The Shtetl Museum - "A Shtetl Grows In Rishon"

To "choose life" has always been central in Judaism. But that does not mean turning our backs on those who have perished. In fact, to ensure that the golden chain of Jewish life that stretches from Biblical times to the present remains unbroken, we must do all we can to remember and celebrate the lives of the millions of Jews of who were murdered during the Holocaust. Only through our ability to recreate their history and culture, in all its complexity and specificity, can we pass on the legacy of those lost generations. We will be the richer for this legacy, as will our children and our children's children, and all who come after. -Prof. Yaffa Eliach

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Prof. Yaffa Eliach has founded the Shtetl Foundation for the purpose of building an open-air Museum of East-European Jewish history and culture in the form of a life-size Shtetl. On 124 acres donated by the city of Rishon Le Zion and the State of Israel, the Shtetl Museum will bring back to life one thousand years of Jewish culture and tradition. To really understand that world in its entirety would involve walking its streets, visiting its houses, and strolling its market squares - which is, of course, an impossibility, since that world was laid waste by the Nazis and their local collaborators.
Comparable in scope and purpose to the recreation of colonial life that has attracted millions of visitors to Williamsburg, Virginia, the shtetl restoration will bring back to life a vanished past. Although many countries have done similar historical recreations, nothing like it exists to document the history of the Jews of Eastern Europe, or to demonstrate the ways in which that bygone world lives on in the culture and institutions of its descendants, now scattered around the globe. The Shtetl will be located in Rishon LeZion, 12 km southeast of Tel Aviv. The Mayor of Rishon Le Zion, Meir Nitzan, has given his full support to this project and designated 124 acres for the building site. The Shtetl will be built in three phases, with the last one scheduled to be completed in 2010. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on June 1, 2003 and construction of phase one will start soon thereafter.

The open-air Shtetl Museum will consist of four major sections:

	THE CASTLE is modeled after the ancient fortified castles that once overlooked and guarded four Lithuanian towns. This magnificent stone-brick building will house the main historical center, comprising an archive and library where scholars can pursue their research, a museum of East European life, and an arts center for theatrical and musical performances (more)
	THE MARKET SQUARE forms the heart of the commercial life of the city, with its stores, businesses, representative houses, and community institutions – such as a drug store, a photography studio, a firehouse, and a medical center stocked with both folk and conventional medicines. (See More)
	PRIVATE HOMES will provide a glimpse into the daily life of the Shtetl’s inhabitants, their traditions, customs, family-history and social dynamics. The homes represent the lives of people from all walks of life from and different eras of European history.(More)
	THE SHULHOYF the social, educational and religious institutions will spring back to life in the buildings surrounding the shulhoyf. There visitors will be able to visit the synagogue itself as well as the Hebrew Day School, the public bath house, the Rabbi’s house, and the distinguished yeshivah, the Kibbutz Ha-Prushim, which was for centuries one of the glories of the town of Eishyshok. (More)

To restore the vanished past, we need donations large and small from as many people as possible. Please join us in our effort to help present and future generations understand the glory of the Ashkenazic and Sephardic past, and the ways in which the cultural, religious, ethical and legal institutions of that past constitute a remarkable living legacy that shape our way of life today.

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