Anatevka: Life in the Shtetl
“The play must celebrate and elevate the life of the shtetl and its people. We must keep the guts, flavor, humor, color, smell, sound, gesture, and cadence of the life but make the audience see it as a work of art and therefore seen and felt and heard in a new way that reveals and illuminates the material above the realistic and expected.” - from the journals of Jerome Robbins.
A shtetl (Yiddish for “little town”) is a small, Eastern European village populated by Ashkenazi Jews within the Pale of Settlement. These little towns of anywhere from several hundred to several thousand residents were generally surrounded forests by gentile farms. Families would live in the same shtetl for generations, which formed close-knit communities.
Physically, the shtetls had some similarities. The streets were unpaved, and homes were made of wood sourced from the surrounding forests. Common public spaces that were found in shtetls of all sizes included the shul (synagogue-often wooden), the beit midrash (study house), shtiblekh (smaller, residential houses of prayer), beit din shtibl (courthouse), a Jewish cemetery, mikveh (bathhouses) and marketplace.
A synagogue in Poland, 1905-1910
Shtetls were often self-administered by Jews in a community council known as a kahal, but subject to Russian bureaucracy. Tevye creator Sholem Aleichem actually worked as a “crown rabbi” in his shtetl – an intermediary between the kahal and the Russian government. The kahals were responsible for civil and religious affairs, collected taxes, dispensed charity and were relegated by Torah laws. As Jews were subject to discrimination that limited their employment opportunities, there was a lot of poverty in the shtetls so the Jewish religious tradition of tzedakah (charity) met the needs of the population. They supplied clothes, medicine, kosher meals to conscripted soldiers, dowries for impoverished brides and education for orphans. Around 14 – 22% of the population had to receive aid.
There was also a social hierarchy in the shtetl. At the top of the social scale were the sheyne yidn, the well-off elite who ran the shtetl’s institutions and controlled its politics. In the synagogue they usually sat along the eastern wall. Just below the sheyne yidn were the balebatim, the “middle class” whose stores and businesses did not make them rich but afforded them a certain measure of respect from the community. Further down the social scale came the skilled artisans, such as watchmakers and exceptionally skilled tailors. Near the bottom were ordinary tailors and shoemakers, followed by water carriers and teamsters. At the bottom were the unemployed and impoverished beggars.
Life is the shtetl was not easy. Many were poverty-stricken, and they lived with an ever-present fear of violence or displacement. Since they often could not own land, they were generally forbidden from agriculture and therefore were primarily merchants and shopkeepers. While religion was an important part of everyday life, only the scholarly class, a small, elite segment of society, was able to study all day. A majority of Jews, both men and women, worked to support their families. As Tevye sings in “If I Were a Rich Man,” he yearns to be a rich man so he could have the time to sit in the synagogue and pray and spend several hours every day discussing the holy books with the learned men.
Bychawa shtetl
Yeshivas or Jewish religious schools for boys were set up in the Talmudic tradition. They could spend up to ten hours a day on their studies while the girls would learn the necessary tasks of the household. The main language in a shtetl was Yiddish, which reinforced the ties to the community as it was a language only the Jewish citizens could speak. However, many Jews also learned some Russian in order to interact with the non-Jewish residents.
It is a fallacy to think that shtetls contained only Jewish residents. While the Jewish citizens were the majority, gentile citizens were often in the population and there was daily interaction between them. While the pogroms were horrific violence that occurred, the anti-Jewish sentiment was not shared by all gentiles, many of whom did daily business transactions with the Jews, such as Fyedka does in Fiddler on the Roof.
These are only the basics in the shtetl. Each shtetl had its own diverse history, traditions and even government and religious practices. The decline of shtetls began in the twentieth century. Due to rising antisemitism and violence, 2.5 million Jews emigrated from the shtetls beginning in the early 1900s. Shtetls were completely eliminated by the Nazis in the Holocaust.
The People in the Shtetl
"Do not romanticize the characters, they are tough, working, resilient, tenacious; they fiercely live and hang onto their existence; they have the word, everyone else is wrong; we are not to see them thru the misty nostalgia of a time past, but through the everyday hard struggle to keep alive and keep their beliefs. They are not “characters” but laborers, workmen, artisans, and the effect of the work on their clothes and bodies must be apparent. The honey mists of time do not make life beautiful for them. All that is beautiful is their continued efforts and tenaciousness to hold to what they believe in. This is a country community, a little group of houses in the middle of a sprawling Russian countryside. The Jewish community is kept apart, separated, huddled together, isolated, and then told to keep alive. To do so they work hard and fight for existence." - Jerome Robbins to costume designer Patricia Zipprodt
There are many members of a shtetl, below are the ones who are featured in Fiddler on the Roof and their roles in the community.
Jewish family in 1909
Rabbi: The word literally translates from Hebrew to “my teacher.” The spiritual leader of the community, who would answer questions of Jewish law, support his community’s interests and provide for its spiritual well-being.
Yenta (The Matchmaker): A matchmaker, or shadchan, paired Jewish singles together to marry in order to fulfill the biblical commandment to “be fruitful and multiply.” Fun fact: The name Yenta is derived from the French word gentil, meaning: gentille or gentle. It wasn’t until the 20th century that Yiddish theater-makers and artists began to build a character around a woman with a gentle name having the exact opposite of a gentle personality. And thus, the Yenta character was born.
Being a successful shadchan is considered especially meritorious — according to Jewish oral tradition, introducing three couples that ultimately marry guarantees the shadchan a place in the heavenly realm of the afterlife. But Matchmakers were businessmen and businesswomen who had wares to sell and they were not embarrassed to describe their merchandise by its proper terms-because "in business one must know what is offered, bought, and sold.”
Shochet (The Butcher): A shochet (slaughterer) is a person who performs shechita (the ritual slaughter of animals for food, following specific religious laws). To become a shochet, one must study which slaughtered animals are kosher, what disqualifies them from being kosher, and how to prepare animals according to the laws of shechita. Subjects of study include the preparation of slaughtering tools, ways to interpret which foods follow the laws of shechita, and types of terefot (deformities which make an animal non-kosher). Shochtim are essential to every Jewish community, so they earn elevated social status.
Issachar Ber Ryback - The Butcher
The Tailor: In the Pale of Settlement tailoring both at home and as an itinerant craft in the villages became the mainstay of a growing section of the impoverished population of the shtetl. The lifestyle, songs, and folklore of the amkho sher un ayren ("the simple people of the scissors and ironing board") became in Yiddish literature the expression of the joys and sufferings of Jewish workers. This way of life was carried overseas in the mass emigrations to France, England, and the U.S.
The Innkeeper/Tavern Owner: The figure of the Jewish tavern keeper is something of a stock image in Russian and Polish Jewish culture. Running the Inn and Tavern was often a full family business, requiring even the women and children of the household to take on roles to help out. The tavern itself was a hub for community life for the shtetl and was notably a place frequented by both Christians and Jews alike. Being a Jewish Innkeeper/Tavern Owner in the Pale of Settlement was a job under much scrutiny, subject to many additional taxes and restrictions, and often a target for anti-semitism. Yet it still served as a gathering place for people of all backgrounds.
Women's Role in the Workforce: “The shul was the space of the man and the home the space of the woman, but the marketplace was a co-gendered zone.” According to data from an 1897 Russian census, as well as a study done by the Jewish Colonization Association, women constituted “22 percent of the economically active Jewish population of the Pale.” Of the 22% of working Jewish women, one-quarter of them were classified as “artisans–” skilled craftspeople. In fact, 15% of all Jewish artisans at this time were women. Four out of five Jewish women artisans were seamstresses- sewing and knitting, making socks, gloves, and hats and other garment-related work. Those who lived closer to the major cities were also cigarette makers, and worked in the soap and sugar industries.
Constable: Not all who lived in the shtetl were Jewish. One of the most prominent non-Jewish members of the community would have been the Constable, the head of the local police force tasked with enforcing the laws and regulations set forth by the tsar. There was one Constable per village, in charge of maintaining law and order.
Local Russian Police Force: At the turn of the 20th century, the Russian police force was divided between rural and urban divisions. The men that comprised the majority of the rural force were non-Jewish peasants that volunteered to be local enforcers of the wishes of the tsar. They too would’ve been members of the wider shtetl community.
Special thanks to dramaturgs Jen Jacobs and Dani Stoller
