ThoughtGallery.org > Stepchildren of the Shtetl: Natan M. Meir with Jonathan Stevenson

Stepchildren of the Shtetl: Natan M. Meir with Jonathan Stevenson

Uncover the lives of a minority within a minority and the roles played by the outcasts of Jewish society in the shtetls of eastern Europe.

Stepchildren of the Shtetl, the new book by internationally renowned scholar Natan M. Meir, reconsiders the place of the lowliest members of an already stigmatized minority, from the dawn of modernity to the eve of the Holocaust. Combining archival research with analysis of literary, cultural, and religious texts, Meir recovers the lived experiences of Jewish society’s outcasts and reveals the central role they came to play, both as scapegoats and symbols for transformation, in the drama of modernization. He shines a light into the darkest corners of Jewish society in eastern Europe: from shtetl poorhouses to the slums and insane asylums of Warsaw and Odessa, from the conscription of poor orphans during the reign of Nicholas I to the cholera wedding—a magical ritual in which an epidemic was believed to be halted by marrying outcasts to each other in the town cemetery.

Natan M. Meir researched and wrote Stepchildren of the Shtetl during his 2016-2017 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He discusses his book with writer and policy analyst Jonathan Stevenson.











When: Thu., Oct. 22, 2020 at 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Where: New York Public Library—Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
476 Fifth Ave.
917-275-6975
Price: Free
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Uncover the lives of a minority within a minority and the roles played by the outcasts of Jewish society in the shtetls of eastern Europe.

Stepchildren of the Shtetl, the new book by internationally renowned scholar Natan M. Meir, reconsiders the place of the lowliest members of an already stigmatized minority, from the dawn of modernity to the eve of the Holocaust. Combining archival research with analysis of literary, cultural, and religious texts, Meir recovers the lived experiences of Jewish society’s outcasts and reveals the central role they came to play, both as scapegoats and symbols for transformation, in the drama of modernization. He shines a light into the darkest corners of Jewish society in eastern Europe: from shtetl poorhouses to the slums and insane asylums of Warsaw and Odessa, from the conscription of poor orphans during the reign of Nicholas I to the cholera wedding—a magical ritual in which an epidemic was believed to be halted by marrying outcasts to each other in the town cemetery.

Natan M. Meir researched and wrote Stepchildren of the Shtetl during his 2016-2017 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He discusses his book with writer and policy analyst Jonathan Stevenson.

Buy tickets/get more info now