Historical Notes

Descriptions of Svisloch in
Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939

By Daniel Soyer
Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1997

 

In 1897, for example, Jews constituted two thirds of the Belurussian Svisloch’s 3,099 inhabitants; the rest were Belorussians, Poles, a ‘score" of Russian officals, and about a dozen Moslem Tatars.1

In Svisloch, "on rainy days the mud was ankle-deep and crossing the [unpaved] market was no pleasant undertaking."2

But three of Svisloch’s main streets were paved with cobblestones, and a sidewalk around the market place was added after 1904.3

Svisloch, for example, was connected economically to Bialystok. The town’s commission merchants made weekly trips to the city, where they sold agriclutural products bought from the peasants. On their return trips they bought merchandise ordered in advance by stetl retailers.4

Svisloch also possessed a number of factories, and seventy percent of the Jews there drew their livelihood from the leather industry, directly or indirectly, as manufacturers, workers, artisans, or merchants.5

In Svisloch, in comparision, "many of the houses were substantial two-story brick structures, adorned with balconies.6

The inhabitants of Svisloch were Sislevitsher Krupnik, after the potato-barley soup eaten almost every day by Jews there.7

1. Abrahm Ain, "Swislocz: Portrait of a Jewish Community in Eastern Europe," YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 4 (1949): 87: On Svisloch see also Moshe Mishkinski, "Svislotch—shem edhad, rav-tsurot, ayarot shtayim (mikro-historiyah ba-ri hatoponimikah), " Gal-Ed 9 (1986): 287-297.

2. Ain, "Swislocz," p. 87

3. Daniel Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1997 p. 14

4. Ain, "Swislocz," p. 103-104

5. Ain, "Swislocz," p. 101

6. Ain, "Swislocz," p. 87

7. Ain, "Swislocz," p. 101 Extended quote: "Like any shtetl, wrote Abraham Ain, Sislevitch had its nickname. It was "Sislevitcher Krupnik," so called for the thick soup of barley and potatoes which was daily fare for the Jews. It could be prepared as either a meat or dairy dish and dressed up according to the family's ability to buy extra ingredients. Potatoes were so much in the diet of the region, for  everyone, that the Russians called the entire province "Grodno Potato." from Shtetl Finder Gazetteer by  by Chester G. Cohen, 1989.

  Home    |   Jewish Gen Home Page   |   ShtetLinks Directory | November  Newsletter