Editing Openai/6874b524-4134-8013-b5e6-0601c853d841 (section)

===== Despite their relative security, the Gershovitz family operated in an atmosphere of increasing volatility. The famine of 1891–1892 revealed the incompetence of the Imperial bureaucracy, radicalizing a generation of intelligentsia—including one Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), then a young law student. =====

Israel, at 10, was already devouring banned pamphlets. He memorized long passages from Nakanune and Iskra, his mother whispering warnings about “eyes in the walls.” Rosa, for all her caution, encouraged education and was herself sympathetic to revolutionary idealism, if only in the abstract.

Meanwhile, Yakob Gyorgi’s prodigious musical talent caught the attention of a progressive music teacher, Ivan Arkadyevich Mikhailov, who began giving him free lessons in 1897. Though Jewish students faced quota restrictions at conservatories, Mikhailov believed Yakob had a rare mind—and vowed to help him find a patron.