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Book Review: Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800–1939

Book Review: Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern... sThe figure of the destitute beggar is ubiquitous in Eastern European Jewish literature and iconography. Whether in Sholem Abramovitch's 1869 novella Fishke the Lame, S. An-ski's 1916 play Dybbuk, or Hermann Struck's 1920 illustrations, the destitute, disabled, and mad have been presented as metaphors for the Jews of Eastern Europe. In his compelling monograph, Stepchildren of the Shtetl, Natan Meir expertly analyzes both the ways in which the image of Jewish marginality emerged, and the real plights of those who were historically marginalized.sMeir's efforts to unearth the experiences of those Jews who were marginalized on account of their poverty or disability is an admirable one. In contrast to many of the literary or folk depictions of those who lived on the margins, which often portrayed liminal people as possessing mystical powers, being intermediaries between the real world and the supernatural, or being in close proximity to the divine, Meir's study rests firmly on the foundation that they were ordinary people in need of assistance. This assistance, though, was never adequate and became increasingly impersonal over time. The custom of housing beggars in one's private home, for instance, gave way to the impersonal and poorly funded hekdesh, essentially a poorhouse, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Austrian History Yearbook Cambridge University Press

Book Review: Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800–1939

Veidlinger, Jeffrey
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 52: 2 – May 1, 2021
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Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota.
ISSN
0067-2378
eISSN
1558-5255
DOI
10.1017/S0067237821000217
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

sThe figure of the destitute beggar is ubiquitous in Eastern European Jewish literature and iconography. Whether in Sholem Abramovitch's 1869 novella Fishke the Lame, S. An-ski's 1916 play Dybbuk, or Hermann Struck's 1920 illustrations, the destitute, disabled, and mad have been presented as metaphors for the Jews of Eastern Europe. In his compelling monograph, Stepchildren of the Shtetl, Natan Meir expertly analyzes both the ways in which the image of Jewish marginality emerged, and the real plights of those who were historically marginalized.sMeir's efforts to unearth the experiences of those Jews who were marginalized on account of their poverty or disability is an admirable one. In contrast to many of the literary or folk depictions of those who lived on the margins, which often portrayed liminal people as possessing mystical powers, being intermediaries between the real world and the supernatural, or being in close proximity to the divine, Meir's study rests firmly on the foundation that they were ordinary people in need of assistance. This assistance, though, was never adequate and became increasingly impersonal over time. The custom of housing beggars in one's private home, for instance, gave way to the impersonal and poorly funded hekdesh, essentially a poorhouse,

Journal

Austrian History Yearbook – Cambridge University Press

Published: May 1, 2021

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