Editing Shtetl (section)

==Overview==
[[File:Map showing percentage of Jews in the Pale of Settlement and Congress Poland, c. 1905.png|thumb|Map showing percentage of Jews in the [[Pale of Settlement]] and [[Congress Poland]], {{Circa|1905}}]]

A {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} is defined by [[Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern]] as "an East European [[market town]] in private possession of a Polish [[magnate]], inhabited mostly but not exclusively by Jews" and from the 1790s onward and until 1915 shtetls were also "subject to Russian bureaucracy",<ref name="ReferenceA" /> as the [[Russian Empire]] had [[Partitions of Poland|annexed]] the entire [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania|Lithuania]] and the eastern part of [[Crown of the Kingdom of Poland|Poland]], and was administering the area where [[Pale of Settlement|the settlement of Jews was permitted]]. The concept of {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} culture describes the traditional way of life of East European Jews. In literature by authors such as [[Sholem Aleichem]] and [[Isaac Bashevis Singer]], shtetls are portrayed as pious communities following [[Orthodox Judaism]], socially stable and unchanging despite outside influence or attacks.