Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, professor of Jewish Studies at Northwestern University and author of the recently published Golden Age Shtetl: A New history of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe, posits that Medieval Spain wasn’t the only ‘Golden Age’ in Jewish history; before the shtetls of Eastern Europe turned into the run-down, poverty-stricken but culturally vibrant towns that have dominated popular culture, they were prosperous centers of commerce and Jewish life.

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