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.

Produced in partnership with The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.

LIVE from NYPL is made possible by the support of Library patrons and friends, as well as by the continuing generosity of Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos, and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Natan M. Meir is the Lorry I. Lokey Professor of Judaic Studies in the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at Portland State University. A scholar of the social and cultural history of East European Jewry, he is the author of Kiev, Jewish Metropolis: A History, 1859–1914 (2010) and Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800–1939 (2020). He also serves as a museum consultant and leads study tours of Eastern Europe with Ayelet Tours.

Jonathan Stevenson is a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Managing Editor of Survival. He was National Security Council Director for Political-Military Affairs, Middle East and North Africa, from 2011 to 2013. His books include We Wrecked the Place: Contemplating an End to the Northern Irish Troubles and Thinking Beyond the Unthinkable: Harnessing Doom from the Cold War to the Age of Terror. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, and the New York Times. He worked on his forthcoming biography of Philip Agee as the Gilder Lerhman Fellow at the Cullman Center in 2016-17.

GET THE BOOKS
Readers everywhere who wish to purchase copies of Stepchildren of the Shtetl can do so at The New York Public Library Shop. Proceeds benefit the New York Public Library. Plus, receive a 125th Anniversary tote bag with your purchase! 

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