Shtetl orshtetel (English:/ˈʃtɛtəl/SHTET-əl;[1]Yiddish:שטעטל,romanized: shtetl,pronounced[ʃtɛtl̩];pl.שטעטעלעךshtetelekh) is aYiddish term for small towns with predominantlyAshkenazi Jewish populations whichexisted in Eastern Europe beforethe Holocaust. The term is used in the context of former Eastern European Jewish societies as mandated islands within the surrounding non-Jewish populace, and thus bears certain connotations of discrimination.[2]Shtetls (orshtetels,shtetlach,shtetelach orshtetlekh)[3][4][5] were mainly found in the areas that constituted the 19th-centuryPale of Settlement in theRussian Empire (constituting modern-dayBelarus,Lithuania,Moldova,Ukraine,Poland,Latvia andRussia), as well as inCongress Poland,Austrian Galicia andBukovina, theKingdom of Romania and theKingdom of Hungary.[2]
In Yiddish, a larger city, likeLviv orChernivtsi, is called ashtot (Yiddish:שטאָט), and a village is called adorf (Yiddish:דאָרף).[6]Shtetl is a diminutive ofshtot with the meaning 'little town'. Despite the existence of Jewish self-administration (kehilla/kahal), officially there were no separate Jewish municipalities, and theshtetl was referred to as amiasteczko ormiestelis (mestechko, in Russian bureaucracy), a type of settlement which originated in the formerPolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and was formally recognized in theRussian Empire as well. For clarification, the expression "Jewishmiasteczko" was often used.[7][8]
Theshtetl as a phenomenon of Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.[9] The term is sometimes used to describe largely Jewish communities in the United States, such as existed on theLower East Side ofNew York City in the early 20th century, and predominantly Hasidic communities such asKiryas Joel andNew Square today.
Ashtetl is defined byYohanan Petrovsky-Shtern as "an East Europeanmarket town in private possession of a Polishmagnate, inhabited mostly but not exclusively by Jews" and from the 1790s onward and until 1915 shtetls were also "subject to Russian bureaucracy",[8] as theRussian Empire hadannexed the entireLithuania and the eastern part ofPoland, and was administering the area wherethe settlement of Jews was permitted. The concept ofshtetl culture describes the traditional way of life of East European Jews. In literature by authors such asSholem Aleichem andIsaac Bashevis Singer, shtetls are portrayed as pious communities followingOrthodox Judaism, socially stable and unchanging despite outside influence or attacks.
The history of the oldest Eastern Europeanshtetls began around the 13th century.[10] Throughout this history,shtetls saw periods of relative tolerance and prosperity as well as times of extreme poverty and hardships, includingpogroms in the 19th-century Russian Empire. According toMark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog (1962):[11]
The attitudes and thought habits characteristic of the learning tradition are as evident in the street and market place as theyeshiva. The popular picture of the Jew in Eastern Europe, held by Jew andGentile alike, is true to theTalmudic tradition. The picture includes the tendency to examine, analyze and re-analyze, to seek meanings behind meanings and for implications and secondary consequences. It includes also a dependence on deductive logic as a basis for practical conclusions and actions.In life, as in theTorah, it is assumed that everything has deeper and secondary meanings, which must be probed. All subjects have implications and ramifications. Moreover, the person who makes a statement must have a reason, and this too must be probed. Often a comment will evoke an answer to the assumed reason behind it or to the meaning believed to lie beneath it, or to the remote consequences to which it leads. The process that produces such a response—often with lightning speed—is a modest reproduction of thepilpul process.
TheMay Laws introduced by TsarAlexander III of Russia in 1882 banned Jews from rural areas and towns of fewer than ten thousand people. In the 20th century, revolutions, civil wars, industrialisation andthe Holocaust destroyed traditionalshtetl existence.
The decline of theshtetl started from about the 1840s. Contributing factors included poverty as a result of changes in economic climate (including industrialisation which hurt the traditional Jewish artisan and the movement of trade to the larger towns), repeated fires destroying the wooden homes, and overpopulation.[12] Also, theantisemitism of the Russian Imperial administrators and the Polish landlords, as well as the resultant pogroms in the 1880s, made life difficult for residents of theshtetl. From the 1880s until 1915 up to 2 million Jews left Eastern Europe. At the time about three-quarters of its Jewish population lived in areas defined asshtetls. The Holocaust resulted in the total extermination of these towns.[9] It was not uncommon for the entire Jewish population of ashtetl to be rounded up and murdered in a nearby forest or taken to the variousconcentration camps.[13] Someshtetl inhabitants were able to emigrate before and after the Holocaust, which resulted in many Ashkenazi Jewish traditions being passed on. However, theshtetl as a community ofAshkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe, as well as much of the culture specific to this way of life, was all but eradicated by the Nazis.[9]
In the later part of the 20th century,Hasidic Jews founded new communities in the United States, such asKiryas Joel andNew Square, and they sometimes use the term "shtetl" to refer to these enclaves in Yiddish, particularly those with village structures.[14]
In Europe, the Orthodox community inAntwerp,Belgium, is widely described as the lastshtetl, composed of about 12,000 people.[15][16] TheGateshead,United Kingdom Orthodox community is also sometimes called ashtetl.[17][18]
Brno,Czech Republic, has a significant Jewish history and Yiddish words are part of the now dying-outHantec slang. The word "štetl" (pronouncedshtetl) refers to Brno itself.
Qırmızı Qəsəbə, inAzerbaijan, thought to be the only 100% Jewish community not in Israel or the United States, has been described as ashtetl.[19][20]
Not only did the Jews of theshtetls speakYiddish, a language rarely spoken by outsiders, but they also had a unique rhetorical style, rooted in traditions of Talmudic learning:[11]
In keeping with his own conception of contradictory reality, the man of theshtetl is noted both for volubility and for laconic, allusive speech. Both pictures are true, and both are characteristic of theyeshiva as well as the market places. When the scholar converses with his intellectual peers, incomplete sentences, a hint, a gesture, may replace a whole paragraph. The listener is expected to understand the full meaning on the basis of a word or even a sound... Such a conversation, prolonged and animated, may be as incomprehensible to the uninitiated as if the excited discussants were talking in tongues. The same verbal economy may be found in domestic or business circles.
Shtetls provided a strong sense of community. Theshtetl "at its heart, it was a community of faith built upon a deeply rooted religious culture".[21] A Jewish education was most paramount inshtetls. Men and boys could spend up to 10 hours a day dedicated to studying at ayeshiva. Discouraged from Talmudic study, women would perform the necessary tasks of a household. In addition, shtetls offered communal institutions such as synagogues, ritual baths and ritual food processors.
Tzedakah (charity) is a key element of Jewish culture, both secular and religious, to this day.Tzedakah was essential forshtetl Jews, many of whom lived in poverty. Acts of philanthropy aided social institutions such as schools and orphanages. Jews viewed giving charity as an opportunity to do a good deed (chesed).[21]
This approach to good deeds finds its roots in Jewish religious views, summarized inPirkei Avot byShimon Hatzaddik's "three pillars":[22]
On three things the world stands. On Torah, On service [of God], And on acts of human kindness.
Material things were neither disdained nor extremely praised in theshtetl. Learning and education were the ultimate measures of worth in the eyes of the community, while money was secondary to status. As theshtetl formed an entire town and community, residents worked diverse jobs such as shoe-making , metallurgy, or tailoring of clothes. Studying was considered the most valuable and hardest work of all. Learnedyeshiva men who did not provide bread and relied on their wives for money were not frowned upon but praised.
There is a belief found in historical and literary writings that theshtetl disintegrated before it was destroyed during World War II; however, Joshua Rosenberg of the Institute of East-European Jewish Affairs atBrandeis University argued that this alleged cultural break-up is never clearly defined. He argued that the whole Jewish life in Eastern Europe, not only inshtetls, "was in a state of permanent crisis, both political and economic, of social uncertainty and cultural conflicts". Rosenberg outlines a number of reasons for the image of "disintegratingshtetl'" and other kinds of stereotyping. For one, it was an "anti-shtetl" propaganda of theZionist movement. Yiddish and Hebrew literature can only to a degree be considered to represent the complete reality. It mostly focused on the elements that attract attention, rather than on an "average Jew". Also, in successful America, memories ofshtetl, in addition to sufferings, were colored with nostalgia and sentimentalism.[23]
The city ofChełm, in what is today southeastern Poland, figures prominently in the Jewish humor as the legendarytown of fools: theWise Men of Chelm.
Kasrilevka, the setting of many ofSholem Aleichem's stories, and Anatevka, the setting of themusicalFiddler on the Roof (based on other stories of Sholem Aleichem), are other notable fictionalshtetls.
Devorah Baron madealiyah toOttoman Palestine in 1910, after a pogrom destroyed her shtetl nearMinsk. But she continued writing aboutshtetl life long after she had arrived in Palestine.
Many ofJoseph Roth's books are based onshtetls on the Eastern fringes of theAustro-Hungarian Empire and most notably on his hometownBrody.
Many ofIsaac Bashevis Singer's short stories and novels are set inshtetls. Singer's mother was the daughter of the rabbi ofBiłgoraj, a town in south-eastern Poland. As a child, Singer lived in Biłgoraj for periods with his family, and he wrote that life in the small town made a deep impression on him.
The 2002 novelEverything Is Illuminated, byJonathan Safran Foer, tells a fictional story set in the Ukrainianshtetl Trachimbrod (Trochenbrod).
The 1992 children's bookSomething from Nothing, written and illustrated byPhoebe Gilman, is an adaptation of a traditionalJewish folk tale set in a fictionalshtetl.
In 1996 theFrontline programme "Shtetl" broadcast; it was about Polish Christian and Jewish relations.[24]
Harry Turtledove's 2011 short story "Shtetl Days",[25] begins in a typicalshtetl reminiscent of the works ofAleichem, Roth, et al., but soon reveals a plot twist which subverts the genre.
The award-winning 2014 novelThe Books of Jacob byOlga Tokarczuk features manyshtetl communities across thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[26]
Many Jewish artists in Eastern Europe dedicated much of their artistic careers to depictions of theshtetl. These includeMarc Chagall,Chaim Goldberg,Chaïm Soutine andMané-Katz. Their contribution is in making a permanent record in color of the life that is described in literature—theklezmers, the weddings, the marketplaces and the religious aspects of the culture.
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