Shtetlers

In the Soviet Union, shtetls were once home to the largest Jewish population in the world. Only a few survived the Holocaust, and those that did were all located in the territory of the modern Ukraine and Moldova. In those small and remote towns, hidden from the world outside of the Iron Curtain, traditional Jewish life continued for decades after it disappeared everywhere else. The tight-knit communities supported themselves by providing goods and services to their non-Jewish neighbors. The ancient religion, Yiddish language and folklore, ritualized cooking and elaborate craftsmanship were practiced, treasured and passed through the generations until very recently.

Katya Ustinova's SHTETLERS follows nine very different people, now scattered around the world, who once belonged to the Jewish and non-Jewish shtetl communities. Their memories are a farewell to the vanished world of shtetl, a melting pot of cultures that many nations once called their home.

"Shtetlers reminds us that human experience is first and foremost individual, and we should not generalize or abstract it before we’ve acknowledged and examined its vivid individuality. The vividness of this film makes an engaging introduction to the subject of rural East European Jewish life in the Soviet Union and beyond and hints at the complexity of that life. The filmmaker’s exploration of the cultural and economic interpenetration between two religious communities gives Shtetlers its emotional depth and would make this film useful to any anthropologist, historian or sociologist who is considering that subject, whether in rural or urban communities. Recommended."- EMRO