Editing Shtetl (section)

==History==
The history of the oldest Eastern European {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetls}} began around the 13th century.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.geni.com/projects/Jewish-Communities-Shtetls-of-Ukraine/3960 |title=Jewish Communities (Shtetls) of Ukraine genealogy project |website=Geni.com |access-date=5 April 2019}}</ref> Throughout this history, ''shtetls'' saw periods of relative tolerance and prosperity as well as times of extreme poverty and hardships, including [[pogrom]]s in the 19th-century Russian Empire. According to [[Mark Zborowski]] and Elizabeth Herzog (1962):<ref name="LWP">{{cite book |title=Life Is With People: The Culture of the Shtetl |last1=Zborowski |first1=Mark |author1-link=Mark Zborowski |last2=Herzog |first2=Elizabeth |date=1962 |publisher=Schocken |isbn=9780805200201}}</ref>

{{blockquote|1=
The attitudes and thought habits characteristic of the learning tradition are as evident in the street and market place as the {{lang|he-Latn|[[yeshiva]]|italic=unset}}. The popular picture of the Jew in Eastern Europe, held by Jew and [[Gentile]] alike, is true to the [[Talmud]]ic 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 the [[Torah]], 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 the [[pilpul]] process.
}}

The [[May Laws]] introduced by Tsar [[Alexander 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 and [[the Holocaust]] destroyed traditional {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} existence.

The decline of the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} 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.<ref>{{cite book |first=Dan |last=Miron |title=The Image of the Shtetl and Other Studies of Modern Jewish Literary Imagination |publisher=Syracuse University Press |date=2000 |page=17 |isbn=9780815628583 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=-4VKRmMZcjMC&pg=PA17}}</ref> Also, the [[antisemitism]] of the Russian Imperial administrators and the Polish landlords, as well as the resultant pogroms in the 1880s, made life difficult for residents of the ''shtetl''. 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 as {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}''s''. The Holocaust resulted in the total extermination of these towns.<ref name="tabletmag.com">{{cite AV media |title=How the Concept of Shtetl Moved From Small-Town Reality to Mythic Jewish Idyll |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/vox-tablet/shandler-shtetl |work=Vox Tablet |date=3 February 2014 }}</ref> It was not uncommon for the entire Jewish population of a {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} to be rounded up and murdered in a nearby forest or taken to the various [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]].<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.voanews.com/a/belarus--124035329/140889.html|title=Forever Changed, A Belarus Shtetl 70 Years After the Nazis |website=Voice of America |date=15 June 2011 |publisher=[[Voice of America]] |access-date=5 April 2019}}</ref> Some {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} inhabitants were able to emigrate before and after the Holocaust, which resulted in many Ashkenazi Jewish traditions being passed on. However, the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} as a community of [[Ashkenazi Jews]] in Eastern Europe, as well as much of the culture specific to this way of life, was all but eradicated by the Nazis.<ref name="tabletmag.com" />

===Modern usage===

In the later part of the 20th century, [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidic Jews]] founded new communities in the United States, such as [[Kiryas Joel, New York|Kiryas Joel]] and [[New Square, New York|New Square]], and they sometimes use the term "{{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}" to refer to these enclaves in Yiddish, particularly those with village structures.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://cjs.cas2.lehigh.edu/content/kiryas-joel-hasidic-shtetl-suburban-new-york|title=Kiryas Joel: A Hasidic Shtetl in Suburban New York - Berman Center}}</ref>

In Europe, the Orthodox community in [[Antwerp]], [[Belgium]], is widely described as the last {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}, composed of about 12,000 people.<ref>{{cite book |first=Andre |last=de Vries |title=Flanders – A Cultural History |publisher= Oxford University Press |date=2007 |page=199 |isbn=9780195314939 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=62ISDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA199}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Diverse and Divided: Who Are the Jews of Belgium? |url= https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/who-are-the-jews-of-belgium-1.5424088 |publisher=[[Haaretz]]| date=30 March 2016 |access-date=9 March 2022}}</ref> The [[Gateshead]], [[United Kingdom]] Orthodox community is also sometimes called a ''shtetl''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Doe |first=John |date=2011-05-04 |title=Gateshead's Twenty-First Century Shtetl - Mishpacha Magazine |url=https://mishpacha.com/gatesheads-21st-century-shtetl/ |access-date=2024-09-17 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Visit to Gateshead [near Newcastle] a yeshiva town called "the last shtetl in Europe": relics and ephemera include short photocopy of writings by the famous Gateshead figure Rebbitzen Zipa Lopian ["Auntie Zipa"] and a note by me about her; short letter from me to Rav Mattisyahu Salomon, the mashgiach [spiritual director] of Gateshead Yeshiva, after my meeting with him; an account of the trip, with photograph, written for Rabbi Joseph Freilich's yeshiva magazine [see also "Gallery of photographs" in this series for views of this trip], 1984 January 18-22 {{!}} Archives at Yale |url=https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/archival_objects/1501624 |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=archives.yale.edu}}</ref>

[[Brno]], [[Czech Republic]], has a significant Jewish history and Yiddish words are part of the now dying-out [[Hantec slang]]. The word "{{lang|cs|štetl}}" (pronounced {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}) refers to Brno itself.

[[Qırmızı Qəsəbə]], in [[Azerbaijan]], thought to be the only 100% Jewish community not in Israel or the United States, has been described as a {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}.<ref>{{Cite web|url= https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-shtetl-in-azerbaijan-survives-amid-muslim-majority/|title = Jewish shtetl in Azerbaijan survives amid Muslim majority|website = [[The Times of Israel]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url= https://newlinesmag.com/essays/how-the-mountain-jews-of-azerbaijan-endure/ |title=How the Mountain Jews of Azerbaijan Endure |work=New Line Magazine |date=25 October 2022 |access-date=26 October 2022 |last=Pheiffer |first=Evan}}</ref>