The implementation of perestroika and the unexpected collapse of the USSR provoked unease that long-underlying ethnic tensions could erupt in strife in the post-Soviet world. Of particular concern in Ukraine was one of history's fault lines in the region?the relations between Jews and Ukrainians.

In this collection of articles, lectures, presentations, and research, the author, a writer and an activist during this period of change, through firsthand experience offers an overview of the bold hopes of the Ukrainian and Jewish intellectual elite, as well as of the multifaceted and complicated reality and disappointments that thwarted these hopes.