Awards

• Winner of Winner, 2014 Canadian Jewish Book Awards, history category.

Overview

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 400 returnees in Ukraine provide the basis for Jeffrey Veidlinger's reappraisal of the traditional narrative of 20th-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.

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9780253022974

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Reviews

Hitherto the story of the Holocaust in the Eastern European shtetl has been told by those who left on behalf of those who did not survive. What do we learn from these stories told from the shtetl itself? In the Shadow of the Shtetl restores horror to the setting in which it occurred: at home, among familiar people and places...In their accounts the everyday and the extraordinary, the innocuous and the gruesome are continually intertwined. The same people participated in both. The relationship between the normal and the abnormal, the intimate and the alien takes on a different shape in these stories perhaps a shape that can help us better understand places like Rwanda or Cambodia or Bosnia. New York Review of Books

Hitherto the story of the Holocaust in the Eastern European shtetl has been told by those who left—on behalf of those who did not survive. What do we learn from these stories told from the shtetl itself? In the Shadow of the Shtetl restores horror to the setting in which it occurred: at home, among familiar people and places. . . . In their accounts the everyday and the extraordinary, the innocuous and the gruesome are continually intertwined. The same people participated in both. The relationship between the normal and the abnormal, the intimate and the alien takes on a different shape in these stories—perhaps a shape that can help us better understand places like Rwanda or Cambodia—or Bosnia. * New York Review of Books *

This excellent book is remarkable both for its ethnographic fieldwork with a largely forgotten group as well as the quality of its scholarship. Recommended for all libraries. * AJL Reviews * [H]istorian Jeffrey Veidlinger has shown in this new and important study that there remain communities of Yiddish speakers in Ukrainian shtetls even today: Jews born in the first decades of the twentieth century who lived the majority of their lives under Soviet rule. * American Historical Review * Hitherto the story of the Holocaust in the Eastern European shtetl has been told by those who left-on behalf of those who did not survive. What do we learn from these stories told from the shtetl itself? In the Shadow of the Shtetl restores horror to the setting in which it occurred: at home, among familiar people and places . . . In their accounts the everyday and the extraordinary, the innocuous and the gruesome are continually intertwined. The same people participated in both. The relationship between the normal and the abnormal, the intimate and the alien takes on a different shape in these stories-perhaps a shape that can help us better understand places like Rwanda or Cambodia-or Bosnia. * New York Review of Books * This sensitively rendered study advances our understanding of the Soviet Jewish experience by shifting the focus from the center to the periphery. It also offers a thoughtful meditation on the use of oral testimony in historical scholarship. * Russian Review * Thanks to Veidlinger's new monograph, we get a nuanced insight into the 'lost world' of the post-Holocaust shtetl, which remained hidden even from the vast majority of Soviet Jews. At the same time, one has to be careful when extrapolating these important, often pioneering, findings to other Soviet settings. Veidlinger clearly demonstrates such care. * Slavic Review * Veidlinger . . . is a talented, sensitive guide through the memories of small-town Jewish life, which he compares with an array of published archival research. . . . Recommended. * Choice * In the Shadow of the Shetl is an insightful story of Jewish life in small towns in Soviet Ukraine. . . . It is a remarkable account of individual survival, narrated not by those east European Jews who had left after the war for America or Israel, but by those returners who came back to rebuild their communities and have managed to preserve components of Jewish lifestyle in the region to this day. * European History Quarterly * In the Shadow of the Shtetl makes an important contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to treat the shtetl as an object of historical research, joining recent works by Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Jeffrey Shandler, and others, just as it also adds to another body of research by scholars such as Anna Shternshis, David Shneer, Zvi Gitelman, Elissa Bemporad, and Kenneth Moss that has reexamined the lives and cultural production of Jews in the Soviet Union. * AJS REVIEW * The many personal depictions make this a fascinating book and the author never loses track of the main issues that he wants to address. It is an extremely valuable addition to the small number of books about popular religion among Jews in twentieth century Eastern Europe and should be relevant to many topics. * Religious Studies Review *

In the Shadow of the Shtetl makes an important contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to treat the shtetl as an object of historical research, joining recent works by Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Jeffrey Shandler, and others, just as it also adds to another body of research by scholars such as Anna Shternshis, David Shneer, Zvi Gitelman, Elissa Bemporad, and Kenneth Moss that has reexamined the lives and cultural production of Jews in the Soviet Union. * AJS REVIEW * The many personal depictions make this a fascinating book and the author never loses track of the main issues that he wants to address. It is an extremely valuable addition to the small number of books about popular religion among Jews in twentieth century Eastern Europe and should be relevant to many topics. * Religious Studies Review * Veidlinger . . . is a talented, sensitive guide through the memories of small-town Jewish life, which he compares with an array of published archival research. . . . Recommended. * Choice * In the Shadow of the Shetl is an insightful story of Jewish life in small towns in Soviet Ukraine. . . . It is a remarkable account of individual survival, narrated not by those east European Jews who had left after the war for America or Israel, but by those returners who came back to rebuild their communities and have managed to preserve components of Jewish lifestyle in the region to this day. * European History Quarterly * Hitherto the story of the Holocaust in the Eastern European shtetl has been told by those who left-on behalf of those who did not survive. What do we learn from these stories told from the shtetl itself? In the Shadow of the Shtetl restores horror to the setting in which it occurred: at home, among familiar people and places . . . In their accounts the everyday and the extraordinary, the innocuous and the gruesome are continually intertwined. The same people participated in both. The relationship between the normal and the abnormal, the intimate and the alien takes on a different shape in these stories-perhaps a shape that can help us better understand places like Rwanda or Cambodia-or Bosnia. * New York Review of Books * Thanks to Veidlinger's new monograph, we get a nuanced insight into the 'lost world' of the post-Holocaust shtetl, which remained hidden even from the vast majority of Soviet Jews. At the same time, one has to be careful when extrapolating these important, often pioneering, findings to other Soviet settings. Veidlinger clearly demonstrates such care. * Slavic Review * This sensitively rendered study advances our understanding of the Soviet Jewish experience by shifting the focus from the center to the periphery. It also offers a thoughtful meditation on the use of oral testimony in historical scholarship. * Russian Review * [H]istorian Jeffrey Veidlinger has shown in this new and important study that there remain communities of Yiddish speakers in Ukrainian shtetls even today: Jews born in the first decades of the twentieth century who lived the majority of their lives under Soviet rule. * American Historical Review * This excellent book is remarkable both for its ethnographic fieldwork with a largely forgotten group as well as the quality of its scholarship. Recommended for all libraries. * AJL Reviews *

In the Shadow of the Shetl is an insightful story of Jewish life in small towns in Soviet Ukraine. . . . It is a remarkable account of individual survival, narrated not by those east European Jews who had left after the war for America or Israel, but by those returners who came back to rebuild their communities and have managed to preserve components of Jewish lifestyle in the region to this day. * European History Quarterly * In the Shadow of the Shtetl makes an important contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to treat the shtetl as an object of historical research, joining recent works by Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Jeffrey Shandler, and others, just as it also adds to another body of research by scholars such as Anna Shternshis, David Shneer, Zvi Gitelman, Elissa Bemporad, and Kenneth Moss that has reexamined the lives and cultural production of Jews in the Soviet Union. * AJS REVIEW * [H]istorian Jeffrey Veidlinger has shown in this new and important study that there remain communities of Yiddish speakers in Ukrainian shtetls even today: Jews born in the first decades of the twentieth century who lived the majority of their lives under Soviet rule. * American Historical Review * The many personal depictions make this a fascinating book and the author never loses track of the main issues that he wants to address. It is an extremely valuable addition to the small number of books about popular religion among Jews in twentieth century Eastern Europe and should be relevant to many topics. * Religious Studies Review * Thanks to Veidlinger's new monograph, we get a nuanced insight into the 'lost world' of the post-Holocaust shtetl, which remained hidden even from the vast majority of Soviet Jews. At the same time, one has to be careful when extrapolating these important, often pioneering, findings to other Soviet settings. Veidlinger clearly demonstrates such care. * Slavic Review * This excellent book is remarkable both for its ethnographic fieldwork with a largely forgotten group as well as the quality of its scholarship. Recommended for all libraries. * AJL Reviews * This sensitively rendered study advances our understanding of the Soviet Jewish experience by shifting the focus from the center to the periphery. It also offers a thoughtful meditation on the use of oral testimony in historical scholarship. * Russian Review * Veidlinger . . . is a talented, sensitive guide through the memories of small-town Jewish life, which he compares with an array of published archival research. . . . Recommended. * Choice * Hitherto the story of the Holocaust in the Eastern European shtetl has been told by those who left-on behalf of those who did not survive. What do we learn from these stories told from the shtetl itself? In the Shadow of the Shtetl restores horror to the setting in which it occurred: at home, among familiar people and places . . . In their accounts the everyday and the extraordinary, the innocuous and the gruesome are continually intertwined. The same people participated in both. The relationship between the normal and the abnormal, the intimate and the alien takes on a different shape in these stories-perhaps a shape that can help us better understand places like Rwanda or Cambodia-or Bosnia. * New York Review of Books *

Hitherto the story of the Holocaust in the Eastern European shtetl has been told by those who left-on behalf of those who did not survive. What do we learn from these stories told from the shtetl itself? In the Shadow of the Shtetl restores horror to the setting in which it occurred: at home, among familiar people and places... In their accounts the everyday and the extraordinary, the innocuous and the gruesome are continually intertwined. The same people participated in both. The relationship between the normal and the abnormal, the intimate and the alien takes on a different shape in these stories-perhaps a shape that can help us better understand places like Rwanda or Cambodia-or Bosnia. -New York Review of Books

Hitherto the story of the Holocaust in the Eastern European shtetl has been told by those who left-on behalf of those who did not survive. What do we learn from these stories told from the shtetl itself? In the Shadow of the Shtetl restores horror to the setting in which it occurred: at home, among familiar people and places...In their accounts the everyday and the extraordinary, the innocuous and the gruesome are continually intertwined. The same people participated in both. The relationship between the normal and the abnormal, the intimate and the alien takes on a different shape in these stories-perhaps a shape that can help us better understand places like Rwanda or Cambodia-or Bosnia. -New York Review of Books

Author Information

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) and Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire (IUP).

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