While I usually do not read this genre one must always try to gain more knowledge.This book dispels so many myths about Rasputin and the Russians and the way he felt about the Jewish people and the wrongs that were committed against them. I enjoyed reading the historical facts and learning about this man and the times he lived in. ( )

It takes a special kind of person to undertake the task of changing deeply held perceptions of a historical character when there is no prospect of personal gain, yet that's what Delin Colón has done with Rasputin & the Jews: A Reversal of History.

To most people who know little about him, the name, Rasputin, conjures up an image of someone disheveled, evil and debauched. If they know a little more, they may be aware of his reputation for having supernatural powers which he used to exert mind control over Czarina Alexandra, as well as his proximity to Czar Nicholas II to advance his own purposes. The stories of the many attempts to murder him -- he was stabbed, poisoned, shot 3 times, bound and thrown into the river before he finally died, though it was never clear which of these actions ultimately did him in -- only built upon the legend of his dark powers as well as the need, by so many, to get rid of him. Although no one denies that Rasputin was unkempt-looking, he was, in reality, a monk with what seemed like an ability to predict the future (though it was often just common sense), and a deep concern for the downtrodden.

Inspired by the published memoir of her great-uncle, Aron Simanovich, who was Rasputin's Jewish secretary, as well as biographies written by Rasputin's daughters, and memoirs from the Czar's court, Colón demonstrates that Rasputin was maligned in history because he supported proper treatment of the Jews, much to the disdain of the Russian nobility and the Czar's officers who were fervent anti-Semites and who jockeyed amongst themselves for the Czar's favor.

Nicholas II, the last Czar of Russia, the last of the Romanov dynasty, blamed the Jews for all of Russia's and their own problems, so it was quite surprising to learn that Rasputin was an ardent supporter and defender of the Jews. He sought to get Nicholas to call off planned pogroms, and helped get Jewish youths into Universities once the quota had been filled. He also advised Nicholas not to launch the Russo-Japanese War, the loss of which resulted in Russia losing its superpower status. Despite his many efforts and privileged access to Czarina Alexandra (she begged him to use his mystical powers to heal the crown price of hemophilia), Rasputin was never able to change Czar Nicholas' thinking about the Jews. He did, however, dissuade Nicholas from conducting a few pogroms, and used his position and high-level connections to help get Jews into Universities, without benefitting, himself. But this didn't calm the paranoia within the Czar's court. Rasputin's support wasn't out of any special connection or obligation to the Jewish people, but simply because he was concerned for all oppressed individuals, and no one at the time was more oppressed than the Jews.

Colón draws a vivid picture of what life was like for Jews during Nicholas II's reign over the Russian-occupied territories to show the environment in which Rasputin operated. Among the many way the Czar persecuted the Jews (beyond the pogroms) were many laws that made ordinary survival very difficult. For example, in order for a Jew to get into an institution of higher learning, his family needed to pay tuition for multiple Christian students. If a Jew was allowed to practice his profession, he was allowed to do only that, so "if an apothecary's assistant, unable to find work, opened a druggist's shop, for which his training qualified him," this was considered a "change of occupation, leading to the forfeiture of his residence." While Rasputin knew he was beating his head against a brick wall when it came to trying to talk to Nicholas about fair or equal treatment for the Jews, who had already, 100 years earlier, been banished to the Pale of Settlement by Catherine the Great, yet he never stopped to worry about his own welfare when he was looking out for people who needed a defender.

Simanovich, Rasputin's Jewish secretary who witnessed his boss' selfless acts of kindness, wrote his memoir to document the actions of a man who, during his lifetime, had been repeatedly maligned by those who feared the loss of their position or privileged status, and by history. Yet where Simanovich failed, Colón succeeded by drawing on multiple resources. And like Rasputin's selfless acts of kindness, Colón, too, was only motivated by doing what was morally correct.

Rasputin & the Jews: A Reversal of History is a work of scholarship that urges us to rethink acquired prejudices. And what it points out is that Rasputin was as much a victim of anti-Semitism as was the Jewish population whom he sought to defend.

Bryna Kranzler, author of The Accidental Anarchist

This eye-opening book relies on dozens of sources, people close to Rasputin, friends and enemies, and reveals the truth about him. Delin Colon is the great-great niece of Rasputin’s Jewish secretary.

Grigory Rasputin (born around 1870, died by assassination in 1916) was an uneducated, nearly illiterate, but highly intelligent and very religious man. He made a couple of pilgrimages to Israel. He was the spiritual advisor to Russia’s last Tsar and Tsarina. He was unfairly vilified by the fanatically anti-Semitic Russian society because, contrary to them, he advocated equal rights for all of Russia’s citizens, including peasants, the poverty-stricken, and Jews; his strong ethically-held anti-war views; and his opposition to the death penalty. The distorted history by his detractors pictures this saintly man as hypnotizing the Tsar and his wife and forcing them to obey his wishes. Actually, the Tsar frequently refused to follow Rasputin’s advice.

Rasputin “took up the causes of the oppressed, sometimes receiving up to 200 people a day.” He prayed with people and gave spiritual advice. He never took a penny for his services. He was an empathic and herbal healer, a man of peace who wanted to avoid war because he realized that it would result in millions of deaths, including cruelty to enemy soldiers and civilians, and would lead to the demise of his country. (Russia lost four million lives during World War I.) His strongly-held views about equal rights for all people took no cognizance of the person’s faith and background. He felt that “all religions were valuable and were just different ways of understanding God.” He opposed the death penalty because he was convinced that many condemned people were innocent.

Delin Colon describes in detail the terrible history of anti-Semitism and oppression of Jews in Russia by all but one ruler since Peter the Great spread the fear and paranoia about Jews during his rule from 1696 to 1725. He said that he’d rather have Muslim in Russia than Jews. There were times when Jews were expelled from Russia. Horrible restrictions were always placed upon them that affected every aspect of life. There were many “pogroms,” state sponsored murders of Jewish communities, where lives were lost and property confiscated.

Rasputin criticized these practices. “Instead of organizing pogroms and accusing Jews of all evils, we would do better to criticize ourselves.” In 1910, he took the side of 307 Jewish dentists who were charged with becoming dentists only to avoid having to live in the pale, the area the government insisted that Jews live. He saved them from being killed. In 1913, he stood up for Mendel Bellis at the infamous “blood libel trial,” where Jews were accused of killing Christians and using their blood when they baked matzot for Passover. He helped Jewish children enter schools despite restrictive quotas. He stopped some pogroms by alerting the Jewish community of the intended attack. During World War I, he helped free a Jewish doctor from a German prison. These are only several of the many humanitarian acts that Colon describes in her book.

The Tsar brought Rasputin to his court in 1905 because he heard that Rasputin was a mystical man, and the Tsar was very superstitious. He also heard that he was a healer; and Rasputin later used herbs to stem the bleeding of the hemophiliac son of the Tsar. However, the Tsar did not always listen to his advice. “When the Tsar issued a manifesto promising autonomy to Poland, Rasputin encouraged him to also grant equal rights to the Jews,” but the Tsar refused. He recommended to the Tsar that despite the vast profits that the government made from the sale of vodka, the Tsar shut down these stores, because the drinking was unhealthy and the cause of misery to the less fortunate classes, and the Tsar refused. He advocated “expropriating land from the aristocracy, with compensation, and distributing it among the peasants so that they could have food to eat and dignity, but the Tsar refused.

What did the Tsar himself think of Rasputin? He said, “he’s simply a Russian, good, religious, with a simple spirit; when in pain or doubt, I like to talk with him and invariably, I feel at peace with myself.” When the Tsar heard that his relatives had murdered Rasputin, he said, “I am filled with shame that the hands of my kinsmen are stained with the blood of a simple peasant.”

Scholars have concluded that if Rasputin’s programs would have been adopted by the misguided Tsar, they “would have been a viable means of averting the 1917 revolution.”

It is tragic that a person should be vilified because he sought to aid people, and it is even more heartrending that all too many people accepted these lies as true. We owe Delin Colon thanks for revealing the truth. ( )