MODERN JEWISH HISTORY What Were Shtetls? Clearing up myths about these Eastern European villages where Jews lived. BY   JOELLYN ZOLLMAN Virtually every Jew today has a mental image of the  shtetl   , the small villages in which Jews lived for centuries in Eastern Europe. These images are informed by the portrayal of shtetl life in a variety of media, from fiction to film. Sholem Aleichem ‘s Tevye the Dairyman (which most of us know better as  Fiddler on the Roof ) and artist  Marc Chagall ‘s whimsical depictions of Ukrainian Jewish life (with images of floating fiddlers) contribute to the contemporary vision of the shtetl as a small Jewish town in in Eastern Europe where a population of poor but industrious Jews worked and studied, all the while seemingly accompanied by a  klezmer  soundtrack. It doesn’t take a professional historian to realize that such a static representation of the populous and geographically disperse Jewish communities of eastern Europe doesn’t reflect historical

Coming up, the church commemorates the last Sunday of the church year as Christ the King Sunday, designated by the Pope in, as I recall, 1925, as a confrontation with civil governments that were establishing unaccountable total dictatorships. That's in my mind as key appointments are announced for our upcoming administration.  Also and always in mind is where we are in the Universe of trillions of galaxies, with Earth and our solar system in an outlying place of one of them, our Milky Way we call it. And theologies not evolved all that much since the days when it was thought, and the church insisted on penalty of death that folks believe, that Earth was the center of Creation and the object of all that God had in mind. As I mosey on my path of seeking the truth, come whence it may, cost what it will, it's pretty clear that the faith is as geocentric, Ptolemaic, as ever. Does that bother me? Yes, it does, as I try to move beyond mindless ignorance in my travels and contemplation

  A free online subscription that arrives with regularity is "My Jewish Learning" from which I enjoy learning basic things that every Jew should know; and although I am not Jewish, or maybe because I am not Jewish, what I'm enjoying learning is most illuminating and helpful to me in this vocation from which I'm finding it unnecessary or even impossible to retire totally, because curiosity never stops nudging me. One recent issue brought an essay on Genesis, a synopsis for lay persons that's easily the best, fifty chapters summarized in a ten minute read. Copy-and-pasted sans permission (scroll down), it may be as enjoyable to others as to me. "Tubal-Cain working in his forge," the art above, I pinched online from another essay on Genesis. ++++++++++ BIBLE Genesis Means Origins The first book of the Torah tells of the origins of the world and of the children of Israel. BY GEORGE ROBINSON The Book of Genesis (known in Hebrew as Bereshit) begins with the c

  For the upcoming Sunday, 3 November, we have lectionary options: EITHER the Propers for the Sunday closest to November 2, Proper 26 Year B, OR those for All Saints Day Year B, November 1. It's the priest's choice, but seeing that All Saints Day is one of the seven principal feast days of the church year, we might expect All Saints to be celebrated, including singing memorable hymns for the occasion.  Both possibilities are out there, though, so I looked at the gospel readings for both, Jesus raising Lazarus at John 11:32f (scroll down), and Jesus affirming the two great commandments at Mark 12:28f (scroll down).  Focusing more on All Saints Day, the John reading is singularly significant, all of chapter 11. This includes the event that immediately follows, John 11:45-53, where the temple leaders resolve to put Jesus to death because his raising Lazarus has caused many of the faithful to shift their allegiance from them to Jesus (mind, Gospel John's story is different from