This tape consists of a formal interview with Aba Davidovich Kaviner (b. 1921, Derazhnya). The research team searches for Kaviner’s apartment.
The research team looks for Kaviner's apartment, with Russian talk about house numbers and some confused Yiddish exchange. Kaviner is then heard briefly, and a name, Yosef (?), is mentioned.
The formal interview begins. Kaviner lists Yiddish writers from the area, and comments on the life and works of Mendele Moykher Sforim and other figures.
Kaviner and Kerler chat about local Yiddish writers from the area, including writers from Starokostyantyniv, Polonne and Medzhibozh. Kaviner then speaks at length about Mendele Moykher Sforim's life and wanderings, how he learned Russian and German, and his language and descriptive art, and ranks Peretz and Sholem Aleichem after him. Kerler states the date and place and turns to Kaviner's military service.
the long discussion of Mendele, Peretz and Sholem Aleichem's language and style
Kaviner recalls the higher education he received in Leningrad in a military school. He also tells the research team about his experience in the Baltic republics during the first days of the war and his evacuation soon thereafter to Moscow.
Kaviner recalls his schooling and being drafted into the army, then study at an aviation-technical military school in Leningrad and the rank of sergeant. He describes service in Lithuania (Shiauliai) and Latvia, and the first days of the war in 1941, when the airfield was bombed. He describes a railway-station massacre of fleeing civilians, a place he cannot name, and the evacuation to Moscow.
the station shooting of fleeing Jews and the Latvian/German attackers
He continues to relate his wartime experiences in Moscow where he paraded in front of Stalin. Switching briefly into Russian, he recites part of Stalin’s speech that he remembers to this day. He continues to talk about his military service, speaking about the different places he served, the wounds he received, and duties he fulfilled. He was demobilized in 1946.
Kaviner describes the parade in Red Square on 7 November 1941, where Stalin spoke. He recites parts of Stalin's speech in Russian, and Kerler asks him to continue in Yiddish. He tells of being wounded and in hospital near Moscow, of serving in an aviation regiment, of the first and second parades in 1941 and 1945, and of his medals and demobilization in 1946.
the Russian recitation of the speech and the wound he shows on his head and fingers
Kaviner shows his jacket of war medals and decorations, all the while telling more war stories.
Kaviner shows his war medals and explains some of them, including one for victory over Germany. He recalls a river crossing where the retreating Germans had destroyed the bridge and the advancing army laid corpses and wood across the gap to get tanks through.
In the immediate postwar period, Kaviner returned to Derazhnya, and then soon thereafter moved to Khmel'nyts'kyy in order to find work. He describes the hardships and famine in those first postwar years, as well as his career as the head of a carpentry workshop.
After demobilization Kaviner returned to Derazhnya, saw the graves of the murdered including his parents', and soon moved to Khmel'nyts'kyy to work. He describes the postwar famine and his work as head of a carpentry workshop, and says there were good and bad years.
Kaviner speaks about the continued existence of anti-Semitism after the war and the postwar Jewish community in Khmel'nyts'kyy that consisted of demobilized soldiers and internal migrants from the surrounding shtetlekh. Although many of these Jews eventually moved to other cities in the USSR, Kaviner reports that there was still a significant community in the town until mass emigration began in later decades.
Kaviner says antisemitism existed, exists and will exist, and gives an example from his working life under an antisemitic director. He describes the postwar Jewish population of Khmel'nyts'kyy, made up of evacuees and Jews from nearby towns, who later dispersed to Chernivtsi, Moscow, Leningrad and elsewhere, and then emigrated to Israel, America and Canada. Kerler asks about postwar Poland and about a synagogue, and Kaviner begins to speak about the town's prayer houses.
the comparison with postwar Poland and emigration abroad
Kaviner tells the history of Khmel'nyts'kyy’s synagogues before and after the war. In the postwar period, only two of the town’s original eight synagogues remained, and only one was available for Jewish use. In 1951, this was closed down by the authorities, and all of the community’s important figures were arrested on accusations of spying during the war.
Kaviner recounts the fate of the town's eight prayer houses: some were closed, one became a sports hall, and only the butchers' synagogue stayed open for the Jews after the war and was repaired by the community. He recalls famed cantors who visited, including Kaiserman and a blind cantor from Kyiv. He says that in 1951 the community's leaders were arrested as spies and the synagogue was closed and made into a sports hall until Gorbachev's time.
the famous cantors who visited the butchers' synagogue
Kaviner discusses the contemporary Jewish community in Khmel'nyts'kyy, recalling the history of its reestablishment, and its internal politics.
Kaviner describes the present community and its synagogue on Kamenets Street, which is cold and in need of repair, and the reconstruction led by a man named Igor (?) Aleksandrovich. He mentions another man called Hasid (?), who is building a more ambitious synagogue and has run out of money and a minyan. He complains that the community has dwindled because Jews have left.
the names of the synagogue's leaders and the rebuilding efforts
Kaviner speaks about his daughter and his grandson, and their respective education and career paths.
Kerler and Kaviner talk about Kaviner's daughter, a doctor in town, and his grandson, who finished school with a gold medal and an institute, worked in an international firm and then in an inspectorate. Kaviner hopes his grandson will marry a Jewish girl, and Kerler mentions Jewish matchmaking in Zhytomyr (?). Kerler then speaks of how nicely Kaviner prays.
Kaviner shares his views on prayer and religion, commenting on the place of both in his family life before the war. Noting his natural aptitude for learning, he describes the rapid progress he made in his religious education and what he remembers of it today. He also talks about the teachers from the yeshiva where he studied and the “open secret” status of the school under the Soviet Union.
Kaviner talks about prayer and his religious education. His father and grandmother arranged for him to learn from age three, and he went through a melamed, a talmud torah and a yeshiva, where learning came easily and he spoke Hebrew better than Yiddish. He tells what became of the yeshiva's teachers, who became bookkeepers, directors and mathematics teachers, and says the yeshiva was closed in 1938.
the sequence melamed, talmud torah, yeshiva, and the teachers' later careers
A teacher at a yeshiva, according to Kaviner, must be knowledgeable in modern math, science and history in addition to Judaica to be able to teach and understand traditional texts. He describes his school as not belonging to any one specific Jewish group, although they did follow the example of the Baal Shem Tov and other rebbes.
Kaviner and Kerler discuss why a yeshiva teacher needed to know mathematics, physics, medicine and history, as these were bound up with traditional texts. Kerler asks whether the yeshiva was Hasidic, and Kaviner says it belonged to no particular group but respected the Baal Shem Tov and the rebbes. The two debate Hasidim and mitnagdim, and Kerler asks him for stories about rebbes.
This tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Aba Davidovich Kaviner (b. 1921, Derazhnya). He tells several stories about the Baal Shem Tov (Besht), his encounters with different figures and his ability to see into the future. Kaviner also speaks about the origins of the Besht’s grave, its condition during the war, and his own personal visit to the site a few years ago. Kaviner reports that his first time in Medzhibozh was in 1946, when he spent time after the war traveling around to the graves of various tsadikim (holy men).
Kaviner tells legends about the Baal Shem Tov: his delay of Kol Nidre on the eve of Yom Kippur, and a note that he gave to an innkeeper for the later gabbai Yankl, which showed he could foresee the future. He also tells how the Besht forbade a gravestone, how the grave was marked and the state of the monument before and during the German occupation, when a cemetery guard was killed. Kaviner says he first came to Medzhibozh in 1946, after demobilization, while visiting the graves of holy men.
Besides the Besht stories, covers the gravestone and its wartime damage and Kaviner's 1946 first visit.
Kaviner mentions how he met a number of Yiddish writers in his youth when they would visit his town.
Kaviner names Yiddish writers he met before the war, when he was still a child, when they came to Derazhnya, including Itsik Fefer, Oyzer Varshavski (?), Leyb Kvitko and Dovid Bergelson. Answering Kerler, he describes what several of them were like personally: their build, Fefer's constant note-taking and others' manner. The passage ends with Kerler turning to stories about the Bratslav rebbe.
Kaviner discusses the history of Reb Nakhmen of Bratslav and his works, which Kaviner views as purely “theoretical” in nature. He also recalls how he read tales about the Baal Shem Tov in the works of various Yiddish writers, including those, such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, that he read clandestinely in samizdat.
Asked by Kerler about the Bratslav rebbe, Kaviner calls Nakhman a great theoretician and optimist who left a large body of writing and died young. He distinguishes the rebbe's teachings from stories about the Baal Shem Tov, which he says the Besht never wrote down. He says he read Yiddish writers such as Bashevis Singer in the Soviet period only in handwritten copies, since the Soviet press did not print them.
Includes the samizdat reading and censorship of Yiddish writers.
Kaviner shares his views and personal connections to the works of literary figures such as I. L. Peretz, Nakhmen Mayzl and others.
Kaviner and Kerler discuss Yiddish writers and critics, chiefly Nakhmen Mayzl, whose son Khayim, a doctor, Kaviner knew from the army, and Marek Varshavski, author of a famous song. They also talk about which Yiddish poems were not printed in Soviet times. Kerler asks him to sing something, and they talk about sending him materials and about writers buried in America.
Adds Mayzl's son, Varshavski and the request for a song.
Speaking about writers and their gravesites, Kaviner recites a poem-epigraph from a writer’s gravestone. He also tells the story of Sholem Aleichem and Maksim Gorky’s first meeting, and speaks about his connection to Bialik and Shmuel Halkin. With Professor Kerler’s help, Kaviner is able to recite part of a poem by Halkin.
Kaviner recites an epitaph from a Yiddish humorist's gravestone about hiding grief behind laughter, and tells an anecdote about Sholem Aleichem's first meeting with Gorky. He recalls reading Bialik in the 1950s and visiting Shmuel Halkin in Moscow, where Halkin told him to learn from Bialik. With Kerler's prompting he recalls fragments of a poem by Halkin, and then of Yiddish poetry he learned by heart.
Names Kaviner's visit to Halkin in Moscow in the 1950s and the recitation of fragments.
Kaviner comments on his health problems and the process of aging. He mentions how he burned the two novels he once wrote, and how he would try to write poetry, but is not confident he would have a wide readership.
Kaviner talks about old age: failing eyes, body and legs, and no longer being able to read Yiddish. He says he once wrote and burned two novels and thinks of trying poetry, but doubts anyone would print or read it. Kerler says it could be printed abroad and mentions cantorial recordings; Kaviner says he has no player, though his son has one. He also names Dudl Fishman, whom he saw in Moscow, and mentions mezuzahs and a Hesed director.
Adds the burned novels, the talk of publishing abroad and cantorial recordings.
Kaviner shows Professor Veidlinger different photos of recent life events, such as a meeting in Hesed (elderly welfare organization), a trip to Medzhibozh, and different moments with his grandson.
Kaviner shows photographs, including a trip to Medzhibozh to the Baal Shem Tov's grave with a rabbi and a community chairman, and a visit to a museum. In others he appears with his grandson, who received a medal and is shown at his graduation. Kerler gives him a Hanukkah gift and they say goodbye.
Adds the closing gift and farewell.