Talk:Shtetl

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Old discussions

I have my doubts about the utility of this page as presently constituted, but until something better comes along am going expand list and sort by country. --Sjsilverman 04:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

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And I have doubts about this quote: History of the oldest Eastern European shtetls began about a millennium ago and saw periods of relative tolerance and prosperity as well as times of extreme poverty, hardships and pogroms.

My question is: what is that notion for?

It suggests mostly bad sides ("relative" tolerance) of the history of life of Jews. But this chapter, compared with a list of villages, towns, cities - mostly in Poland, as it even is the only country separated from others, might cause a feeling that something wrong was with it and that its inhabitants were facing mostly bad acceptance and/or lifetime. I am a Pole myself, so I find it pretty derogatory. It was not mentioned that at the time Poland wasn't existed, subdivided into 3 parts: one grabbed by the Germany (Prussia), second one - Russia (Russian Empire), third one: Austria (whose Polish part was called "Galicia"). The towns and cities listed are predominantly from the Galician and Russian part. There's no notion about the German part - mostly because due to political attitude in Germany, Jews were there subjected to discriminative laws, aimed, among others, to comminute jewish kernel communes and not to let create strong national ties in their own schtetlach. In Polish parts - mostly Galicia, that had fought its vestigial autonomy within Austro-Hungarian Empire, Jews were separate in many political or legal areas: they could impose own local taxes, duties etc. within their communes, there were no expropriation history from their real estates etc. So their situation was decisively better than in German parts, mostly because their existence were not that hindered with invader's telling-apart regulations.

Maybe I am too touchy because of my origin. If so, please, correct me, I am open for a substantial discussion. If not, the best thing would be to cancel that part or change it in a more impartial way.

217.70.60.28 18:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Chelm

Chelm is not a fictional shtetl. It exists and several Jews of Chelm contributed to founding of the Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin, one of the brightest intellectual centres of Jewish life before the Shoah. Chelm is east of Lublin, towards border wit but to the holes h Ukraine. (Andrzej Lobelio Kozicki of Warsaw, Poland)

List of shtetlakh

The list of shtetls that now occupies most of the articles may be better moved to a separate List of shtetlakh. BTW, what is the most appropriate plural form in English, shtetlakh or "shtetls"? Pecher ^Talk 20:36, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I would use shtetls in the title (as most proabable in searchakh), and shtetlakh in a redir. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 20:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Which shtetls should be included? The basis was Jewishgen list, extended. There are tens or hundreds more. Xx236 13:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

What I can't stand about this list is its division into "Poland" and "Other," especially since the preface to the list shows how awkward it is to retroject modern political boundaries. But, more importantly: why privilege Poland, within the modern boundaries of which only a fraction of shtetlekh were located? Bws2002 23:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC

"Shtots"

I'll live with the plural of 'shtetl' being 'shtetls,' since it's become an English word, but why should the plural of 'shtot'be 'shtots,' since 'shtot' is not an English word. For the record, the plural in Yiddish is 'shtet.' Bws2002 23:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I see Lódz listed as a shtetl. I am not sure how big the city was back in the day, but, given its current size, I am guessing it belongs much better in the shtot section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mountolive (talk • contribs) 23:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

I moved in down there, thanks. --Tom 19:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

continuity?

there seems to be a continuity problem. First it says in the introduction: A shtetl (Yiddish: שטעטל, diminutive form of Yiddish shtot שטאָט, "town") was typically a small town with a large Jewish population forced to live there by Germans in pre-Holocaust Central and Eastern Europe.

Then in the paragraph 'History' it goes like this: History of the oldest Eastern European shtetls began about a millennium ago and...

The shtetlekh were located in Eastern Europe, places which evolved with no German interference or influence for the better part of the last millenium. How does this go together?

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—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.165.190.130 (talk) 11:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

some notes on my edits

• I removed the claim that Shtetl's were primarily "farming" communities from the lead. Not true.
• I organized the sections of the article in a much better and flowing way.
• I put most of my work into the Shtetl culture section.
• I moved the list of shtetls and the list of shtots to its own article.

Tell me what you think, --Ithinkgood (talk) 06:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

i've tried to remove the list of shtetls from this article so we can just put it in that seperate article, but the bots won't let me! any thoughts on whether this is a good thing to do? thanks, --Ithinkgood (talk) 07:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Shtot Section

While I think this section is better organized than the Shtetl section, I'm at a loss to understand the difference between Shtots and Shtetlach. Is there a size limitation? If so, tell us what it is.

I'm in favor of not separating the two. In most sources (Where Once We Walked; Shtetl Finder) no one makes such a distinction. I vote to merge the two sections together. Many of them appear in both anyway. --Klezmer (talk) 13:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

a lot of work

This article is all over the place. I condensed some sections and I removed some sections, such as the section dealing with women. In my opinion the article on women and judaism is a more approprite place for this section. not a lot of quotes for this article either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.15.6.99 (talk) 18:54, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Anatevka

Sorry, it's not a shtetl. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.10.35 (talk) 02:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

pre-Holocoust

Is this an official description of a period? 85.178.157.113 (talk) 20:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Typically a small town

The article claims that "shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population". Couldn't they be larger? In Talk:Białystok/GA1, I asked why is the article in the category, if the article doesn't mention this word. The nominator, having looked up at the definition here, decided that since Białystok isn't and wasn't a "small town" (but a larger one), it doesn't fit in the category and should be removed. At the same time, "At the end of the 19th century, the majority of the city's population was Jewish". Couldn't shtetls be large town s or cities? Some comments on that would be nice. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:51, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

not a good article

This isn't a good article but I'm not the one to rewrite it. Anyway it needs to be mentioned that the Jews themselves came up with the idea of all Jewish towns and paid the landowners extra rent on the condition that the towns be exclusively Jewish. To the extent that the all Jewish nature of these towns is ever mentioned the fact that the Jews wanted this is usually left out.

Jews did not live under Russian Czars until roughly 200 years ago, this is almost always misrepresented.

You can't really talk in depth about Jewish life in Eastern Europe without discussing the Arenda system, not that this needs to be part of an article on shtetl life but if the article is going to discuss East European Jewish life in general this needs to be mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.54.137 (talk) 06:44, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Shtetl Culture

I intend to edit to the portion of this article entitled shtetl culture. I feel that the previous writer has found very good references, yet the information provided upon shtetl culture is unclear. The significance of many attributes are under looked. The two long quotes are taken out of context and feel out of place. If anyone wishes this section to be left untouched, feel free to voice their concern in my talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dfried2 (talk • contribs) 23:57, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

There is no such thing allowed in wikipedia such as "wishes this section to be left untouched". Staszek Lem (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

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Antwerp

I read in a article about Antwerps Jewish community on the Beit Hatfusot (Museum of the Jewish People) website, that due to the nature of Antwerps Jewish community it is considered by some to be the last European Shtetl. Please before removing my paragraph discuss your reasons over here on the talk page. AdmiralHalsey (talk) 23:35, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

*Was* a small town? *Ashkenazi* Jewish? Existed in ... *Europe*? *Before* the Holocaust?

I don't mean to over-generalize, so please don't take this the wrong way, but I seriously doubt the quality of this article given that the first sentence alone contains at least three claims which are contradicted by other sections of the very same article. Namely that there are no longer any shtetls ("was a small town", "before the Holocaust"); that there are/were no non-Ashkenazi shtetls ("with a large Ashkenazi Jewish population"); and that there are/were no shtetls outside of Europe ("existed in Central and Eastern Europe"). The article then goes on to describe modern-day shtetls in the United States, Belgium, and Azerbaijan (Qırmızı Qəsəbə, which is home to Mountain Jews).

For the above reasons, I think the first sentence should be replaced with:

"A shtetl or shtetel is a small town with a large Jewish population. Shtetls existed in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust, but some continue to exist today in parts of the United States, Belgium, and Azerbaijan. Most shtetls are inhabited by Ashkenazi Jews, with the notable exception of Qırmızı Qəsəbə in Azerbaijan, which is inhabited by Mountain Jews."

Thoughts? ComeAndHear (talk) 08:12, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@ComeAndHear: - I agree with the above. However, could you provide sources? Merangs (talk) 09:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

The lede is correct. Modern things called shtetl have close to nothing in common with the "real" East European ones, with their unique culture and ways of life. Shtetlekh were brutally eradicated during the Holocaust. Period. And the section ""Modern usage" of the article is correct as well. Loew Galitz (talk) 09:29, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Inaccuracy in Overview?

It states "from the 1790s onward and until 1915 shtetls were also "subject to Russian bureaucracy"," But were *all* shtetls within the area governed by the Russian Empire? The text states that they were all subject to Russian bureaucracy, but it also suggests as is correct that not all of Poland was annexed by Russia, and of course the Austrian Empire and its successor the Austro-Hungarian Empire governed large areas of Eastern Europe at the same time. Boscaswell talk 00:58, 1 October 2022 (UTC)]]

Maybe, User:Boscaswell. I think Czar Nicholas I freed all serfs, including Jews who were serfs, in the late 1700s. At the same time (in 1795?), the Pale of Settlement was established. I thought it was established by Imperial Russia but I am not certain. Many shtetls were located in the Pale of Settlement. It provided a specific area for Jews to live, although it wasn't optional for Jews to live there! Yet it is ALSO my understanding that many shtetls were located on land owned by wealthy Polish, be they nobility or business magnates. I will try to find out what the story is. Possibly the Pale included areas of what was then both Russia and Poland (and maybe some of the Austro-Hungarian empire too?) In that case, I'm not sure why all of the Pale would have been subject to Russian bureaucracy. The latter is exactly your point. Since it is in the lead/overview, I think it is worth it to spend some of my time on resolving this.--FeralOink (talk) 15:43, 14 November 2022 (UTC)