Ellie Schainker employs statistical data as well as numerous conversion stories to address two questions: what made some Jews in the Russian empire convert and how did this decision affect their ongoing relationship with both the Jewish and the Christian societies. She claims that conversion often resulted from inter-communal sociability as well as from tensions within the Jewish community; however, it rarely led to a clean break from the Jewish social milieu.

The author claims that the status of the converts, located between two confessional communities, was unacceptable to both. The Jews, therefore, in spite of the initial violent reaction to conversion, never perceived a convert as a stranger, and the Christian communities never perceived a convert as belonging to the Christian population. The converts, in their transgression, represented a challenge to inter-communal boundaries. Neither the Christians nor the Jews were willing to accept this blurring of boundaries and did whatever they could to prevent the converts from bridging the divide. Since this made the lives of many converts impossible, the author claims that a considerable number searched for ways to return to Judaism. Since leaving Christianity for Judaism was illegal in the Russian empire, former converts lived under assumed names and risked imprisonment if discovered.

Schainker confronts the prevalent view that the majority converted for social and professional advancement. She points out that the majority of converts were either women or lower-class men who could not hope for enhanced social mobility opportunities after conversion. She therefore opts to focus on these more prevalent cases and examine converts who clearly left one religious community for another for personal or confessional reasons, rather than economic ones.

Since such converts rarely had independent economic resources, many had no way to support themselves either during or after the conversion. Schainker discusses the efforts of the authorities as well as those of government-sponsored philanthropists to assist them. She also points out that some converts worked for these programs, and in fact these programs often provided converts with a lucrative alternative to their pre-conversion occupation as well as a recognized place within their new confessional society. She points out that the majority of the Jews converted to Russian Orthodoxy rather than to other Christian confessions specifically due to the proselytizing of Jewish converts as well as that of their Russian Orthodox neighbors.

Jews often, she claims, decided to convert because of everyday encounters with Jewish-Christians (most Russian Orthodox) within common social spaces, as for example in a local inn. Christian neighbors and locally-stationed Christian soldiers and officers often assisted potential converts. The support from the government and philanthropists frequently stopped shortly after conversion, however. The converts left Jewish society, but, as the author emphasized, were rarely fully accepted within the Christian community. Thus converts, particularly poorer converts, could not distance themselves socially from their Jewish families and societies. Consequently, both the government and the local Christians typically questioned the sincerity of their conversion. Faced with these conflicting social pressures, some converts became crypto-Jews, and in 1905, when it became legally possible, returned to Judaism.

This is an interesting book on an important topic. Still, there were several issues I found somewhat unclear. Schainker claims to describe the majority of converts, that is, those from the lower classes, for whom social advancement through conversion was unlikely. She supports her claims through statistical data and through numerous stories of conversion. She did not correlate these two types of data clearly, however. The stories rarely align with the majority categories according to the statistical data that she provides. Therefore, it is often unclear how typical the stories that Schainker discusses actually are. Additionally, Schainker could have strengthened her argument if she had incorporated into her analysis more of the actual texts, instead of relying so heavily on paraphrased versions of them. This reviewer also would be happier if she had included more analysis of the increased numbers of female converts in the late nineteenth century, beyond a claim that they largely converted due to romantic engagements.

Nevertheless, the book constitutes a good overview of Jewish conversion in late imperial Russia and thus an important contribution to the history of the Jewish community at that time and place.