Russian Society:

Life in Russia was very different than that in Western Europe. The Enlightenment passed Russia by, leaving Russia with a medieval feudal system unchanged over hundreds of years. More than 90% of the people were illiterate peasants, bound as serfs to the nobility’s vast estates. The Russian Orthodox Church held complete religious sway over the land, regarding Muslims, pagans, and especially Jews as alien outsiders. At the head of government, the Czar ruled by divine appointment, wielding absolute power with no parliament—or press, or populace—to answer to. Politically, too, Russia's defeat of Napoleon ensured that progressive ideals would not take root in the country.

Russia Acquires Many Jews:

Until the later 1700s, Russia had a relatively small Jewish population. With the successive partitions of Poland from 1772-1795, Russia acquired more than one million Jews. By the end of the 19th century, this number had swelled to more than five million Jews, comprising by far the largest Jewish population in the world. Alarmed at the prospect of Jewish competition to Russian merchants, Czar Alexander I restricted the Jews to 25 western provinces, including Lithuania, Poland, White Russia, and Ukraine. Known as the Pale of Settlement, the area comprised 1,000 miles by 300 miles, taking final form in 1812. Much of the land was uninhabitable, causing severe overcrowding. Successive Czars contracted the Pale even further, making a difficult situation impossible. The Jews of the Pale lived largely in small towns called shtetlach, and their life was one of grinding unalleviated poverty. In the words of someone who grew up in a shtetl during the 1880s:

“Anyone accustomed to the American standard of living who might have come to Neshwies in those days and walked through its unpaved and unlighted streets, looked into its small, unventilated and often overcrowded wooden houses, devoid of all plumbing or the simplest precautions against contagious diseases of an epidemic character, would have pronounced the town unbelievably poor, dirty, criminally ignorant as to hygiene, and altogether lifeless. Indeed, he would have wondered how its six to eight thousand inhabitants managed to live at all."1

Another shtetl resident recalls the old days:

“When I say ‘poverty’ I mean a situation such as is hardly thinkable in [America] our land of plenty. It was nothing unusual to have been occasionally without bread in the house. To obtain it, we either had to borrow a slice from a neighbor or buy a loaf on credit. It often happened that there was not a match in the house to kindle a stove or light the petroleum lamp, if there was wood in the stove or kerosene in the lamp....Most of the time our home consisted of one or one and a half rooms and kitchen. The latter was shared most of the time with another tenant. If you asked how we managed—well, we just managed; even if I told you, you would not understand. Our food was sparse and simple. We often did not have enough wooden spoons with which to consume it when we were all together. Our bread was made of coarse corn meal, not the fancy cornbread we know here as a delicacy, but a huge coarse loaf. A piece of white bread was a rare treat. Potatoes, beans and other vegetables furnished the diet. Milk was a rarity, as were eggs. Meat was only for Shabbos.”2

Despite the unceasing poverty (or perhaps because of it), spiritual life was rich indeed. Religious education was universal for shtetl Jews, irrespective of social or economic position. A description of the primary role of Torah study in the shtetl:

“What other nation has a lullaby to the effect that ‘study is the best of wares?’ At the birth of a child, the school children come and chant the Shema in unison around the cradle. The child is taken to school for the first time wrapped in a tallis (prayer shawl). School children are referred to as ‘sacred sheep,’ and a mother's pet name for her little boy is mayn tsadikl (my little saint). Hence, one is ready to sell all household belongings to pay tuition. Women work all their lives to enable their husbands to devote themselves to study. One shares his last morsel of food with a yeshiva bochur (young student). And when the melancholy sweet tone of Talmudic study penetrates the poor alleys, exhausted Jews on their pallets are delighted, for they feel they have a share in that study. Study was a song of longing, a pouring out of the heart before the Merciful Father, a sort of prayer, a communion and an ardent desire for a purified world."3

The Sabbath was an oasis of joy in a harsh world. Families scraped together their meager earnings during the week in order to afford better food for the holy day. The house was cleaned, and everyone washed and wore fresh clothing for the Sabbath. Just how the Sabbath was prepared for and enjoyed by a struggling shtetl family is depicted in moving detail:

“For this holy day Molke would buy 30 pounds of flour to bake challah. She would have dough to take off to make noodles for soup and a kugel, to make pancakes for the children, and enough twisted challahs to last through the Sabbath. Then she would get some fish and horseradish, for without fish the Sabbath would lose one custom. Then of course there was meat, or if there was enough money, chicken. She would also have a tzimmes of carrots, and when Simcha came home, usually Friday about noon, if he had a good week and could afford it, he would go out and buy a bottle of wine.

“Molke before sunset would light four candles stuck in a candelabrum, put on a clean, ironed dress and a silk kerchief on her head, turned in back of her ears. With satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment and devotion, she would put her hands over the lighted candles, close her eyes and bensh licht (recite her opening Sabbath prayers). The children would stay near her, and it seemed as if a Divine spirit filled the room. When she ended she said ‘Good Shabbos’ and the children answered Amen.’

“When Simcha returned from the synagogue he would repeat ‘Good Shabbos’ and everybody would say ‘Amen.’ The table was set; the candles threw a dim light over the room. The white tablecloth glimmered and the lights showed two challahs covered with a hand-embroidered cloth, the bottle of wine and glasses around it—knives, forks, and spoons, all were on the table. Simcha washed his hands, opened the bottle, filled the bigger glass, put it in the palm of his hand, and said Kiddush, the blessing of G‑d for the Sabbath. He then took a drink and handed the glass to Molke. She took a sip and gave each child a sip, beginning with the oldest. Then Simcha uncovered the challah, recited the Hamotzi benediction, cut a piece, ate it, and then distributed challah portions to his family.

“Everybody started with the fish, then soup, meat, or chicken, with kugel made of the noodles, and last, the tzimmes, made of carrots sweetened with sugar. Between the courses Simcha and the children would sing zmiros, a sort of thanksgiving prayer in song. Every one of the boys tried to be louder than the others and Molke would sit, her face shining brightly, and help in the harmonizing. From time to time she would say Amen, and the children would follow suit. As the candles got low and began to go out, only the kerosene lamp was left burning until Vassil's son, the peasant friend of the family, would come to turn it out. Molke would hand him a big piece of challah. No Jew was allowed to turn out fire on the Sabbath.

“In total darkness Simcha and Molke would sit after the children were in bed, and talk about the next world and how a Jew has to prepare for it, how much good he had to do to his neighbors, to his friends, and even to his enemies to gain enough mitzvahs to go right to heaven. They sat talking until they tired and went to sleep. And when the Sabbath was gone and the grim week started, it was again the start of a struggle to make enough to live on."4

The week meant everyday life, it meant hard work, and it meant the return from the heavenly joy of the Sabbath to the world where one was misunderstood, despised and hated. The people of the shtetl, it was said, lived from Sabbath to Sabbath, the one day each week that made all Jews equal and every man a king.