The Jewish Pale of Settlement (Russia)

The Jews have lived in Russia for perhaps 1500 years. The largest group among Russian Jews are the Ashkenazi Jews, but other non-Ashkenazi types also moved to Russia. The Pale of Settlement came into being during the reign of Catherine the great and lasted from 1791 to 1917 and Jews were herded into that area to live. Jews were generally not permitted to live outside the Pale and even some cities inside the Pale were off-limits for them, unless they were exceptional individuals in which case they could break out and be accepted elsewhere but the numbers were small. The Pale of Settlement included all of modern-day Belarus and Moldova, and extended to Lithuania, Ukraine and east-central Poland, Latvia and western Russian up to the border with and Austria-Hungary.

Jewish residents of the Pale of Settlement would typically be extremely poor and life was harsh. World War 1 and the advancing German Armies would bring a permanent end to the Pale of Settlement in 1917, but Heifetz was born 16 years prior in Vilnius, Lithuania – hence firmly inside the Pale of Settlement in the North-Western sector.