The Shtetl
Tuition: $360 | YIVO members: $270**
This is a live, online course held on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, recordings of class sessions, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English, and any readings will be in English.
Instructor: Samuel Kassow
Through historical readings and various Yiddish stories in translation, this course will study the shtetl, those largely Jewish market towns in eastern Europe. While the “imagined shtetl” has played an outsized role in Jewish popular culture—Fiddler on the Roof being just one example—the real shtetl was a complex community that had an enormous impact on Jewish life over the centuries. Readings will include selections from Sholom Aleichem, Mendele Mocher Seforim, Itche Meir Weissenberg, and other Yiddish authors, as well as some actual memoirs of shtetl life.
Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.
Questions? Read our 2026 Winter Program FAQ.
Samuel D. Kassow is the Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College, and is recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars on the Holocaust and the Jews of Poland. He is widely known for his 2007 book, Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive (Indiana University Press). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research, has won numerous awards, and has lectured widely.
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