The opening months of World War I brought unmitigated disaster to Russian Jewry as the tsar’s army, blaming them for its own failures, punished Jews with massacres and expulsions. Then, in the latter half of 1915, much of the Pale of Settlement—where Russian Jews were concentrated—fell under a German military occupation that, while rarely anti-Semitic, was both harsh and immiserating. The war’s end brought even bloodier slaughter as various armies competed for mastery in Eastern Europe. Taking the city of Vilna as his prime example, Andrew Koss discusses with Avi Woolf the Jewish experience during the war and its aftermath. (Audio, 70 minutes.)