside. Jewish community in my research is represented as group of individuals, who were active members of community and were on the crossroads of relations between Jews and non-Jewish population and local administration. Ekaterinodar (central city of the Kuban Cossack territory) is a good example for this research. The Jewish population was not numerous there and community even did not have its own rabbi. Some active members participated in public life of Ekaterinodar: in city Duma, in the activity of charitable organizations both Jewish and non-Jewish. And some of them felt themselves “Jewish” and saved the Jewish traditions. As a result of the research a portrait of Jewish community as group of individuals will be illustrated.