shtetl
A Jewish village or small town, especially one in Eastern Europe.
However, you are right to suspect that there is some connection between my carefully considered opinion of the Hebrew people and this marvellous recital which your waxy ears, full of the cheesy gunk of the shtetl, have been so fortunate to hear.
Where it comes from
From Yiddish שטעטל (shtetl, “small town, village”), from שטאָט (shtot, “city”) + ־ל (-l, “diminutive suffix”) (compare German Städtl, Swabian Städtele), from Old High German stat, from Proto-West Germanic *stadi, from Proto-Germanic *stadiz, from Proto-Indo-European *stéh₂tis. Doublet of stead.
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry shtetl (CC BY-SA 4.0).