Soviet Jews in, 224, 225, 307–8, 329 Mehta, Zubin, 30 Meir (Meyerson), Golda, 296–97 Mekler, Abram, 238 Melamid, Aleksandr, 343 Mendele Mokher Sforim (Sholem Yakov Abramovich), 101 Mendelssohn, Moses, 51 Mendl, Menachem, 211 Mensheviks, 148, 152, 273 merchant(s): cleverness of, 27 craftiness of, 10 and Hermes/Mercury, 8 intellect of, 28 Russian Jewish, 118 stranger communities as, 5–6. See also business; commerce; trader(s) Mercurians/Mercurianism: as aliens in Russian Empire, 166 aloofness of, 45–46 and Apollonianism, 24, 27–28, 29, 30–35 in Babel, 188 and bodily purity, 45 and Bolsheviks, 173, 192 business integration of, 123 characteristics of, 23 as communists, 37 corporate kinship among, 34–35 and culture, 125 dangers to, 35–39 economic success of, 26 and European Jewish assimilation, 60–61 European revolt against, 211 Europeans’ development as, 41 and exiles as divine punishment, 22 and family, 35