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The golden age shtetl: a new history of Jewish life in East Europe

2014; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 52; Issue: 05 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5860/choice.185182

1943-5975

Mariya Melentyeva,

Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern. The Golden Age Shtetl A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014. 431 pp. Map. Photographs. Index. $25.00, cloth.The centerpiece character of this fascinating book is the shtetl, the East European market town m private possession of Polish magnates, inhabited mostly by Jews. Dining its golden age-between the partitions of the Polish Commonwealth by Russia, Prussia, and Austria at the end of the eighteenth century and the coming of the Russian Imperial industrial age m the 1840s-the shtetl revealed its potential through economic prosperity. Its dwellers showed a great deal of ingenuity in adapting themselves to their new life in the Russian Empire. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtem's compelling reconstruction of the shtetl brings life to tales of Jewish wives defending their families, tavern keepers and their trade, and international smugglers, among others; in short, Jews in ordinary and extraordinary circumstances (p. 7). The focus of the book is on three provinces of the Pale of Jewish Settlement in Russia-Podillia, Volhynia, and Kyiv-all of winch are now in contemporary central Ukraine. Tins region stood out for its dense Jewish population, its large number of markets and annual fairs, and peculiar religious traditions, which gave rise to Hasidism, a movement of religious enthusiasm. The Russian administration, the Polish nobility, and the Jews were key actors of the political triangle within winch the golden age shtetl came into existence.The book is organized topically, around case studies. In each chapter, a cultural study of shtetl life is placed in the unfolding broader imperial context. The first chapters focus more on the beginning of the golden age of the shtetl, while later chapters deal primarily with the shtetl of the 1820s and 1830s. The introduction and the first chapter lay a foundation for the book and tell the stoiy of how the shtetl came into Russia, what it brought with it, and what changes the new political environment triggered within it. Petrovsky- Shtem masterfully narrates numerous stories of ordinary Jews within themes of trade, crime, justice, family, smuggling, printing enterprise, and other subjects in the remaining nine chapters. The book's concluding chapter provides a general insight on how the golden age shtetl declined.The phenomenon of the shtetl in its prime was not only about Jewish life; it is the Russian Empire's important junction at its periphery. …