Summary
The small towns in Yiddish, inhabited mostly by Jews, that in Shtetl Colonialism: First and Last Impressions of Indigeneity by Colonised Colonisers formed the nucleus of the Pale of Settlement and the place of origin of the Second Aliya settlers, whose excluded and secluded existence there Zionism both detested and reproduced in Palestine (Shtetl Colonialism: First and Last Impressions of Indigeneity by Colonised Colonisers, PDF p.5-6, p.9 / printed p.43-44, p.47).
Details
- Pappé’s description: the Shtetls formed the nucleus for the Pale, the restricted area in which Jews were allowed to live within Tsarist Russia between 1791 to 1914 as printed; they symbolised rich Jewish life in poor socio-economic conditions and in an excluded and secluded existence, were popularised as heaven upon earth in Fiddler on the Roof, and were gone forever with the Holocaust (PDF p.5-6).
- The paradox at the centre of the article: this pre-Zionist existence was detested by the Zionist movement, which wished to create a New Jew as an antithesis to the exilic condition, yet on arriving in Palestine the settlers built once more gated communities (PDF p.9, note 11).
Where sources disagree
- The Jewish State: A Century Later traces Israeli political habits to shtetl self-government — factions, campaigning and majority rule followed but not accepted — and treats that inheritance as a root of Israeli democracy and of protest and Illegalism. Pappé traces from the same origin a different continuity: enforced and sometimes self-imposed Jewish exclusive enclaves reproduced as settler enclaves in Palestine. The two accounts attribute different inheritances to the shtetl and are kept side by side, each with its source.
Related pages
Shtetl Colonialism: First and Last Impressions of Indigeneity by Colonised Colonisers, Shtetl Colonialism, Pale of Settlement, Second Aliya, New Jew