Editing Shtetl

{{Short description|Town with a predominantly Jewish population}}
{{For|the documentary|Shtetl (film){{!}}''Shtetl'' (film)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Italics title}}
[[File:Исаак Аскназий Еврейская свадьба.jpg|thumb|300px|An 1893 [[Isaak_Asknaziy#Selected_paintings|painting by]] the artist [[Isaak Asknaziy]] of a Jewish wedding with a {{lang|yi-Latn|[[klezmer]]}} band in a {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}]]
'''{{lang|yi-Latn|Shtetl}}''' or '''{{lang|yi-Latn|shtetel}}''' ({{IPAc-en|lang|ˈ|ʃ|t|ɛ|t|əl}} {{respell|SHTET|əl}};<ref>{{Cite Dictionary.com|shtetl}}</ref> {{langx|yi|שטעטל|shtetl}}, {{IPA|yi|ʃtɛtl̩|pron}}; [[Grammatical number#Overview|pl.]] {{lang|yi|שטעטעלעך}} ''shtetelekh'') is a [[Yiddish]] term for small towns with predominantly [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi Jewish]] populations which [[Eastern European Jewry|existed in Eastern Europe]] before [[the 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.<ref name=maschu>Marie Schumacher-Brunhes, [http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/crossroads/courts-and-cities/marie-schumacher-brunhes-shtetl "Shtetl"], ''European History Online'', published July 3, 2015</ref> {{lang|yi-Latn|Shtetls}} (or {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetels}}, {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetlach}}, {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetelach}} or {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetlekh}})<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Speake |editor-first1=Jennifer |editor-link=Jennifer Speake |editor-last2=LaFlaur |editor-first2=Mark |chapter=shtetl |date=1999 |chapter-url= https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199891573.001.0001/acref-9780199891573-e-6562 |title=The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acref/9780199891573.001.0001 |access-date=28 March 2021 |isbn=978-0-19-989157-3}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Definition of SHTETL |url= https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shtetl |access-date=28 March 2021 |website=Merriam-Webster.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Sacharow |first1=Fredda |title=Shtetl: A Word that Holds a Special Place in Hearts and Minds |url=https://www.rutgers.edu/news/shtetl-word-holds-special-place-hearts-and-minds |work=Rutgers Today |date=22 August 2014 }}</ref> were mainly found in the areas that constituted the 19th-century [[Pale of Settlement]] in the [[Russian Empire]] (constituting modern-day [[Belarus]], [[Lithuania]], [[Moldova]], [[Ukraine]], [[Poland]], [[Latvia]] and [[Russia]]), as well as in [[Congress Poland]], [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria|Austrian Galicia]] and [[Duchy of Bukovina|Bukovina]], the [[Kingdom of Romania]] and the [[Kingdom of Hungary]].<ref name="maschu" />

In Yiddish, a larger city, like [[Lviv]] or [[Chernivtsi]], is called a {{lang|yi-Latn|shtot}} ({{langx|yi|שטאָט}}), and a village is called a {{lang|yi-Latn|dorf}} ({{langx|yi|דאָרף}}).<ref>{{Citation |url= https://www.jewish-guide.pl/shtetl/history-of-shtetl |title=Jewish guide and genealogy in Poland |contribution=History of Shtetl}}.</ref> {{lang|yi-Latn|Shtetl}} is a diminutive of {{lang|yi-Latn|shtot}} with the meaning 'little town'. Despite the existence of Jewish self-administration ({{lang|he-Latn|[[kehilla (modern)|kehilla]]}}/{{lang|he-Latn|[[Qahal|kahal]]}}), officially there were no separate Jewish municipalities, and the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} was referred to as a {{lang|pl|[[miasteczko]]}} or {{lang|lt|miestelis}} ({{lang|ru-Latn|mestechko}}, in Russian bureaucracy), a type of settlement which originated in the former [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]] and was formally recognized in the [[Russian Empire]] as well. For clarification, the expression "Jewish {{lang|pl|miasteczko}}" was often used.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/shtetl |title=Shtetl |website=JewishVirtualLibrary.org |access-date=5 April 2019}}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |last=Petrovsky-Shtern |first=Yohanan |author-link=Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern |date=2014 |title=The Golden Age Shtetl |publisher=Princeton University Press}}</ref>

The {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} as a phenomenon of Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.<ref name="tabletmag.com" /> The term is sometimes used to describe largely Jewish communities in the United States, such as existed on the [[Lower East Side]] of [[New York City]] in the early 20th century, and predominantly Hasidic communities such as [[Kiryas Joel, New York|Kiryas Joel]] and [[New Square, New York|New Square]] today.

==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.

==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>

==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>

==Artistic depictions==
===Literary references===<!-- This section is linked from [[Kasrilevke]] -->
The city of [[Chełm]], in what is today southeastern Poland, figures prominently in the Jewish humor as the legendary [[town of fools]]: the [[Wise Men of Chelm]].

[[Kasrilevka]], the setting of many of [[Sholem Aleichem]]'s stories, and Anatevka, the setting of the [[musical theatre|musical]] ''[[Fiddler on the Roof]]'' (based on other stories of Sholem Aleichem), are other notable fictional {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetls}}.

[[Devorah Baron]] made [[aliyah]] to [[Ottoman Palestine]] in 1910, after a pogrom destroyed her shtetl near [[Minsk]]. But she continued writing about {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} life long after she had arrived in Palestine.

Many of [[Joseph Roth]]'s books are based on {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetls}} on the Eastern fringes of the [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian Empire]] and most notably on his hometown [[Brody]].

Many of [[Isaac Bashevis Singer]]'s short stories and novels are set in {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetls}}. Singer's mother was the daughter of the rabbi of [[Biłgoraj]], 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 novel ''[[Everything Is Illuminated]]'', by [[Jonathan Safran Foer]], tells a fictional story set in the Ukrainian {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} Trachimbrod ([[Trochenbrod]]).

The 1992 children's book ''Something from Nothing'', written and illustrated by [[Phoebe Gilman]], is an adaptation of a traditional [[Jewish folklore|Jewish folk tale]] set in a fictional {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}.

In 1996 the ''[[Frontline (American TV program)|Frontline]]'' programme "{{lang|yi-Latn|Shtetl|italic=unset}}" broadcast; it was about Polish Christian and Jewish relations.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shtetl/reactions/ |title=Reactions to Shtetl |work=[[Frontline (American TV program)|Frontline]] |publisher=[[Public Broadcasting Service]] |access-date=15 December 2009}}</ref>

[[Harry Turtledove]]'s 2011 short story "Shtetl Days",<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.tor.com/2011/04/14/shtetl-days/ | title=Shtetl Days | date=14 April 2011 }}</ref> begins in a typical {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} reminiscent of the works of [[Sholem Aleichem|Aleichem]], Roth, et al., but soon reveals a plot twist which subverts the genre.

The award-winning 2014 novel [[The Books of Jacob]] by [[Olga Tokarczuk]] features many {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} communities across the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]].<ref>Tokarczuk, O. (2022). ''The Books of Jacob'', Riverhead Books.</ref>

===Painting===
Many Jewish artists in Eastern Europe dedicated much of their artistic careers to depictions of the {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}. These include [[Marc Chagall]], [[Chaim Goldberg]], [[Chaïm Soutine]] and [[Emmanuel Mane-Katz|Mané-Katz]]. Their contribution is in making a permanent record in color of the life that is described in literature—the [[klezmer]]s, the weddings, the marketplaces and the religious aspects of the culture.

===Photography===
*[[Alter Kacyzne]] (1885–1941), Jewish writer (Yiddish-language prose and poetry) and photographer; immortalized Jewish life in Poland in the 1920s and 1930s.
*[[Roman Vishniac]] (1897–1990), Russian-, later American-Jewish biologist and photographer; photographed traditional Jewish life in Eastern Europe in 1935–39.

===Film===
*''[[The Dybbuk (film)|The Dybbuk]]'', 1937<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Dybbuk |url= https://jewishfilm.org/Catalogue/films/dybbuk.html |access-date=7 January 2022 |website=National Center for Jewish Film}}</ref>
*[[The Fixer (1968 film)|''The Fixer'']], 1968
*[[Fiddler on the Roof (film)|''Fiddler on the Roof'']], 1971
*[[Yentl (film)|''Yentl'']], 1983
*''[[Train of Life]]'', 1998
*''[[An American Pickle]]'', 2020
*''[[Shttl]]'', 2023 – a [[Yiddish]]–[[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]] drama depicting the lives of a {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} on the eve of [[Operation Barbarossa]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wiseman |first=Andreas |date=16 December 2022 |title=Ukraine-Shot Shoah Feature 'Shttl' Boarded By Upgrade Productions |url= https://deadline.com/2022/12/ukraine-shot-shoah-movie-shttl-upgrade-productions-1235200889/ |access-date=6 January 2023 |website=Deadline}}</ref> A {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}} was built outside of [[Kyiv]] specifically for the film, and was set to become a historical museum. However, it is still unknown if the set survived the [[Russian invasion of Ukraine|Russian invasion]].

====Documentaries====
*[[Shtetl (film)|''Shtetl'']], 1996
*''[[Deliatyn|Return to My Shtetl Delatyn]]'', 1992

==See also==
* [[Qırmızı Qəsəbə]] – the world's last surviving historical {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetl}}
* [[History of the Jews in Ukraine]]
* [[History of the Jews in Bessarabia]]
* [[History of the Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia]]
* [[History of the Jews in Poland]]
* [[History of the Jews in Russia]]
* [[Jewish diaspora]]
* [[List of Hasidic dynasties and groups]]
* [[List of shtetls|List of {{lang|yi-Latn|shtetls|nocat=y}} and {{lang|yi-Latn|shtots|nocat=y}}]]
* [[List of villages and towns depopulated of Jews during the Holocaust]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bauer |first=Yehuda |author-link=Yehuda Bauer |date=2010 |title=The Death of the Shtetl |location=New Haven, Connecticut |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0-300-15209-8 |url-access=registration |url= https://archive.org/details/deathofshtetl00baue}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Gay |first=Ruth |author-link=Ruth Gay |date=1984 |title=Inventing the Shtetl |journal=The American Scholar |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=329–349 |jstor=41211052 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Hoffmann |first=Eva |author-link=Eva Hoffman |date=1997 |title=Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews |location=Boston |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin]] |isbn=978-0-395-82295-1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Petrovsky-Shtern |first=Yohanan |author-link=Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern |date=2014 |title=The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe |location=Princeton, New Jersey |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0-691-16074-0}}
* {{cite web |last=Schumacher-Brunhes |first=Marie |url= http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/crossroads/courts-and-cities/marie-schumacher-brunhes-shtetl?set_language=en&-C= |title=Shtetl |work=EGO - European History Online |location=Mainz |publisher=Institute of European History |date=2015 |access-date=8 March 2021}}
* {{Cite book |last=Shandler |first=Jeffrey |date=2014 |title=Shtetl: A Vernacular Intellectual History |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-813-56273-5}}
* {{cite book |last1=Klier |first1=John D. |chapter=What Exactly Was a Shtetl? |pages=23–35 |editor1-last=Ėstraĭkh |editor1-first=Gennadiĭ |editor2-last=Krutikov |editor2-first=Mikhail |title=The Shtetl: Image and Reality |date=2000 |isbn=978-1-900755-41-2 |doi=10.4324/9781351198394 |s2cid=249174895 |oclc=606487250 }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Rogovin |first1=Or |title=Chelm as Shtetl: Y. Y. Trunk's Khelemer Khakhomim |journal=Prooftexts |date=2009 |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=242–272 |doi=10.2979/pft.2009.29.2.242 |jstor=10.2979/pft.2009.29.2.242 |s2cid=163047588 }}
{{Refend}}

==External links==

{{Wiktionary|shtetl|שטעטל}}
{{commons category}}
* [https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/March_2017/Wikishtetl:_Commemorating_Jewish_communities_that_perished_in_the_Holocaust Education/Newsletter/March 2017/Wikishtetl: Commemorating Jewish communities that perished in the Holocaust]
* [http://www.bfcollection.net/subjects/shtetl.html Boris Feldblyum Collection]
* [http://www.jewishgen.org/ JewishGen]
** [http://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/Search.asp The JewishGen Communities Database]
** [http://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/LocTown.asp The JewishGen Gazetteer] (formerly: JewishGen ShtetlSeeker)
** [http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/ JewishGen KehilaLinks] (formerly: ShtetLinks)
*[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=30&letter=G Galicia], [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=329&letter=D Diaspora] – [[Jewish Encyclopedia]]
*[http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t036/t03605.html Cities of Poland] – [[Simon Wiesenthal Center]] Multimedia Learning Center Online
*[https://www.ibiblio.org/yiddish/shtetl.html Virtual Shtetl]
*[http://www.radzilow.com/ Jewish history of Radziłów]
*[https://www.luboml.org/  Remembering Luboml: images of a Jewish Community]
*[https://www.avotaynu.com/books/encytowns.htm Towns in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Life]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050524153958/http://www.aforgottenodyssey.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album07&page=1  Pre-1939 Kresy (now Ukraine) photo album]
*[http://www.jewishwebindex.com/polish_shtetls.htm Jewish Web Index – Polish Shtetls] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20040812063559/http://jewishwebindex.com/Polish_Shtetls.htm |date=12 August 2004}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20040627160214/http://www.zchor.org/hitachdut/pinkas1.htm The Lost Jewish Communities of Poland]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050829180914/http://members.core.com/~mikerose/history.html History of the Jews in Poland]
*[http://www.berdichev.org/history.html History of Berdychiv]
*[https://www.stevemorse.org/yizkor/anteng/index.html Antopol Yizkor Book]
*[https://www.tal.yesh.net The Journey to Trochenbrod and Lozisht August 2006]
*[https://ldn-knigi.lib.ru/JUDAICA/IBeller/IBeller_R.htm Shtetl gallery. 80 paintings] by [[:fr:Ilex Beller]]. In German and Russian languages
*[http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/ Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Virtual Shtetl]
*[https://www.jewish-guide.pl/shtetl/history-of-shtetl Jewish guide and genealogy in Poland. History of Shtetl]
*[https://shoshana-eden.co.il/Eng Shoshana Eden, paintings of her shtetl]
*[https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/shtetl Shtetl], ''[[YIVO]] Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe''

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[[Category:Ashkenazi Jews topics| Shtetls]]
[[Category:Historic Jewish communities]]
[[Category:Jewish communities]]
[[Category:Jews and Judaism in Europe]]
[[Category:Shtetls| ]]
[[Category:Jewish Belarusian history]]
[[Category:Jewish Ukrainian history]]
[[Category:Types of towns]]
[[Category:Yiddish words and phrases]]
[[Category:Types of communities]]
[[Category:Jewish enclaves]]