ABSTRACT
This article emphasises the unique aspects of Odessa and their influence on the history of East European Jewry. These included the city’s newness (founded in 1798) and openness to settlers of any ethnic or religious background. The numerous economic opportunities – so different from the shtetl economy of the Jewish heartland in the Pale of Settlement – attracted Jewish settlers from both the Russian and Austrian Empires. Given its unique characteristics, the city played a major role in the development of Jewish culture, but primarily those contributions marked by novelty and innovation. These included the ideologies of Zionism and Jewish varieties of socialism, as well as a modern Jewish press in Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish, and the modern Yiddish stage. The economic dynamism of Odessa gave rise to socio-economic differentiation in the Jewish community which was far different from that of the towns of the Pale of Settlement.
