Shtetl or shtetel is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The term is used in the contexts of peculiarities of former East European Jewish societies as islands within the surrounding non-Jewish populace, and bears certain socio-economic and cultural connotations. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas that constituted the 19th-century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, as well as in Congress Poland, Austrian Galicia, the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Hungary.
A Jewish wedding with a klezmer band in a shtetl, by Isaak Asknaziy
A reconstruction of a traditional Jewish shtetl in the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town, as it would have appeared in Lithuania
Interior of a wooden dwelling in a traditional Lithuanian shtetl, reconstructed in the South African Jewish Museum, Cape Town
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim, constitute a Jewish diaspora population that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE. They traditionally spoke Yiddish and largely migrated towards northern and eastern Europe during the late Middle Ages due to persecution. Hebrew was primarily used as a literary and sacred language until its 20th-century revival as a common language in Israel.
The Jews in Central Europe (1881)
The Old Synagogue in Erfurt, Germany is thought to be the oldest synagogue building intact in Europe
Jews from Worms (Germany) wearing the mandatory yellow badge.
The example of the chevra kadisha, the Jewish burial society, Prague, 1772