title: Childhood and Student Years
abstract: At the turn of the twentieth century about five million Jews lived in Russia’s Pale of Settlement, an area—first established under Tsarina Catherine the Great in 1791 and maintained until 1917—in which they were compelled by law to reside. Representing approximately 60 percent of Europe’s, and 40 percent of the worldwide, total Jewish population, this was by far the largest concentration of Jews in the world. The Pale (meaning “Borders”) of Settlement consisted of some fifteen provinces in Weste