Ancient Jewish history in textbooks for Jewish educational institutions of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century

The article analyses the ways of presenting plots of Jewish history in textbooks created for secondary Jewish educational institutions of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. The author focuses on the purpose of the compiler, the structure of textbooks, the style of presentation and the choice of the main plots of the biblical story. These criteria are considered in the context of the Jewish studies development in Russia, the traditions of writing textbooks in the past, as well as the state of Jewish education in the country. The sources of the research are the schoolbooks texts, as well as articles by critics.