Detail. Click to enlarge.

I clearly remember the name of our ancestral shtetl because my grandparents often socialized with members of the Kaharlyker Association. As a child, I thought it had something to do with cars and liquor.

Shtetlach were small, mostly Jewish towns that existed in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. From 1791 until 1915, the Czars confined Jews to an area designated the “Pale of Settlement.” At its height, the area had apopulation of five million.

These sewn and embroidered pieces are reminiscent of the type of Ukrainian folk art my grandmother might have stitched.