In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Jewish Memories of Small-Town Life in Postwar Ukraine
Jeffrey Veidlinger’s keynote accompanies the international conference "From Shtetl to Post – Jewish Town", organized as part of the events accompanying the temporary exhibition of POLIN Museum "(post)JEWISH… Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt."
- September 8 (Sunday), 6:00 PM
- Auditorium
- Lecture in English with Polish translation
- Free admission
Based on Yiddish language interviews conducted in situ in the early 2000s, this talk explores Jewish life in small-town Ukraine in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Unlike in post-war Poland, in Ukraine, Jews continued to live in their previous hometowns, where they now constituted only a small minority. Juxtaposing post-war Poland and Ukraine, the talk examines the ways surviving Jews adjusted to life in towns that were no longer recognizably Jewish and addresses how the non-Jewish population responded to the continued presence of Jews in town. The talk argues that many Jews sustained themselves not only with the memory of their heroic deeds during the war, but also with memories of the simple things they shared together as a community and that they could continue to enjoy in their new lives and with their new neighbors.
Jeffrey Veidlinger is Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan and Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute at the University of Michigan. His most recent book, In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Ukrainian Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust (2021) won a Canadian Jewish Literary Award and the Stan Vine Book Award and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, the Lionel Gelber Award, and the Wingate Literary Prize. He is also the author of the award-winning books The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage (2000), Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire (2009), and In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Small-Town Jewish Life in Soviet Ukraine (2013). Veidlinger is Vice-President of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Past Chair of the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History, and a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
