WELCOME TO THE SHTETL
The size of the tight-knit Jewish population and its well-developed infrastructure led some Jews in town to refer to Postville as a shtetl. Shtetl is a Yiddish term that literally means “little town.” Shtetls (the plural in Yiddish is shtetlekh) were small towns with large Jewish populations that existed throughout pre-Holocaust Eastern and Central Europe. Some shtetls were founded a thousand years ago. Shtetls were socially stable and resilient communities where Orthodox Judaism flourished, safe from outside influence or interference.
Most of the Orthodox sects represented in Postville have their roots in different shtetls. Members of the Lubavitch movement, for example, trace their roots to the Russian shtetl of Lubavitch, a Jewish community that started in the late eighteenth century.
Most Americans are familiar with the concept of shtetl through the play and movie Fiddler on the Roof, which portrayed the beauty and pain of the shtetl in Eastern Europe as it experienced periods of prosperity and tolerance and endured times of extreme poverty and pogroms.
During the period depicted in the play, riots were directed at Jews and other groups; people were murdered, and homes, synagogues, and businesses destroyed. At times, the pogroms were carried out with the blessing of local governments.
Today, the term shtetl often is used as a metaphor for European Jewish life in the nineteenth century.
Many Jews in Postville refer to the town as a shtetl because of the relative physical isolation of the community, its integration with a predominately Christian town, and its well-established infrastructure. Some use the term when they feel threatened by outside influences and negative portrayals in the media. Some Israeli Jews, with a distinct preference for cosmopolitan urban living, use the word shtetl to describe small-town rural life.
The establishment of a shtetl and the presence of so many Hassidic Jews in Postville have spawned a great deal of interest in the media. It is a fascinating and rather peculiar situation, and the curiosity is understandable.
At times, tourists from as far away as Chicago, New York, and even Israel have wandered through the town to take photographs and wonder at this unique social experiment. Others have made documentaries, published stories, or written articles about this unique little town.
POSTVILLE, IOWA
Postville is located in the rolling hills of north-eastern Iowa. The colors of the surrounding landscape change with the seasons, from the rich, deep greens of spring after the corn sprouts, to the golden browns of fall and the harvest, to the bleak, white emptiness of winter. Postville’s immediate setting is unremarkable, but it's surrounded by spectacular scenery.
The Mississippi River is about half an hour away; the high bluffs that line the river in that part of Iowa offer some of the most beautiful vistas in the country. To the north and south of Postville lie deep valleys lined with spring-fed creeks, some filled with trout. Picturesque farms overlook the valleys, and dairy cattle graze the hillsides.
No Wal-Mart or McDonalds interrupts this idyll. These so-called outposts of civilization are twenty-five miles away in Decorah, an otherwise quaint college town. The nearest airport with scheduled service is more than an hour and a half away, in La Crosse Wisconsin, though most Postvillians drive an extra half hour drive to the busier Cedar Rapids airport. Some even drive three and half hours to Minneapolis to catch a direct flight.
In the entire town of Postville, you won’t find a single stoplight. It doesn’t need one. There’s just one four-way stop, where U.S. Highways 52 And 18 head southwest toward the Mississippi River. When siren goes off at the volunteer fire department, the police chief or one of his staff stands in the middle of the intersection of Greene and Tilden streets to stop the grain trucks and other vehicles coming into town, clearing a path for the fire trucks.
On a pleasant day, it’s not uncommon for people to walk the length and breadth of town. Nothing and no one is more than a few blocks away. Everyone seems to know where everyone else lives. Just like your typical small town.