Beginning of Essay
To , the synagogue was the center of religion and religion was the most important thing in their lives. The rabbi was their leader, they came to him with every problem they had. Jews were poor, but they all gave tzedakah. It was said that even the poorest Jews ....

Middle of Essay
.... forced to pay, stayed. before he died in 1825, the Jewish situation became hard for them to bare. They lived in poverty in small and crowded places and were oppressed. For hundreds of years, Jews lived these ways in two communities - the ghetto and the shtetl. To keep out thieves and rioters from coming in, they built walls around their section of town. When they did this, the government and churches got an idea, they would use the walls that the Jews built, to lock them in. These walls were located near a foundry that made cannons, so they named it “ghetto” which means "foundry". They would close the gates every night and the Jews would ....