Khone Khaimovna Goldman

Goldman talks about her life today and her earlier work buying and selling goods to support her son, daughter-in-law and grandchild. She notes how few Jews remain in Chișinău. Kerler then begins the formal interview, giving the date and introducing her.

Also includes Kerler's spoken introduction and the remark that few Jews remain in Chișinău.

Goldman gives personal and family information: her Yiddish name, her father (Chișinău-born, a driver in Romanian times, later in railway work) and her mother Perl, a housewife. There were three children: an older girl who died young, Goldman, and a brother killed in the war. She went to her parents in Romania in 1938 after finishing professional school.

Gives the mother's name and occupation and the brother's death.

Goldman tells how the family was caught by the arrival of the Soviets in 1940 and evacuated to the Caucasus in 1941, where she met her brother again. He was drafted and trained somewhere in the east. On the road her mother was killed in Makhachkala during bombing and her father was wounded. The family later learned of the brother's death in 1944 and the father died too.

Gives details of the mother's death, the brother's call-up and the later news of his death.

Goldman describes her paternal relatives: her grandfather Nahum, grandmother Gitl, and the father's brothers, one who fled to Paris, a wealthy one in Bucharest with a factory, and one who moved to Palestine/Israel. She tells of working as a tailor in Bucharest for two years after the Yiddish professional school, and of her mother's relatives, including a family of Portuguese origin. She says her relatives mostly remained and were killed.

Adds the wider family of uncles, relatives in Paris and Odessa, and her tailoring job in Bucharest.

Goldman recalls her childhood schooling: four years in a Romanian primary school from age seven, then a Yiddish professional school where she learned reading and writing in Yiddish and trained as a tailor. She describes the school, its building later turned into a museum, and staying with an uncle named Yisroel and his family, with Sabbath candle-blessing there.

Adds the uncle's household and Sabbath customs there.

Goldman describes returning to Chișinău after the war, with no Jews, no water and hard living conditions. She tells of getting work at a printing house, rising to a planning post, receiving a medal for labor and the question of work-record months, and carrying stones to rebuild. Parts of the transcript are garbled or hallucinated.

Adds living conditions, rebuilding and the details of her work and medal.

Goldman recalls subjects at the Yiddish professional school: arithmetic, history, geography and Yiddish language and literature, taught by a teacher whose name is unclear. She mentions Sholem Aleichem and a work on an orphan, which Kerler identifies as Motl Peyse the cantor's son. She says she cannot recall Yiddish poets or school songs.

Goldman discusses her father's religious observance: his synagogue attendance, his prayer shawl and tefillin, and how she donated family portraits and items to a new Jewish museum in Chișinău. She then answers Kerler's questions about the professional school: it was not religious but socialist/communist in spirit, run by two women, and taught Yiddish literature but little Jewish history.

Adds Kerler's questions about the school's character and heads.

Goldman names the streets on which her family lived and notes the changes in their names. She worked as a tailor in Bucharest until 1940, recalls fear of violence against Jews there, and a Romanian landlord who protected them. She says she always preferred Chișinău.

Adds the landlord episode and her preference for Chișinău.

Goldman recalls helping her frail mother at home as a child and describes how her mother koshered meat by salting. She mentions her grandparents' portraits in the museum and the uncle who moved his factory and later settled in Israel, saving his two daughters.

Goldman describes Sabbath in her parents' home: cholent, no fire lit, candle-blessing, and how observance and synagogue-going became forbidden under the Soviets. She mentions the synagogue and a rabbi, and a woman colleague at the printing house who emigrated to Israel with her journalist husband.

Adds a colleague who emigrated to Israel.

Goldman and others comment on contemporary Jewish life: few Jews attend synagogue and non-Jews stand by the Torah, with remarks on who counts as Jewish. Asked about songs she sang while sewing, she recalls few; she names what she sewed. She mentions a book by her brother and her husband's wish to speak.

Adds remarks on Jewish identity and a book by her brother.

Goldman answers questions about prewar religious customs: girls did not bless candles before marriage, and the seder with the Elijah cup and hidden matzah. She recalls the morning prayer, her father's synagogue, and how matzah was supplied after the war.

Goldman says she married in 1948 with a simple wedding and a chuppah in the synagogue, with no music or ring. Asked by Kerler and Lemster about prewar weddings, she recalls little, mentions matchmakers, and says she was not matched.

Adds her own 1948 wedding.

Goldman answers questions about Hanukkah foods (latkes), Purim customs and the purim-shpil, and Yiddish theater before the war. She recalls amateur theater in the Yiddish professional school and a Soviet-era Yiddish company led by Levin. She had no time or money for theater in Bucharest, and mentions her mother's songs.

Goldman answers questions about the term 'a good Jew' and about her father's observance: tefillin and Passover practice after the war. She describes borrowing Yiddish and Romanian books from the library, naming Yiddish writers such as Sholem Aleichem, Peretz and Mendele. Kerler asks about buying Yiddish books from her.

Adds the terminology questions and the list of Yiddish writers.

Goldman describes how her mother prepared gefilte fish, chopped by hand, and notes that Sabbath fish was salty rather than sweet. She describes red beetroot soup for Passover, and answers questions about other foods and drink.

Adds noodles, drink and the grandmother's household.

Goldman answers questions about the meaning of dybbuk and golem and about folk remedies and sayings against the evil eye, recalling little. Kerler then announces a change of cassette.

Adds the change of cassette.

After a short exchange about a photograph, Goldman tries to recall the name and location of a big kosher butcher shop and sausage store in prewar Chișinău, on a street she names as Aleksandrovskaya (formerly Lenin Street), which operated until about 1940. She and Kerler discuss the quantities bought, the shoykhet and home kosher slaughter. Kerler asks whether there were Lithuanian Jews, and Goldman says many Polish Jews came, and describes how the Yiddish of Polish Jews and of Caucasus Jews, who have no Yiddish, differs from the local speech. They also compare local usage with Galician, Polish and Lithuanian Jews and touch on the word for Passover, before Kerler begins asking about the place of the cantor in the synagogue.

The passage also covers the Yiddish of Polish and Caucasus Jews and the question of Lithuanian Jews in Chișinău, and opens with a photograph.

Goldman answers Kerler's Yiddish dialectological questionnaire. The items include words for the rich man and the dead (a blessing for the deceased), man and boy, table, plug/fire extinguishing, vehicle terms (wagon and plural forms), 'on the road' and 'on this road', and everyday phrases and greetings (good day, pleased to meet you). They also cover Hanukkah dreidels, Tisha b'Av and the burrs thrown then, verbs like leave/abandon, ill and sleepy, and 'back'. Further items are room, suddenly, the difference between 'honest' and 'pious', enemy, the cross, plural nouns such as shoykhet and matchmaker, and what to say at different times of day.