Shtetls were small Jewish communities in Eastern Europe that were forced to live in poverty in the Pale of Settlement. They were vibrant, pious communities that revolved around the Jewish calendar, but were also a form of segregation. The May Laws discriminated against the Jewish community, leading to emigration and the decimation of shtetls during the Holocaust. Today, former shtetls exist, but their populations are no longer primarily Jewish.
A shtetl is a small community with a predominantly Jewish population. This term is more typically used to refer to Jewish communities in Eastern Europe that thrived until the Holocaust in the mid-20th century, and shtetl life is largely considered extinct today. While there are numerous communities around the world with large Jewish populations, particularly in Israel, these communities are not quite analogous to the shtetls of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.
The roots of the shtetl go back to the late 1700s when Catherine the Great of Russia created the Pale of Settlement. Jewish citizens of Russia were only allowed to live in the Pale, a region along Russia’s western border. The creation of the Pale was designed to force Jews to the margins of Russian society. Settlements in the Pale tended to be characterized by extreme poverty, but they were also vibrant, pious communities filled with citizens making the best of what they had.
Jews who wanted to live outside the Pale of Settlement had to apply to the government and their applications were often rejected. Gentiles, however, were welcome to settle in the shtetls, and some had up to half a gentile population. Life in the shtetl tended to revolve around the Jewish calendar, with the synagogue and school taking pride of place in the community.
Traders and craftsmen also settled in the downtown areas, with citizens living on the fringes of the shtetl. Many historians have idealized shtetl life, speaking of the strong sense of community, frequent community events, and deep attachment to religious faith that characterized life in these communities. However, shtetls were also a form of segregation used to deny the Jewish community access to good farmland and most Russian culture and commerce. Shtetl residents highly valued education, coupled with charity and a strong work ethic, and there were definite class barriers in these communities, with a very fixed way of life that changed little for nearly two centuries.
In the late 1800s, Tsar Alexander III passed the May Laws, a set of seemingly temporary regulations that were used to discriminate against the Jewish community. Jews were not allowed to live in rural areas, even in the Pale, and were denied access to education and many professions. Jews were also forcibly removed from major Russian cities, and many Jews emigrated during this period to seek better living conditions, radically reducing the number of shtetls. Those that remained were decimated by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and while many former shtetls exist today, their populations are no longer primarily Jewish.
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