Module 5: Poetics and Politics of Urban Spaces
  Lecture 32: Louis Wirth (1927): The Ghetto
 

The physical structure of the Ghetto

The typical Ghetto is a densely populated walled-in area usually near a commercial area or market. Life revolves around the synagogue. The facilities of everyday life such as educational, recreational, the bakehouse and dance hall as well as the cemetery were present within the boundaries of the Ghetto.

The Jews supplemented the economic complex of medieval European life:

  • Jews were allowed to trade and engage in occupations which the church did not permit.

  • They provided revenue to the state. Christians could borrow money and pay interest to the Jew because they had no soul to be saved.

  • Jews too saw the Christian population in terms of utility: those who ate the hind leg of beef1 and purchased the commodities that they sold.

  • Ghetto existence also contributed in a way to mobility to different cities. Jews were mainly merchants and bankers. Ghetto was the instant refuge in different cities. Therefore, the Jewish people had access to mobility.

Like the pols, life inside the Ghetto was marked by extreme familiarity. The ghettoized existence led to increasing distance from outside world. A Jew's contact was categorical and abstract with the outside world and with his community warm, intimate and free. Bound by common trouble and numerous ceremonies resulted in social distance with the life outside the Ghetto. Just like the pol there were constraining features but at the same time it was teeming with life and activities. Ghetto is a self-perpetuating group. Intermarriage is not allowed and if it happens the individual is lost to the community.        

1Discuss the meaning of Kosher food.