Sunday, 10 July 2011

The Pale of Settlement

This map gives some indication as to the expanse of the region known to us as 'The Pale of Settlement'.


In 1791, Catherine the Great, Czarina of Russia created a zone of residence - some called it a zone of containment for the Jews.
This territory comprised more than 38,000 square miles (more than 1 million square kilometres), west of Russia stretching between the Baltic and Black Seas. The Jews called it "the Pale," and most were restricted to this area until after the Russian Revelolution of 1917.
This region, east of Berlin and west of Moscow, was disputed territory for many years and included lands that today are known as Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belorussia, and Ukraine. But names of countries hardly mattered to the Jews.

ONE COULD BE BORN IN CZARIST RUSSIA, THEN LIVE IN GERMAN TERRITORY, BECOME A POLISH CITIZEN , THEN BECOME LITHUANIAN, MOVE BACK TO GERMAN CONTROL, AND FINALLY BECOME A CITIZEN OF A SOVIET REPUBLIC - AND NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE WHERE YOU WERE BORN!

It was home to nearly all the world's Jews - in 1880 around 4 million Jews lived in the Pale, out of a world population of 7.7 million (another 2 million Jews lived outside the Pale but in Eastern Europe).
They lived in "nameless" Shtetls (small villages) such as Jagielnica, Kaisiadorys and Trakai, as well as Dorphs (larger towns) like Zasliai, Landau and Brody, and cities such as Lodz, Warsaw, Minsk, Bialystok, Vilna and Lvov. They shared a rich culture and a relgion, and a language - Yiddish....

From the book, 'Jewish Americans' by Robert Stein, published by Barrons/ Ivy Press Ltd, 2002.



http://rights.ivypress.co.uk/resource/?pid=1755

Location:Huddersfield Rd,Dewsbury,United Kingdom

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...

Coming to America: Statue of Liberty Poem...

Also known as the Statue of Liberty poem, New Colossus and its famous last lines have become part of American history. Here is the sonnet originally written by Emma Lazarus, in its unedited entirety:



New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Location:New York City