Shtetl

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A shtetl (Yiddish: שטעטל, diminutive form of Yiddish shtot שטאָט, "town") was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in pre-Holocaust Central and Eastern Europe. Shtetls (Yiddish plural: shtetlekh) were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia, and Romania. A larger city, like Lemberg or Czernowitz, was called a shtot (Yiddish: שטאָט); a smaller village was called a dorf (Yiddish: דאָרף).

The concept of shtetl culture is used as a metaphor for the traditional way of life of 19th-century Eastern European Jews. Shtetls are portrayed as pious farming communities following Orthodox Judaism, socially stable and unchanging despite outside attacks.

Map of the Pale of Settlement
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Map of the Pale of Settlement
Lyuboml'(Liuboml', Luboml) near Kovel', Russian Volhynia, around 1900. We can see the German and yiddish letter "Volks Küche/folks-kikh".
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Lyuboml'(Liuboml', Luboml) near Kovel', Russian Volhynia, around 1900. We can see the German and yiddish letter "Volks Küche/folks-kikh".
Old Jewish cemetery in the shtetl of Medzhybizh, Ukraine.
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Old Jewish cemetery in the shtetl of Medzhybizh, Ukraine.
Lakhva in 1926 (then Łachwa, Poland), ulica Lubaczyńska (Lubaczynska Street)
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Lakhva in 1926 (then Łachwa, Poland), ulica Lubaczyńska (Lubaczynska Street)

Contents

[edit] History

History of the oldest Eastern European shtetls began about a millennium ago and saw periods of relative tolerance and prosperity as well as times of extreme poverty, hardships and pogroms.

The May Laws introduced by Tsar Alexander III of Russia in 1882 banned Jews from rural areas and towns of less than ten thousand people. In the 20th century revolutions, civil wars, industrialization and the Holocaust destroyed traditional shtetl existence. However, Hasidic Jews have founded new communities in the United States, such as Kiryas Joel and New Square.

There is a belief found in historical and literary writings that the shtetl disintegrated before it was destroyed during World War II; however, this alleged cultural break-up is never clearly defined.[1]

[edit] Shtetls (listed by present-day country)

[edit] Poland

Note: Towns formerly in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia are marked with "(G)". Towns in formerly Russian Zagłębie Dąbrowskie (Zaglembia) are marked with "(Z)".

[edit] Other

[edit] Shtetl in fiction and folklore

Chelm figures prominently in the Jewish humor as the legendary town of fools. Kasrilevke, the setting of many of Sholom Aleichem's stories, and Anatevka, the setting of the musical Fiddler on the Roof (based on other stories of Sholom Aleichem) are other notable fictional shtetls.

The 2002 novel Everything Is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer, tells a fictional story set in the Ukrainian shtetl Trachimbrod.

The 1992 children's book "Something From Nothing," written and illustrated Phoebe Gilman, is an adaptation of a traditional Jewish folktale set in a fictional Shtetl.

[edit] Shtots (larger towns with significant pre-war Jewish populations)

[edit] See also

[edit] Reference

[edit] External links

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