The Shtetl

The world of Yiddish, its literature and culture, cannot be entered without knowledge of the shtetl — the heart of Eastern European Jewry. The papers in this volume, most of them presented at the second Mendel Friedman International Yiddish Conference organized by the University of Oxford European Humanities Research Centre and the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies (July 1999), re-examine the structure, organization and function of the numerous small market towns that shaped the Yiddish-speaking world. The different perspectives from which these studies view the shtetl trenchantly re-evaluate common preconceptions, misconceptions and assumptions, offering new insights that are as challenging as they are informative.With the contributions:David G. Roskies — The Shtetl as Imagined CommunityJohn D. Klier — What Exactly Was a Shtetl?Alla Sokolova — The Podolian Shtetl as Architectural PhenomenonHillel Kazovsky — Jewish Art between yidishkayt and CivilizationMikhail Krutikov — Berdichev in Russian Jewish Literary Imagination: From Israel Aksenfeld to Friedrich GorenshteinDafna Clifford — Shtetl Kuzmir: The Reality of the ImageAnna Shternshis — Soviet and Kosher in the Ukrainian ShtetlGennady Estraikh — The Shtetl Theme in Sovetish heymlandMoises Kijak — Immigrants Mourning for a World Lost