ABSTRACT
Historians have tended to focus either on anarchist theory or on the institutions which anarchists created, especially clubs and periodicals. In this way, they have defined the various strands of anarchist philosophy and the main directions of anarchist activity. In Yiddish anarchist memoirs and histories, one regularly encounters words and phrases for self-sacrifice; the willingness to sacrifice; the ability to sacrifice; and devotion. The waning popularity of anarchism in the twentieth century may well be related to the declining influence of religious values in the West. A source for Saul Yanovsky's cult of self-sacrifice was the Russian revolutionary movement. It was in Bialystok that he first read illegal Russian radical writings and discussed them with a young man named Philip Blokh. By looking at the announcements and articles in Yiddish anarchist periodicals, it would be possible to reconstruct the Jewish anarchists' ritual year and how it changed over time.
