A New Take on the Shtetl

 The road to the old wooden synagogue, Pakruojis, Lithuania 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Alana Newhouse has written a long article in the New York Times magazine that highlights the way -- possibly the deliberately manipulated way -- that Roman Vishniac's famous photographs molded our imaged and collective memory of the shtetl.

She profiles Maya Benton, a young curator who has uncovered thousands of unpublished photographs by Vishniac and also revealed the extent to whi...