House-building tradition of the shtetl in memorials and memories (based on materials of field studies in Podolia)

Abstract

This study examines house-building traditions in the Podolian shtetl, as evidenced by surviving buildings and by the folk memory of building practices. Using oral sources, taken from extensive field research in Ukraine, the study considers the extent to which members of remaining Jewish communities in the former Pale of Settlement function as “carriers” of this folk memory, and what they can tell us about the manner in which Jewish houses in the shtetl were constructed and their meaning as socio-cultural spaces.