There once was a world : a nine-hundred-year chronicle of the shtetl of Eishyshok / Yaffa Eliach.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Eliach, Yaffa.

Contributor:

Mazal Holocaust Collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Lithuania--Eišiškės--History.

Jews.

Eišiškės (Lithuania)--Ethnic relations.

Eišiškės (Lithuania).

Ethnic relations.

Lithuania--Eišiškės.

Jews--Lithuania--History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiv, 818 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Boston : Little, Brown, ©1998.

Summary:

The stories behind the 1,600 photographs on the shtetl of Eishyshok in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

"It's hard to imagine that one Jewish town could keep a reader enthralled for so many pages, but Eliach pulls it off. Equal parts history and memoir--the author survived the Holocaust in Eishyshok as a child--the book focuses on the rich lives built by the Jews in the community, which, depending on the year, was under Polish, Lithuanian, Russian or German control. After detailing the central role that the synagogue and religion played in shtetl life, Eliach uses oral history, written documents and numerous photos to describe how Eishsyhok's Jews went about their daily affairs. The Brooklyn College professor deftly demonstrates how the Jewish population reacted to forces outside the shtetl. Some of these forces were political--the 1648 Chmielnicki massacre, the Russian takeover of the town as a result of the final 18th-century partition of Poland--while others were intellectual--the Jewish Enlightenment and the growth of Zionism, both of which modernized life in the town. What results is a case study that sheds light on the entire Eastern European Jewish experience. While Eliach goes to great lengths to focus on the world that the Jews created, the book's most moving moments come in its final chapters, as some of Eishyshok's residents, including the author herself, struggle for survival in the face of genocide. As in her ""Tower of Life"" exhibit on Eishyshok at the United States Holocaust Museum in D.C., Eliach revives a people and a place that seemed irrevocably lost." 430 b&w photos.-- Publisher's Weekly review.

Contents:

Pt. 1. Beginnings and Endings

Introduction: The Quest for Eishyshok: Restoring a Vanished Past. 1. Origins and History of Eishyshok: 1065-1941

Pt. 2. The Shulhoyf. 2. The Synagogue and Beth Midrash. 3. Rabbis and Rebbetzins. 4. Other Members of the Clergy. 5. Heder Education. 6. The Yeshivah: Town and Gown. 7. The Bathhouse: The Perfect Rest. 8. Mutual Aid Societies. 9. The Old and New Houses of Eternity

Pt. 3. The Shtetl Economy. 10. Agriculture. 11. Commerce. 12. Handicrafts. 13. Transportation. 14. Market Day

Pt. 4. Family and Community. 15. The Shtetl Household. 16. Rites of Passage. 17. Life on the Fringe. 18. Holidays. 19. Medical Care

Pt. 5. Modern Times. 20. Entering Modernity: The Haskalah. 21. Zionism. 22. Cultural Life. 23. Emigration to America

Pt. 6. The Bitter End: 1933-41. 24. On the Eve of the Storm. 25. Di Shehita (The Slaughter). 26. In Ghetto Radun. 27. In Hiding. 28. In the Forests. 29. Liberation and Its Aftermath.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 753-772) and index.

Yaffa Eliach was an American historian, author, and scholar of Judaic studies and the Holocaust. In 1974, she founded the Center for Holocaust Studies, Documentation and Research in Brooklyn, New York, which collected over 2,700 audio interviews of Holocaust survivors as well as thousands of physical artifacts.

Local Notes:

The Balch Institute Library and Archives.

ISBN:

0316232521

9780316232524

0316232394

9780316232395

OCLC:

37928476