From Grit to Glamour: The Journey of the Gunzburgs, the Russian Rothschilds with Evgenia Kempinski - 2-part series

This is a CSP Members-only program

Join us for a 2-part summer mini-series focusing on the illustrious Gunzburg family, whose extraordinary wealth and influence in the 19th century contrasted starkly with the prevailing hardship faced by many Russian Jews. We begin in Kamenets-Podolsk, where patriarch Joseph Efzel used a state concession to amass wealth and political sway through alcohol production, becoming a vital component of the Russian Empire's fiscal machinery. With the advent of economic reform in the 1860s, the Gunzburgs leveraged new opportunities to penetrate the world of private banking, propelling them beyond the Pale of Settlement into St. Petersburg and Paris. From constructing the Grand Choral Synagogue to hosting lavish Sabbath dinners against a backdrop of Italian opera, their unique blend of tradition and high culture will be an illuminating case study.

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