Shtetl in the context of Isaak Asknaziy

In the early modern era, European Jews were confined to ghettos and placed under strict regulations as well as restrictions in many European cities. The character of ghettos fluctuated over the centuries. In some cases, they comprised a Jewish quarter, the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. In many instances, ghettos were places of terrible poverty and—especially during periods of rapid population growth—ghettos had small, crowded houses cramped along narrow streets. Residents had their own justice system.

In Eastern Europe during the early modern period, there were no Jewish quarters or ghettos; rather, Jews lived in small towns known as shtetls.

Fiddler on the Roof is a 1971 American period musical film based on the 1964 stage musical by Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock, and Sheldon Harnick, which itself is based on Tevye and His Daughters by Sholem Aleichem. Directed by Norman Jewison from a screenplay by Stein, the film centers on Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman in early 20th-century Imperial Russia who is faced with the challenge of marrying off his five daughters amidst the growing tension in his shtetl. It stars Chaim Topol, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey, Molly Picon, Paul Mann, Rosalind Harris, Michèle Marsh, Neva Small and Paul Michael Glaser. The musical score, composed by Bock with lyrics by Harnick, was adapted and conducted by John Williams.

Filmed at Pinewood Studios in England and on-location in SR Croatia, Fiddler on the Roof was theatrically released on November 3, 1971, by United Artists to critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised Jewison's direction, the screenplay, and the performances of the cast, while the film grossed $83.3 million worldwide on a $9 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1971.

A miasteczko (Polish: [mjaˈstɛtʂkɔ] or miestelis (Lithuanian: [mjeːstæːlîːs] , lit. 'small town') was a historical type of urban settlement similar to a market town in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century, these settlements became widespread in the Austrian, German and Russian empires. The vast majority of miasteczkos had significant or even predominant Jewish populations; these are known in English under the Yiddish term shtetl. Miasteczkos had a special administrative status other than that of town or city.

The meaning "small town" is somewhat misleading since some 19th-century shtetls, such as Berdychiv or Bohuslav, counted over 15,000 people. Therefore, after Russian authorities annexed parts of Poland-Lithuania (which included parts of modern Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania), they had difficulties in formally defining what a miasteczko is.