29 Jul Shtetl
In Yiddish, a small or mid-size town or a village with a significant Jewish population in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia. Originates from the Yiddish word shtut that means city. The definition of the word lies in the hearts of its inhabitants. And their descendants.
As Jews were forbidden to own land, the shtetl became a form of settlement that allowed survival through a limited nomenclature of service and artisan skills – this rule was at the root of the Russian, then Soviet, stereotype that Jews were not able to work on land and did not like to dirty their hands.
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