New film about postwar shtetls in the former USSR is now streaming
The film "Shtetlers" reveals the Jewish culture that Jews and non-Jews shared in these towns.
Shtetl
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Forverts in English Yiddish film offers authentic recreation of shtetl life before it was destroyed
The title leaves the ‘e’ out of ‘shtetl’ as a symbol of what was lost.
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Forverts in English Are Jews afraid of Christmas?
Learn why shtetl Jews covered their pots on Christmas Eve and other fascinating traditions related to the holiday
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Forverts in English Ryback’s art captured Ukrainian shtetl life before it disappeared
As Russia’s bloodletting in Ukraine continues, we have begun sharing stories about the great contribution that Ukrainian Jews have made to our rich Jewish culture and to the world at large. Today we’ll focus on the renowned avant-garde Jewish painter Issachar Ber Ryback, whose lithographs and paintings portrayed traditional Jewish life in the Ukrainian shtetl,…
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Forverts in English Yiddish Folklore Inspires American Artist Debra Olin
Read this article in Yiddish. As seen in a new exhibit at the Museum at Eldridge Street, artist Debra Olin has created large format monoprint collages that explore Jewish folkloric superstitions and religious practices, particularly those of women in the Russian Pale of Settlement. Olin based her art on the information she gleaned from an…
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Forverts in English My father, the shoemaker
Read this article in Yiddish My father, Ben Perkal (Berche, in Yiddish) was a kind person and a devoted family man, but he may have been the worst shoemaker in Poland. OK, that may be a slight exaggeration. But he was surely the worst shoemaker in Ostralenka, the shtetl in northeastern Poland that he grew…
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Forverts in English The “golden age” of Yiddish-speaking criminals
Read this article in Yiddish. Jewish crime ain’t what it used to be. In 1908, New York Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham caused a scandal when he asserted in an article in the North American Review that half the city’s criminals were Jews. The Jewish community was outraged and Bingham was forced to retract his statement….
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Culture Shtetl-inspired sweatshirts are creating controversy online — but is ‘shtreetwear’ really beyond the pale?
Call it shtreetwear. Call it shtetlcore. The era of extremely Ashkenazi athleisure is here, and it’s forcing Jews to contend with a pressing question: What are “shtetl vibes,” and should you be able to sell them? On Tuesday, the Jewish Twitterverse took note of Shtêttl, a streetwear-cum-lifstyle brand inspired by shtetls — yes, the small,…
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