For 100 years there have been rumors that Vladimir Lenin was of Jewish origin. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern revealed the truth in his new book, Lenin’s Jewish Question. He focuses on Moshko Blank, Lenin's maternal great-grandfather, a convert to Christianity in love with the Russian empire. He shared what Lenin knew about his great-grandfather, discussed why Soviet communists played down talk of Lenin’s Jewishness while Russian racists encouraged it, and explored why Lenin approached his Jewish background as he did.

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern is the Director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern University. An award-winning specialist in the history of Russian Jews, his earlier books include Jews in the Russian Army, 1827-1917: Drafted into Modernity and The Anti-Imperial Choice: The Making of a Ukrainian Jew.