 | In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Small-Town Jewish Life in Soviet Ukraine Subjects: Shtetls -- Ukraine -- History -- 20th century; Shtetls -- Ukraine -- Vinnyts’ka oblast’ -- History -- 20th century; Jews -- Ukraine -- Social life and customs -- 20th century; Jews -- Ukraine -- Vinnyts’ka oblast’ -- Social life and customs -- 20th centur; A history based on interviews with hundreds of Ukrainian Jews who survived both Hitler and Stalin, recounting experiences ordinary and extraordinary. The story of how the Holocaust decimated Jewish life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe is well known. Still, thousands of Jews in these small towns survived the war and returned afterward to rebuild their communities. The recollections of some four hundred returnees in Ukraine provide the basis for Jeffrey Veidlinger's reappraisal of the traditional narrative of twentieth-century Jewish history.These elderly Yiddish speakers relate their memories of Jewish life in the prewar shtetl, their stories of survival during the Holocaust, and their experiences living as Jews under Communism. Despite Stalinist repressions, the Holocaust, and official antisemitism, their individual remembrances of family life, religious observance, education, and work testify to the survival of Jewish life in the shadow of the shtetl to this day. Jeffrey Veidlinger is Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He is author of The Moscow State Yiddish Theater (IUP, 2006) and Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire (IUP, 2009). |
