Editing Shtetl (section)

==Culture==
[[File:Reconstruction of a shtetl in the South African Jewish Museum, Cape Town.jpg|thumb|A reconstruction of a traditional Jewish {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} in the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town, as it would have appeared in Lithuania]]

[[File:Interior of a wooden dwelling in a traditional Lithuanian shtetl, reconstructed in the South African Jewish Museum, Cape Town.jpg|thumb|Interior of a wooden dwelling in a traditional Lithuanian {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}, reconstructed in the South African Jewish Museum, Cape Town]]

Not only did the Jews of the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetls}} speak [[Yiddish]], a language rarely spoken by outsiders, but they also had a unique rhetorical style, rooted in traditions of Talmudic learning:<ref name="LWP" />

{{blockquote|1=In keeping with his own conception of contradictory reality, the man of the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} is noted both for volubility and for laconic, allusive speech. Both pictures are true, and both are characteristic of the {{lang|he-Latn|[[yeshiva]]}} 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.}}

{{lang|yi-Latn|Shtetls}} provided a strong sense of community. The {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} "at its heart, it was a community of faith built upon a deeply rooted religious culture".<ref name=":0" /> A Jewish education was most paramount in {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetls}}. Men and boys could spend up to 10 hours a day dedicated to studying at a {{lang|he-Latn|yeshiva}}. 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.

{{lang|he-Latn|[[Tzedakah]]}} (charity) is a key element of Jewish culture, both secular and religious, to this day. {{lang|he-Latn|Tzedakah}} was essential for {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} 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 ({{lang|he-Latn|[[chesed]]}}).<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |title=A Time for Building: The Third Migration |url= https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780801843457 |url-access=registration |last=Sorin |first=Gerald |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |date=1992 |isbn=978-0801851223 |location=Baltimore, Maryland |pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780801843457/page/19 19]}}</ref>

This approach to good deeds finds its roots in Jewish religious views, summarized in [[Pirkei Avot]] by [[Simeon the Just|Shimon Hatzaddik]]'s "three pillars":<ref>[http://www.aish.com/spirituality/growth/Three_Pillars_-_Pirke_Avot_12.asp Excerpt from Pirke Avot] from aish.com.</ref>

{{blockquote|1=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 the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}. Learning and education were the ultimate measures of worth in the eyes of the community, while money was secondary to status. As the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} 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. Learned {{lang|he-Latn|[[yeshiva]]}} 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 the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} disintegrated before it was destroyed during World War II; however, Joshua Rosenberg of the Institute of East-European Jewish Affairs at [[Brandeis University]] argued that this alleged cultural break-up is never clearly defined. He argued that the whole Jewish life in Eastern Europe, not only in {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetls}}, "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 "disintegrating {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}'" and other kinds of stereotyping. For one, it was an "anti-{{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}" propaganda of the [[Zionism|Zionist]] 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 of {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}, in addition to sufferings, were colored with nostalgia and sentimentalism.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/BCooperman/NewCity/Shtetl.html |title=Demythologizing the Shtetl |first=Joshua |last=Rothenberg |date=March 1981 |pages=25–31 |work=[[Midstream (magazine)|Midstream]] |access-date=15 September 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100607030357/http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/BCooperman/NewCity/Shtetl.html |archive-date=7 June 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref>