By right, this book has become one of the most popular Jewish books in Russian: an accessible source of the basic information about Jewish faith and life—usable both as a textbook and as a reference work, and it gives an integral impression of the Jewish world. It is distinguished above all by encyclopedic coverage, a compact form, and a popular style of exposition.
In a sense, it is an encyclopedia containing a systematized summary of the core knowledge about Jewish religion, history, and public life from the earliest times up to the beginning of the 1990s. It consists of 346 article-essays grouped into 15 thematic parts arranged in historical sequence. The world of Jewish religious tradition is presented through chapters devoted to the Bible, the Talmud, and other most important sources; to ethics and the foundations of faith; to the Jewish calendar; to life-cycle rituals connected with synagogue and home; and to prayers. The edition also includes a brief description of the main events in the history of the Jewish people—from Abraham to the end of the 20th century—with separate chapters devoted to the State of Israel, the Catastrophe (the Holocaust), and the lives of American and Soviet Jews.