1. My area of scholarly interest is European Jewish history
from the late 18th through early 19th centuries when my ancestors
lived in Russia’s Pale of Settlement and from where some
migrated to New York’s Lower East Side. But one cannot isolate
those decades in a vacuum; they need to be placed within the
socio-political and historical context both prior to and, in the
case of the Holocaust, after those dates. To that end, I cover the
history of Polish Jewry through the Holocaust.

2. In discussing events, culture, and people of Sejny, Poland,
there are references to Suwalki Gubernia of which Sejny, along
with other towns, was and is a part; though Sejny had its own
autonomous uniqueness, their history and cultures intersect and
overlap.

3. The “socialism” embraced by Jews who came to America
from Eastern Europe between the 1860s and first two decades of
the 20th century was, first and foremost, a movement to reform
unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, especially in sweatshops,
and to improve wages for workers. It advocated for
equality, not equity; to be on equal footing to achieve self-sufficiency
and the American dream through hard work. The programs
available to new immigrants were mostly from private
organizations, secular and Jewish, and whose goals were to provide
assistance in acculturation and attaining citizenship, health
services, activities for children, and finding employment, educational
opportunities, and housing. It is important to make that
distinction from the broader definition of traditional Marxist
socialism which refers to 1. The concept of state ownership of
the means of production as opposed to individual ownership of
property and a free market (capitalist) economy and 2. The provision
of a welfare state to provide income redistribution. As of
this writing, there is a push towards a radical socialism that is far
removed from the socialist movement on the Lower East Side in
the mid 18th to early 19th centuries and which advocates for an
authoritarian government. It further encompasses: Defunding
police to make them ineffective and disabling the second amendment
to justify a national police force; taxing workers to redistribute
wealth to ensure “equity” rather than equal opportunity;
federal control of the electoral process; undermining America’s
roots in democracy by the promotion and indoctrination of ideological
propaganda in the school curriculum to essentially
divide America by race and “cancelling” those who do not agree,
deeming them “racist.”

4. I devote a chapter to addressing the Nazi atrocities that
carried out Hitler’s Final Solution reducing the shtetls, specifically
those of Sejny and Minsk, to rubble and unmarked mass
graves. Being aware of the vital Jewish presence and creativity
before Hitler’s rise to power makes realizing what was done there
all the more difficult to bear. It is only when what existed in
Poland (both as part of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth
and after it was annexed to Russia) before the Holocaust is
understood, can one truly discern the enormity of what the
Holocaust did to Judaism; it did not only systemically and brutally
murder 6,000 Jews just because they were Jews, but it
destroyed structures of yiddishkeit life in shtetl communities and
the rich vibrant culture that existed there. It is that knowledge of
what was, I believe, that enables us to view the loss and tragedy
as even more tragic and profound.

Author Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Chapter 1 Roots in the Old World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Chapter 2 Shifting Borders: Polish Jewry and
Life in the Russian Pale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Chapter 3 Flying Fiddlers and Blue Cows:
The Inception and Invention of the Shtetl . .37
Chapter 4 Before Anatevka: The Golden Years . . . . . . .47
Chapter 5 Story of a Polish Shtetl: Sejny . . . . . . . . . . . .78
Chapter 6 Story of a Lithuanian Shtetl: Minsk . . . . . . .95
Chapter 7 The Lower East Side: Di Goldeneh
Medina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127
Chapter 8 Gone are the Shtetls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .254
Chapter 9 Afterword: Jewish History and Memory . . .160
Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .162
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .169
Works Cited and Consulted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173