Rabbi Yossi Steiner

Informal chat outside with Rabbi Steiner and the other men present. They mention a museum director from a town whose name is unclear, and discuss the Slovak coloring of the speakers' Yiddish and whether a man speaks Yiddish at all. One man says he comes from Brooklyn. At the end Steiner turns to a Michalovce community and the information in its book about a rabbi, a dayan, a shoykhet and a melamed.

Adds the talk about Slovak coloring of Yiddish, a museum director, and the turn to Michalovce at the end.

Steiner reads from the Michalovce community book. It contains rules for the synagogue: no sermon where the bimah is not in the middle, no weddings in the synagogue, no innovations. He reads out the signatories and the community leaders, and Kerler comments. Steiner mentions a man from Veľké Kapušany, a miller's son. He then talks about the Michalovce cemetery with its ceramic tombstones and lists other small Jewish communities (Trebišov, Kráľovský Chlmec, Veľké Kapušany). Last he mentions a postwar pogrom in Kolbasov in Poland, with a second place in Poland.

Adds the Michalovce cemetery, other Slovak communities and a postwar pogrom in Poland.

Kerler notes swastikas carved on the wooden doors of the synagogue being excavated, and Steiner speaks about the cemetery. Gravestones were toppled some years ago and money was raised to repair it, and he describes the repair ceremony and good relations with local priests. He tells of a ten-day trip of priests to Israel, including Yad Vashem, and of the support of Rabbi Sher Yashuv Cohen. He says his family lives in Israel, and there is talk of phoning a man for the interviewers, and of plans to travel to Prešov and see the museum and synagogue from outside. He also discusses contemporary relations with the authorities and Jewish communities. He explains a memorial of the deportation route, with names of Košice Jews deported toward Auschwitz read at a ceremony. At the end he tells a cheder joke and there are languages questions, and car-travel talk partly in Hungarian.

Adds the priests' trip to Israel, the deportation memorial with names, a cheder joke and travel arrangements.