"Typical of the
larger, more urbanized shtetlach was the village of Sislevich, in the Grodno
region of Poland.* Known in Yiddish as Sislevich, the town had a population of
more than 2000 Jews at the beginning of the twentieth century. Most of the
streets were unpaved, but there were sidewalks around the central market
square, and many of the larger homes were multistory brick residences. There
were sixty wholesale and retail establishments in the village, and a railroad
connected the town to the provincial capital of Bialystok, although some
tradesmen were prosperous enough to bring goods all the way from Warsaw.
"The town was surrounded by little villages inhabited by
White Russian peasants, and many of the Jewish townsfolk made their living by
supplying the rural population with essential iron goods and other types of
non-farm commodities. But the major economic enterprises in the town were the
eight leather factories, which together employed more than 400 workers; all
the skilled workers were Jews. Beginning in 1901, a series of strikes called
by the Svisloch Bund took place in these factories, culminating in a bitter
four-monthly stoppage in 1908. This last action involved union organizers from
all over the province and at one point resulted in the appearance of the army
to keep order in the town. In the aftermath of the strike, which ended with a
complete victory for the factory owners, many of the skilled workers emigrated
to Canada and the United States. This episode illustrates the difference
between Swislocz and Aisheshujk or Skala. Swislocz's size and economic
development produced the kind of political ferment that was characteristic of
the large industrial cities in the Pale."
* Irving Howe and Eliezer
Greenberg, eds., Voices from the Yiddish (New York: Schocken 1975), pp
100-108.
From: - Michael R. Weisser, A Brotherhood of Memory: Jewish
Landsmanshaften in the New World, Basic Books, Inc. 1985