In the period between 1772 and 1881, the majority of Jews lived in hundreds of small towns and villages in the area between the Baltic and Black Seas. With the rise of late absolutism, an epoch of profound transformation began. It led to the dissolution of traditional Jewish autonomy and a forced integration into the non-Jewish environment, combined with the awakening of a national Jewish self-image. This phase ends with the outbreak of Russian pogroms and anti-Semitic legislation in the tsarist empire. Israel Bartal investigates this transformation of a traditional community and discovers in it the origins of Jewish modernity.