Iosif David

David talks about his work for the Jewish community in Botoșani. He recalls an episode involving his sick mother and a kosher butcher, mentions that he was a professor and coach of basketball who travelled to other countries, and describes the Jewish bath and mikveh. He describes how, as community head, he arranged Passover and Yom Kippur meals, a children's club, and help with the municipality, and speaks of the small number of remaining, elderly Jews in Botoșani and other Romanian towns. Lemster asks why he gives himself so wholly to the Jews.

Also covers the community's present size, its meals and its children's activities, and a question from Lemster.

David talks about his family. His father David was a kosher butcher and his mother a tailor, and he had two brothers who live in Israel. He names his grandfather, a shoemaker, and his grandmother, and remarks that his father was observant. Kerler and Lemster ask about names and relatives.

David explains why he does not move to Israel and speaks of his satisfaction in the local Jewish community. He also recalls how his mother prepared fish and holiday dishes, and describes dishes he prepared for the community, including varenikes and a Botoșani specialty.

Gives his reasons for staying in Romania, which the catalogue summary only implies.

David talks about his father's observance and his own lapse and later return to synagogue attendance as community president. He describes the weekly Sabbath kiddush and what Friday-night and Sabbath customs and food looked like in his mother's home, including fish, soup, challah and the koshering of meat. In answer to Kerler's questions he names his grandparents and gives their death years and ages.

Includes his grandparents' names and death dates, and the Sabbath food.

Lemster asks about Maccabi and prewar Jewish sports, and David recalls the sports clubs and his brothers' travels. He then talks about present Jewish life: the local community president, abandoned Jewish houses, Hanukkah celebrations with children, and support for mourners and kaddish.

Includes Hanukkah events and support for mourners today.

David speaks about his mother's teaching and about his father, then turns to Jewish life today: an elderly woman professor, the community president Salomon and his temperament, the fate of former Jewish houses, a visit to Debrecen with the federation president, and the medical aid the federation gives to elderly members.

Kerler asks David about his childhood before and during the war. He recalls first and second grade, his father's forced labor digging trenches, the closing of schools, and the deportation train from Iași, and tells of hunger and shortages, shopping for food in a market square near the family's home, and non-Jewish neighbors. He also describes heating with wood and the restrictions of the Ceaușescu years.

Also covers hunger, shortages and neighbors; the catalogue's travel with his father is not clearly heard.

David talks about his schooling: a Talmud Torah before the war, where the rebbi (named Levi) taught Humash, and Romanian state school, where Yiddish was also taught for a few hours a week. He is asked about Yiddish writing and about a teacher at the Romanian school (the name Lebovich is unclear in the transcript). Kerler works out which years he studied after the war.

Also names the Talmud Torah rebbi, Levi, and the Yiddish-writing lessons.

David speaks about singing Hanukkah songs with children at the synagogue today. He says there are no antisemitism problems in Botoșani and that the synagogue has not been vandalised. He also mentions money received through the federation to repair the synagogue roof, and ends by telling how little the community needs. Kerler then asks about the Botoșani rebbe.

Adds the absence of antisemitism and the federation's roof-repair money.

David speaks about the prewar great rabbi Burshtein, whose son Motele later lived in Israel, and about a shoykhet. Lemster asks about the Stefanesti rebbe; David knows him only by hearsay from childhood. He mentions Hasidim and tsadikim, the prayer houses and monuments in the cemetery area where people go to pray, and cantors who came for the High Holidays.

Also covers the Stefanesti rebbe, the shoykhet, tsadikim's graves and cantors.

David speaks about contemporary Jewish life: a 75-year-old man he helps who reads the prayers, and the few men who come to the synagogue. He tells of a recent visit to Debrecen, where he found Jews who could not speak Yiddish and met a large community with a committee and a celebration.

David answers questions about the two prewar mikvas in Botoșani and the bathhouse, which Jews used first and non-Jews later. He tells how his father and brother took him to the baths and mentions a brother in Israel. He then turns to people who come from Israel to the synagogue and a Romanian Jew's gift of money.

Adds a bathhouse and a visiting-from-Israel passage.

David describes Purim customs in his childhood home, especially the Purim treats his mother made and sent with him to relatives, and discusses the terms for them (shalakhmones, Purim sweets) with Kerler. He recalls bringing Friday food through snow and past dogs to his grandparents for Sabbath. He also mentions Hanukkah money for children and that Yiddish is now less spoken than Romanian.

Adds the Purim treats and the terms for them, Hanukkah money, and the shift to Romanian.

David talks briefly about Jews remaining in Botoșani today and who can still help in the community. Kerler asks what it means to go to visit a good (righteous) Jew and then moves on to Jewish weddings after the war.

Adds the exchange about visiting a good Jew.

David answers Kerler's questions about Jewish weddings after the war, klezmer musicians who knew Jewish pieces, and the intellectual level of the Jewish musicians. Lemster asks for Yiddish words for colours and for vodka. David says Jews drank a little wine or brandy with fish, that vodka came from Russians, and that he himself does not drink or smoke.

Adds the colour terms and the vodka and brandy words.

David describes healing the evil eye with coals and a bowl, as his paternal grandmother did. Kerler asks about the meaning of dybbuk, golem and related words. David tells of a sick man he tried to bring to hospital and of the possible old-age home in Bucharest. He also talks about his life today, his friends and relatives in Israel and his visit there at 83, and says he is tired after the overnight train from Debrecen.

Adds the dybbuk and golem terms, the trip to Israel and the sick man.

David states that about 19,000 Jews lived in Botoșani before the war, in whole quarters, owning the shops and working as tailors, carpenters and other craftsmen. He says about 92 Jews remain today, and Kerler and Lemster ask about conversion and mixed couples. David and Lemster then discuss Jewish youth, the Joint, camps for children and the communities in Oradea and elsewhere, partly in Romanian. Kerler ends by asking about a local bread type.

Adds the current figure of about 92 Jews, mixed families and the Joint's youth camps.

David answers a long dialectological questionnaire, mostly posed by Lemster with Kerler. The items cover verbs of liking and fleeing, adjectives (sick, honest, simple, tasty, cold), body parts, everyday phrases and greetings (good morning, good day), words for street, shop, bridge, ceiling and attic, comparatives and time words, and prepositional constructions (at my father's, at table). The recording is poor and many answers are unclear.

Kerler asks David for a closing message about remembering the Jews of Botoșani. David speaks of the many intellectual Jews who left for Israel and of those who remain keeping up Jewishness as far as they can. He wishes all Jews health and unity, and Kerler ends with Amen.

Kerler sets the date and introduces the interview with Iosif David, president of the Botoșani community, who was born in Botoșani in 1935. David recalls his early childhood before the war. He studied in a Talmud Torah, learning to read, Chumash and Hebrew. He cannot remember the name of his rebbe.

Kerler's introduction of David and his birthplace; the first lines are an exchange about an old synagogue.

Fragmentary talk in Yiddish and some Russian while the camera is running. A voice mentions the old great synagogue, and Lemster and Kerler talk with a local speaker about Passover in a village and about remembering things. There is a remark about not walking in front of the camera and a story about Jews and a dance venue. The speech is too garbled to follow in detail.