The port city of Odessa is a special place of remembrance of Jewish history. More than in other metropolises of the tsarist empire, at the end of the 'long' 19th century there was a rich and differentiated system of associations that neither Russia's police license nor the social tensions that regularly erupted in pogroms were able to suppress. Especially the Jewish middle and upper classes saw their cultural ideals realized in this form of self-organization. Alexis Hofmeister examines the formation and structure of Jewish associations in Odessa and shows how a form of bourgeoisie developed here that combined modern, time-specific and traditional Jewish aspects - a mixture that gives the phenomenon of Jewish association formation exemplary importance.