The Shtetl, is the Yiddish name for towns in Eastern Europe prior to WWII that had large Jewish populations (yivoencyclopedia). The language used in the shtetl was Yiddish and the town was comprised of “at least one synagogue, a ritual bathhouse, a cemetery, schools, and a framework of voluntary associations that performed basic religious and communal functions”(yivoencyclopedia).
Life in Litin, Russia (my great grandmother Vivian (seated) next to great great grandmother Feige Seidman Dillman (from Bar, Russia) with Feige’s sister Sophie standing. Bar, Russia where both women grew up was a small town (Shtetl) comprised of mostly Jews. Photograph taken in the early 1900’s.