This book legally became one of the most popular Jewish books in Russian language as an accessible source of basic information about a faith and life of jewries, that can be used and as a textbook, and as certificate edition, and allows to make the integral impression about the Jewish world. An encyclopaedia, compressed form and popularity of exposition, distinguish her, foremost.It is an encyclopaedia that contains the family systematized vault of basic knowledge about Jewish religion, history and public life from the most ancient times and to beginning 1990th She consists of 350 reasons-essays, incorporated in 15 thematic parts, located in a historical sequence. The world of Jewish religious tradition is presented by the heads, sanctified to Bible, Talmud and other most essential sources, ethics and bases of faith, Jewish calendar, rituals life cycle, related to the synagogue and house, to prayers. To edition short description of basic events is also driven in history of the Jewish people from Abraham to the end XX of century, with the separate heads sanctified to the state Israel, to Catastrophe, life of American and soviet jewries.This vast labour belongs to the feather authoritative to the USA and in the whole world Orthodox rabbi, professor of Yeshiva University Йосефа Телушкина. Although a book was created initially as a manual for assimilative American jewries, she appeared an irreplaceable manual on post-soviet space, in Russia and countries the CIS.