SOURCE: Lipton, Eunice. “Unknowing Neighbors.” Nation 265, no. 14 (3 November 1997): 26-7.

In the following review, Lipton praises Hoffman for her unique approach to the question of Polish anti-Semitism and complicity in the Holocaust in Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews.

Shtetl is a daring and generous book, measured in style, passionate in intent. It was, I do believe, written for love. Not for the love of a person or a country, but for some configuration of home, for a laying bare of mysterious and destructive ancient mechanisms that, once understood—one hopes, one prays—may bring warring partners, even a divided heart or country, to actually see the other side, allowing each to have a home, a place from which to understand and to desire.

Eva Hoffman was born in Poland to Jewish parents in 1945 and immigrated to Canada when she...