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59-576: The first known record of the Lyozna shtetl (small town with a high Jewish population) is dated 1654. In 1939, 711 Jews lived in the settlement, making up 17.3 percent of the population. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union , the settlement was captured on 16 July 1941 by V Army Corps of the 9th Army ; it was part of Army Group Centre Rear Area . The ghetto in Lyozna was liquidated at

118-410: A Jew a simple one, Wrote Yiddish-German (translations) for women and for the regular folk, was a writer of humor He circled the world like Kapparot The whole world does well, and he, oh my, was in trouble. But when the world is laughing applauding and slapping their knee, he sickened - only God knows this in secret, so no-one sees. In 1997, a monument dedicated to Sholem Aleichem

177-700: 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", as the Russian Empire had annexed the eastern part of Poland , and was administering the area where the settlement of Jews was permitted . The concept of 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. The history of

236-427: A Sholem Aleichem website was launched to mark the 100th anniversary of Sholem Aleichem's death. The website is a partnership between Sholem Aleichem's family, his biographer Professor Jeremy Dauber , Citizen Film , Columbia University's Center for Israel and Jewish Studies, The Covenant Foundation, and The Yiddish Book Center . The website features interactive maps and timelines, recommended readings, as well as

295-479: A Yiddish school, Sholem Aleichem College is named after him. Several Jewish schools in Argentina were also named after him. In Rio de Janeiro , Brazil a library named BIBSA – Biblioteca Sholem Aleichem was founded in 1915 as a Zionist institution by a local Jewish group. Next year, in 1916, the same group that created BIBSA founded a Jewish school named Escola Sholem Aleichem; it closed in 1997. BIBSA had

354-511: 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 shtetl , in addition to sufferings, were colored with nostalgia and sentimentalism. Chełm figures prominently in the Jewish humor as the legendary town of fools : the Wise Men of Chelm . Kasrilevke ,

413-553: A fictional story set in the Ukrainian shtetl Trachimbrod ( Trochenbrod ). The 1992 children's book Something from Nothing , written and illustrated by Phoebe Gilman , is an adaptation of a traditional Jewish folk tale set in a fictional shtetl . In 1996 the Frontline programme " Shtetl " broadcast; it was about Polish Christian and Jewish relations. Harry Turtledove 's 2011 short story "Shtetl Days", begins in

472-696: A list of centennial celebration events taking place worldwide. The website also features resources for educators. Hertz Grosbard recited many of his works in so called "word concerts". A reading in Yiddish of his monologue If I Were a Rothschild and several others can be found on the Grosbard Project . The writer's brother, Wolf Rabinovich, published the memoir "My Brother Sholom Aleichem" in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR , in 1939. Sholem Aleichem's granddaughter, Bel Kaufman , by his daughter Lala (Lyalya),

531-588: A nearby forest or taken to the various concentration camps . Some shtetl inhabitants were able to emigrate before and after the Holocaust, which resulted in many Ashkenazi Jewish traditions being passed on. However, the 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. In the later part of

590-411: 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 shtetl existence. The decline of the shtetl started from about

649-506: A strong sense of community. The shtetl "at its heart, it was a community of faith built upon a deeply rooted religious culture". A Jewish education was most paramount in shtetls . Men and boys could spend up to 10 hours a day dedicated to studying at a 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. Tzedakah (charity)

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708-646: A thank you letter in which he wrote, “If I tried to tell you a hundredth part of the way I feel about you, I know that that would be sheer profanation. If I am fated to live a few years longer than I have been expecting, I shall doubtless be able to say that it’s your fault, yours and that of all the other friends who have done so much to carry out your idea of ‘the redemption of the imprisoned.’” Sholem Aleichem moved to New York City again with his family in 1914. The family lived at first in Harlem at 110 Lenox Avenue (at 116th Street) and later moved to 968 Kelly Street in

767-558: A typical shtetl reminiscent of the works of 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 shtetl communities across the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . Many Jewish artists in Eastern Europe dedicated much of their artistic careers to depictions of the shtetl . These include Marc Chagall , Chaim Goldberg , and Mané-Katz . Their contribution

826-446: A very active theatrical program in Yiddish for more than 50 years since its foundation and consistently performed Sholem Aleichem plays. In 1947 BIBSA became Associação Sholem Aleichem, under which name it continues to exist. Both the library and club became communist institutions due to a normal transition of power in the founding group, although non-communist members left to found their own school, Colégio Eliezer Steinbarg , in 1956. It

885-503: A wealthy landowner's daughter, Olga (Hodel) Loev (1865–1942). From 1880 to 1883 he served as crown rabbi in Lubny . On May 12, 1883, he and Olga married, against the wishes of her father, whose estate they inherited a few years later. Their first child, a daughter named Ernestina (Tissa), was born in 1884. In 1890, Sholem Aleichem lost their entire fortune in stock speculation and fled from his creditors. Daughter Lyalya (Lili)

944-445: A writer, his friend and colleague Jacob Dinezon spearheaded a committee with Dr. Gershon Levine, Abraham Podlishevsky, and Noach Pryłucki to buy back the publishing rights to Sholem Aleichem’s works from various publishers for his sole use in order to provide him with a steady income. At a time when Sholem Aleichem was ill and struggling financially, this proved to be an invaluable gift, and Sholem Aleichem expressed his gratitude in

1003-404: A yid a posheter Geshriben yidish-daitsh far vayber Un faren prosten folk hot er geven a humorist a shrayber Di gantse lebn umgelozt geshlogen mit der welt kapores Di gantse welt hot gut gemakht Un er - oy vey - geveyn oyf tsores Un dafka demolt geven der oylem hot gelacht geklutchet un fleg zikh fleyen Doch er gekrenkt dos veys nor got Besod, az keyner zol nit zeen Here lies

1062-646: Is a greeting in traditional Hebrew and Yiddish. Solomon Naumovich (Sholom Nohumovich) Rabinovich ( Russian : Соломо́н Нау́мович (Шо́лом Но́хумович) Рабино́вич ) was born in 1859 in Pereiaslav and grew up in the nearby shtetl of Voronkiv , in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in the Kyiv Oblast of central Ukraine ). (Voronkiv has become the prototype of Aleichem's Kasrilevka . ) His father, Menachem-Nukhem Rabinovich,

1121-537: Is a key element of Jewish culture, both secular and religious, to this day. Tzedakah was essential for 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 ( chesed ). This approach to good deeds finds its roots in Jewish religious views, summarized in Pirkei Avot by Shimon Hatzaddik 's "three pillars": On three things

1180-579: Is also sometimes called a shtetl . Brno , Czech Republic , has a significant Jewish history and Yiddish words are part of the now dying-out Hantec slang . The word " štetl " (pronounced 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 shtetl . Not only did

1239-644: Is in making a permanent record in color of the life that is described in literature—the klezmers , the weddings, the marketplaces and the religious aspects of the culture. Sholem Aleichem Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich ( Russian : Соломон Наумович Рабинович ; March 2 [ O.S. February 18] 1859 – May 13, 1916), better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem ( Yiddish and Hebrew : שלום עליכם , also spelled שאָלעם־אלייכעם in Soviet Yiddish , [ˈʃɔləm aˈlɛjxəm] ; Russian and Ukrainian : Шо́лом-Але́йхем ),

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1298-528: Is named after the first director of Escola Sholem Aleichem, a Jewish writer born in Romania who immigrated to Brazil. In the Bronx, New York, a housing complex called The Shalom Aleichem Houses was built by Yiddish speaking immigrants in the 1920s, and was recently restored by new owners to its original grandeur. The Shalom Alecheim Houses are part of a proposed historic district in the area. On May 13, 2016,

1357-511: Is never clearly defined. He argued that the whole Jewish life in Eastern Europe, not only in 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 shtetl '" and other kinds of stereotyping. For one, it was an "anti- shtetl " propaganda of the Zionist movement. Yiddish and Hebrew literature can only to

1416-464: The shtetl was referred to as a miasteczko (or 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 miasteczko " was often used. The shtetl as a phenomenon of Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe was destroyed by

1475-757: The Bronx . His son, Misha, ill with tuberculosis, was not permitted entry under United States immigration laws and remained in Switzerland with his sister Emma. Sholem Aleichem died at his Bronx apartment in 1916. He is buried in the main (old) section of Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, New York City . Like his contemporaries Mendele Mocher Sforim , I.L. Peretz , and Jacob Dinezon , Sholem Rabinovitch started writing in Hebrew , as well as in Russian . In 1883, when he

1534-489: The Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Hungary . In Yiddish, a larger city, like Lviv or Chernivtsi , is called a shtot ( Yiddish : שטאָט ), and a village is called a dorf ( Yiddish : דאָרף ). Shtetl is a diminutive of shtot with the meaning 'little town'. Despite the existence of Jewish self-administration ( kehilla / kahal ), officially there were no separate Jewish municipalities, and

1593-487: 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

1652-522: 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. Also, the anti-Semitism of the Russian Imperial administrators and the Polish landlords, as well as the resultant pogroms in

1711-399: 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 shtetl s . The Holocaust resulted in the total extermination of these towns. It was not uncommon for the entire Jewish population of a shtetl to be rounded up and murdered in

1770-552: The 20th century, Hasidic Jews founded new communities in the United States, such as Kiryas Joel and New Square , and they sometimes use the term " shtetl " to refer to these enclaves in Yiddish, particularly those with village structures. In Europe, the Orthodox community in Antwerp , Belgium , is widely described as the last shtetl , composed of about 12,000 people. The Gateshead , United Kingdom Orthodox community

1829-866: The Cantor's Son , and was buried at Old Mount Carmel cemetery in Queens . At the time, his funeral was one of the largest in New York City history, with an estimated 100,000 mourners. The next day, his will was printed in the New York Times and was read into the Congressional Record of the United States . Sholem Aleichem's will contained detailed instructions to family and friends with regard to burial arrangements and marking his yahrtzeit . He told his friends and family to gather, "read my will, and also select one of my stories, one of

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1888-673: The Eastern fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and most notably on his hometown Brody . Many of Isaac Bashevis Singer 's short stories and novels are set in 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

1947-462: The Jews of the shtetls speak Yiddish , a language rarely spoken by outsiders, but they also had a unique rhetorical style, rooted in traditions of Talmudic learning: In keeping with his own conception of contradictory reality, the man of the shtetl is noted both for volubility and for laconic, allusive speech. Both pictures are true, and both are characteristic of the yeshiva as well as

2006-472: The Nazis during the Holocaust. 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 and New Square today. A shtetl is defined by Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern as "an East European market town in private possession of

2065-517: The Soviet Union (Scott #2164, 1959); Romania (Scott #1268, 1959); and Ukraine (Scott #758, 2009). An impact crater on the planet Mercury also bears his name. On March 2, 2009, 150 years after his birth, the National Bank of Ukraine issued an anniversary coin depicting and celebrating Aleichem. Vilnius , Lithuania has a Jewish school named after him and in Melbourne , Australia

2124-544: The age of fifteen, he composed a Jewish version of the novel Robinson Crusoe . He adopted the pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, a Yiddish variant of the Hebrew expression shalom aleichem , meaning "peace be with you" and typically used as a greeting. In 1876, after graduating from school in Pereiaslav, he began to work as a teacher. During 1877-1880 in Sofijka village, Bohuslav region, he spent three years tutoring

2183-580: The almanac's third issue, which had been edited but was subsequently never printed. Tevye the Dairyman , in Yiddish טבֿיה דער מילכיקער  Tevye der Milchiker , was first published in 1894. Over the next few years, while continuing to write in Yiddish, he also wrote in Russian for an Odesa newspaper and for Voskhod , the leading Russian Jewish publication of the time, as well as in Hebrew for Ha-melitz, and for an anthology edited by YH Ravnitzky . It

2242-774: The catalyst for writing his autobiography, Funem yarid [From the Fair]. He thus missed the first Conference for the Yiddish Language , held in 1908 in Czernovitz ; his colleague and fellow Yiddish activist Nathan Birnbaum went in his place. Sholem Aleichem spent the next four years living as a semi-invalid. During this period the family was largely supported by donations from friends and admirers (among his friends and acquaintances were fellow Yiddish authors I. L. Peretz , Jacob Dinezon , Mordecai Spector , and Noach Pryłucki ). In 1909, in celebration of his 25th Jubilee as

2301-590: The context of former East European Jewish societies as mandated islands within the surrounding non-Jewish populace, and thus bears certain connotations of discrimination. Shtetls (or shtetels , shtetlach , shtetelach or shtetlekh ) 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 , Austrian Galicia ,

2360-406: The end of February 1942. Lyozna remained under German military occupation until 8 October 1943. This Belarus location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Shtetl Shtetl or shtetel is a Yiddish term for small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust . The term is used in

2419-483: 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. Shtetls provided

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2478-531: The number 13 . His manuscripts never had a page 13; he numbered the thirteenth pages of his manuscripts as 12a. Though it has been written that even his headstone carries the date of his death as "May 12a, 1916", his headstone reads the dates of his birth and death in Hebrew, the 26th of Adar and the 10th of Iyar, respectively. Sholem Aleichem died in New York on May 13, 1916, from tuberculosis and diabetes, aged 57, while working on his last novel, Motl, Peysi

2537-417: The oldest Eastern European shtetls began around the 13th century. Throughout this history, shtetls saw periods of relative tolerance and prosperity as well as times of extreme poverty and hardships, including pogroms in the 19th-century Russian Empire. According to Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog (1962): The attitudes and thought habits characteristic of the learning tradition are as evident in

2596-587: The same status and respect as other modern European languages. He did not stop with what came to be called "Yiddishism", but devoted himself to the cause of Zionism as well. Many of his writings present the Zionist case. In 1888, he became a member of Hovevei Zion . In 1907, he served as an American delegate to the Eighth Zionist Congress held in The Hague . Sholem Aleichem had a fear of

2655-578: The setting of many of Sholem Aleichem 's stories, and Anatevka, the setting of the musical Fiddler on the Roof (based on other stories of Sholem Aleichem), are other notable fictional shtetls . Devorah Baron made aliyah to Ottoman Palestine in 1910, after a pogrom destroyed her shtetl near Minsk . But she continued writing about shtetl life long after she had arrived in Palestine. Many of Joseph Roth 's books are based on shtetls on

2714-538: The street and market place as the yeshiva . The popular picture of the Jew in Eastern Europe, held by Jew and Gentile alike, is true to the Talmudic 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

2773-617: The two authors' similar writing styles and use of pen names . Both authors wrote for adults and children and lectured extensively in Europe and the United States. When Twain heard of the writer called "the Jewish Mark Twain," he replied, "Please tell him that I am the American Sholem Aleichem." Sholem Aleichem was an impassioned advocate of Yiddish as a national Jewish language, which he felt should be accorded

2832-523: The very merry ones, and recite it in whatever language is most intelligible to you." "Let my name be recalled with laughter," he added, "or not at all." The celebrations continue to the present day, and, in recent years, have been held at the Brotherhood Synagogue on Gramercy Park South in New York City, where they are open to the public. He composed the text to be engraved on his tombstone in Yiddish, given here in transliteration: Do ligt

2891-460: The victims of the Kishinev pogrom . Sholem Aleichem's narratives were notable for the naturalness of his characters' speech and the accuracy of his descriptions of shtetl life. Early critics focused on the cheerfulness of the characters, interpreted as a way of coping with adversity. Later critics saw a tragic side in his writing. He was often referred to as the "Jewish Mark Twain " because of

2950-441: 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 shtetl . Learning and education were the ultimate measures of worth in the eyes of the community, while money was secondary to status. As the shtetl formed an entire town and community, residents worked diverse jobs such as shoe-making , metallurgy, or tailoring of clothes. Studying

3009-818: Was 24 years old, he published his first Yiddish story, צוויי שטיינער Tsvey Shteyner ("Two Stones"), using for the first time the pseudonym Sholem Aleichem. By 1890 he was a central figure in Yiddish literature, the vernacular language of nearly all East European Jews, and produced over forty volumes in Yiddish. It was often derogatorily called "jargon", but Sholem Aleichem used this term in an entirely non-pejorative sense. Apart from his own literary output, Sholem Aleichem used his personal fortune to encourage other Yiddish writers. In 1888–89, he put out two issues of an almanac , די ייִדישע פאָלקסביבליאָטעק Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek ("The Yiddish Public Library") which gave important exposure to young Yiddish writers. In 1890, after he lost his entire fortune, he could not afford to print

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3068-535: Was a Yiddish author and playwright who lived in the Russian Empire and in the United States. The 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof , based on Aleichem's stories about Tevye the Dairyman , was the first commercially successful English-language stage production about Jewish life in Eastern Europe . The Hebrew phrase שלום עליכם ( shalom aleichem ) literally means "[May] peace [be] upon you!", and

3127-403: Was a rich merchant at that time. However, a failed business affair plunged the family into poverty and Solomon Rabinovich grew up in reduced circumstances. When he was 13 years old, the family moved back to Pereiaslav, where his mother, Chaye-Esther, died in a cholera epidemic. Sholem Aleichem's first venture into writing was an alphabetic glossary of the epithets used by his stepmother. At

3186-545: Was born in 1887. As Lyalya Kaufman, she became a Hebrew writer. (Lyalya's daughter Bel Kaufman , also a writer, was the author of Up the Down Staircase , which was also made into a successful film.) A third daughter, Emma, was born in 1888. In 1889, Olga gave birth to a son. They named him Elimelech, after Olga's father, but at home they called him Misha. Daughter Marusi (who would one day publish "My Father, Sholom Aleichem" under her married name Marie Waife -Goldberg)

3245-705: Was born in 1892. A final child, a son named Nochum (Numa) after Solomon's father was born in 1901 (under the name Norman Raeben he became a painter and an influential art teacher). After witnessing the pogroms that swept through southern Russian Empire in 1905, including Kiev , Sholem Aleichem left Kiev (which was fictionalized as Yehupetz ) and emigrated to New York City , where he arrived in 1906. His family set up house in Geneva , Switzerland , but when he saw he could not afford to maintain two households, he joined them in Geneva in 1908. Despite his great popularity, he

3304-523: Was considered the most valuable and hardest work of all. Learned 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 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

3363-500: Was during this period that Sholem Aleichem contracted tuberculosis . In August 1904, Sholem Aleichem edited הילף : א זאַמלבוך פיר ליטעראטור אונ קונסט Hilf: a Zaml-Bukh fir Literatur un Kunst ("Help: An Anthology for Literature and Art"; Warsaw , 1904) and himself translated three stories submitted by Tolstoy ( Esarhaddon, King of Assyria ; Work, Death and Sickness ; The Three Questions ) as well as contributions by other prominent Russian writers, including Chekhov , in aid of

3422-654: Was erected in Kyiv ; another was erected in 2001 in Moscow . The main street of Birobidzhan is named after Sholem Aleichem; streets were named after him also in cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv , Odesa , Vinnytsia , Lviv , and Zhytomyr . In New York City in 1996, East 33rd Street between Park and Madison Avenue is additionally named "Sholem Aleichem Place". Many streets in Israel are named after him. Postage stamps of Sholem Aleichem were issued by Israel ( Scott #154, 1959);

3481-531: Was forced to take up an exhausting schedule of lecturing to make ends meet. In July 1908, during a reading tour in Russia, Sholem Aleichem collapsed on a train going through Baranowicze . He was diagnosed with a relapse of acute hemorrhagic tuberculosis and spent two months convalescing in the town's hospital. He later described the incident as "meeting his majesty, the Angel of Death, face to face", and claimed it as

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