Havurah Shalom

The Havurah Book Group will discuss Shtetl by Eva Hoffman. This book explodes the common image of the shtetl, a lá Fiddler on the Roof, into something much more interesting and compelling. It traces the history of Jews in Poland over many centuries, the emergence of the shtetl and its characteristics, and the changes in the relations between Jewish and non-Jewish Poles from the 18th and 19th centuries and through the Shoah. The author does not ignore the continuing struggle over anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. A mid-90s Frontline account of a young man who discovered in a cemetery in Bransk, a shtetl south of Bialystok, grave markers used as paving stones, who then reconstructed the cemetery in his cornfield, led Hoffman to employ a specific focus on Bransk in her review of this history. Discussion will be led by Marjorie Walters.