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Podcast: New Books in Sociology
Episode: The Shtetl: Myth and Reality with Samuel Kassow
Description: Even those who do not know much Yiddish have probably heard the word âshtetl,â but what does that word mean exactly? Can we just say that it was a small town in Eastern Europe with a lot of Jewsâand leave it at that? Or was the shtetl that nostalgic world of âtraditionâ so lovingly celebrated in Fiddler on the Roof? How are we to understand imaginary shtetls like Sholom Aleichemâs Kasrilevke, where the âlittle peopleâ ran around, talked non stop, and tried to make sense of a world they could no longer understand or control?
Indeed the âshtet...