Publications

Researchers exploring Jewish literacy have traditionally ignored the Russian Census of 1897 on the grounds that it underreported Jewish literacy. Most have felt that the low literacy percentage reported for Jews could not possibly be accurate and therefore scholars have ignored the value of the Census as a research tool. In a study that compares the results of the 1897 Census with the 1926 Soviet Census, Senior Scholar Joel Perlmann concludes that the 1897 Census is more accurate than past scholars have acknowledged.