Shtetl
What Was Passover Like Before WWII? 5 Facts You May Not Know
Because smoking is permitted on the holiday but lighting them isn’t, Jews would offer their lit cigarettes to Jewish passers-by.
Why Bubbe Always Ate Alone In The Kitchen
I always found the shtetl foods — chicken necks and smoked fish — disgusting. Until now.
Grigory Kanovich’s Remarkable Love Song For a Lithuanian Shtetl
“Shtetl Love Song” belongs to the genre of homespun shtetl literature, which began with Mendele Mocher Sforim’s autobiography, “Shloyme Ben Khayems.”
LISTEN: A Yiddish Shtetl Song Got Revived On NPR
Ljova and the Kontraband performed a beautiful Yiddish song from western Ukraine in an NPR “Tiny Desk Concert.”
Preparing For Passover In Ukraine’s Last Shtetl
At first glance, this drab town 160 miles south of Kiev seems nearly identical to the settlements that dot the poverty-stricken district of Vinnitsa. Shrouded in a seemingly permanent cloud of smoke from wood fires Bershad, population 13,000, features two rickety bridges over the Dokhna River.
The ‘Turncoats’ Of Wojslawice — And What They Say About Us
The Jews of Uchanie, my father’s shtetl in Lublin province, used to say about the Jews of Wojslawice just down the road, that they were meshumodim. Turncoats. What worse epithet could you hurl at a fellow Jew?
Letter from Ukraine: Don’t Let Refugee History Repeat Itself
As Jews, we must speak out. We are no strangers to the life-saving benefits of immigration no less than we are strangers to the reality of what happens when immigration is no longer an option.
Does Famed 1899 Painting Debunk ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Myth on Intermarriage?
No Jewish visitor to Ukraine’s National Art Museum can pass this painting without stopping to look:
The Incredible History of Jewish Smuggling
Sometimes Jews transferred goods illegally to preserve their way of life; in other cases, the incentives were less noble. From kosher wine to Ecstasy, here are our best bootlegs.
New York State's Oldest Landsmanschaften Celebrates 100th Anniversary
When Mikhail Kivovich came to America from Belorussia in 1991, he knew he had relatives who had made the same journey decades earlier. But he had no idea how many — until recently.