Meaning of shtetl | Babel Free

Definitions

A Jewish village or small town, especially one in Eastern Europe.

Equivalents

Examples

“However, you are right to suspect that there is some connection between my carefully considered opinion of the Hebrew people and this marvellous recital which your waxy ears, full of the cheesy gunk of the shtetl, have been so fortunate to hear.”

“Most of the second-generation immigrant kids of his neighborhood had been […] as desperate to go to college and become lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and leave the teeming city for the suburbs, as their parents had been to leave behind the shtetls of Russia.”

“Albert Speer had a big vision for it during the Third Reich, with boulevards and gigantic monuments, and we definitely don't want that again. It's a collection of villages, of shtetls as we say in Yiddish.”

CEFR level