Learning about shtetls from the ground up

The kretshmer and the schneider live next door to the shmid and the lehrer, and every Friday they get challah from the beker for a communal Shabbat dinner.

Don't understand? Just ask the sixth graders at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto.

They've got all the tshuve (answers): A kretshmer is an innkeeper, a schneider is a tailor, a shmid is a blacksmith, a lehrer is a teacher and a beker is a baker.

Under the guidance of their Judaic studies teacher, Ilona Shechter, Hausner sixth-graders for the first time spent three months learning about every element of life in Eastern Europe's shtetls.

"They loved it — I've never seen kids get so excited about historical stuff," she said. "I think they were fascinated because it's so new to them. I really have to teach this again."

The unit required students to conduct research and to recreate a miniature shtetl using a variety of craft store trimmings.

The students gave the lengthy project high marks.

"I thought it was very cool," said Daniel Kahan, an

11-year-old from Los Altos.

"I didn't even know what a shtetl was" before the unit, he admits, adding that he "thought it was cool that there were all these small communities where everybody helped everybody. They really relied on each other."

Kahan gestured to the mini-shtetl and explained how he and his group members designed it.

"We had to put the synagogue near the town square because it was so important, and the bath house near the river so they could use the water," he said, pointing to the balsa-wood creations as he spoke.

Before World War II, shtetls were small villages that flourished with Ashkenazic culture. The Jews who lived in shtetls were poor, religious, hard-working and tight-knit. They created their own art, music, literature and drama. Though they were almost entirely insulated from contemporary European society, they still created an artistic culture that was their own. Traveling Yiddish theaters and booksmiths regularly visited shtetls.

Today, none remain.

"This helped my students understand the unbelievable wealth of what we lost in the Holocaust," Shechter said. "They learned about a part of their heritage that disappeared in a very short space of history."

Shechter designed the curriculum herself, which she adapted from a sophisticated set of lessons geared to high-schoolers and college students. She developed an interest in shtetl life after attending a teacher training on Yiddish culture sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

"What Ilona did is really truly unique," said Carl Rheins, director of YIVO. "I know of no other teacher in the U.S. who adopted the curriculum for elementary students."

Shechter said some people thought she was either crazy or overly ambitious to teach such advanced ideas to sixth-graders.

But her students were up for the challenge.

"Everyone became so enrapt with what was going on, that we didn't feel like it was work. More like, 'Wow, look at all this information,'" said Hannah Rubin, 12, of Atherton.

Not many middle-schoolers learn about shtetl life, and even fewer do so as deeply as Hausner's sixth-graders, Shechter said. But it shouldn't be overlooked, she added.

"It's such an important part of kids' knowledge," she said. "We spend a lot of time doing Torah and all that, but there's a huge component of our history that we just leave out, and this is one of them."

Shechter's students also studied shtetl music with a professional klezmer musician who visited the class.

They learned about the shtetl Jews' work ethics, women's roles in shtetl life and the type of food they ate. For instance, the students discovered that there were two schools of thought on gefilte fish. Jews in Poland sweetened their gefilte fish with sugar, while Jews in Lithuania made the dish with pepper.

Said Shechter, "My students developed an incredible understanding of the richness of their heritage, and that's the most important thing."




Shtetls versus cities

Students presented their research on display boards. Here is an excerpt of their work:

"When you stepped into the life of a shtetl Jew, you would hear the sounds of the shoemaker singing, the wagon rider grumbling, and the women all wanting the water carrier to come to their house first that morning. Everyone knew everyone, and there was nothing to hide.

"When you would go visit other Jews in big cities like Warsaw or Lublin, it was like you entered another world. Most Jews hid the fact that they were a Jew, walking around in normal clothes just like everybody else that lived in that city. Even the Polish beggars would tilt there [sic] cap at some of them because they looked just like any other person in the city. If the beggars knew who they were actually showing respect too [sic], they would have a much different reaction."