Photograph: Houses

European Jews

Bessarabia province, Khotinsky district, Shtetl of Yedintsy

1906

Gelatin silver printing with chemical development (DOP)

14,2 x 23

РЭМ 850-6

“From a distance it looks – how shall I say it? – like a loaf of bread thickly studded with poppy seed, like a kitchen board covered with finely chopped noodles. It is all before you, in full view, and you can scrutinize all of its charms from a mile away, because the town, you see, is built on a hill, that is, the hill has moved upon the town, and lots of huts are huddled together at its base, one on top of the other, like graves on an old graveyard, like wrecked black lop-sided gravestones. There are no streets to speak of because the houses are not built according to any plan, they are not calculated or measured with a compass, and no empty space between them: Why should there be vacant space when you can build a house on it? For it is written, “Created to be lived on,” which means: the earth was created for settlement, to be settled and not to be merely gazed at...” (Sholem Aleichem, The Town of the Little People. 1901).