The Veil of Moses describes the creation of Russian romantic literary stereotypes which shaped the opinion of the Russian public on the Jews. These stereotypes in turn generated long-lasting habits of dealing with Jews and Jewish themes in Russian culture and politics. This volume introduces a formidable corpus of previously neglected evidence into the scholarship, namely, journalism and second- and third-rank prose. Journalism, influenced by more humane Western attitudes, reflected changes and presented a more objective picture of the Jews. It was the romantic prose, full of mythology and appealing to dark instincts that created the most odious anti-semitic clichés.
