Cain may have been the first to ask, "Am I my Brother's Keeper?" but Jews in different lands have answered this question in different ways over the millennia. Their brotherly actions on behalf of those in need have included the giving of charity, the organization of welfare services, reconstruction projects, intercession with governments and the mobilization of public opinion. Over the last 150 years, one of the consistent targets of this Jewish transnational intercession has been East European Jewry, where the knowledge of the repression and impoverishment against their brethren has sparked Jews in Western Europe and the Americas to action.

This pamphlet, part of the holdings of the Library at the Katz Center at Penn, was published by the Russo-Jewish Committee of British Jewry in 1891; it attempted to draw public attention among English-speakers everywhere to the plight of Russia's Jews. Historians may still argue about the degree to which this, and subsequent, mobilizations in the Jewish world pushed the Russian and Soviet regimes toward improving their treatment of Jews. Whatever the outcome of these scholarly debates, it is nonetheless true that efforts like these forced the issue of Russian and Soviet Jewry closer to the news headlines and the global agenda than otherwise would have been the case.