This fall, the Jewish community in Russia is commemorating an often overlooked result of the Russian Revolution — the achievement of equal rights for the country’s Jews.

Exactly one century ago, in 1917, the Russian government signed a decree establishing equality for all religions and ethnicities. The edict officially abolished the Pale of Settlement — the limited territory in which it was legal for Jews to reside.

But it was not Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky who were behind these positive changes that Russian Jews welcomed with great enthusiasm. Rather, it was a man who has nearly been forgotten by historians and by Jews: Alexander Kerensky.

Kerensky, who was then a 36-year-old lawyer, became the leader of the provisional government after the Russian Tsar was deposed in February of 1917.

While he was in power only for a few months before the Bolsheviks seized power in the fall, it was…