People › Polina (Pesye, Pepe) Shulmanovna Lebvol › conversation

Polina (Pesye, Pepe) Shulmanovna Lebvol

Zhovkva 10 May 2003 Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Jeffrey Veidlinger 34 min · 1 part on 1 tape proposed
Loading the player…
  1. MDV 559 0:00–34:11 · 34 min · not online — MCO · a part of the tape
Passages

0:00

Lebvol answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire.

From the machine transcript

Dialectological questionnaire in Yiddish with the informant, who answers Kerler's questions. Items include words for walking with difficulty, running and fleeing, pious or believing person, baptized convert, cross, headache, 'where from', bed, flowers, oil, small tree, numbers (ten, thousand), 'you are right', and sentences to translate. Further items cover pronouns ('I don't hear him'), mourning formula ('may he have a bright son-in-law'), plural forms, words such as 'error', 'face', 'rich man', and the village/town terms ('attic', 'well', 'potatoes'). Some Russian chat about a magnifying glass and the Hesed doctor.

Includes talk in Russian about a magnifying glass, vitamins and Hesed visits.

15:30

Lebvol, Dorfman and the team drive around Zhovka. The camera then collects footage, while Lebvol gives a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood.

From the machine transcript

The team and local guides drive through Zhovkva; the informant and a companion point out the town centre, the school and hospital, and former Jewish shops and houses. The informant says Jews lived here, some raised geese, and sold meat; the synagogue is pointed out. Part of the talk is in Russian and the audio is poor.

Names the Jewish shops and houses and the synagogue seen from the car.

18:17

The team arrives with Dorfman and Lebvol at the Zhovka Hasidic cemetery and the camera collects footage.

Footage MDV 559 · MCO
From the machine transcript

The group visits the Hasidic cemetery in Zhovkva. They discuss who built it and when, how Belz Hasidim stop there on the way to Belz, and the tombstones reused under the Communists in a wall. Kerler also asks about a Yiddish word for a Shavuot item and the terms for cemetery (beys-oylem, beys-khayim), and explains the title of a book written by the tsadik buried there.

Adds the reused tombstones and the Belz Hasidic pilgrimage.

24:05

The camera films inside Tzadik Efraim Shor's grave, before collecting footage of other graves.

Footage MDV 559 · MCO
From the machine transcript

At the grave of the tsadik Efraim Zalman Shor, Kerler and a companion read and explain the inscriptions and the titles of his book. The informant adds that even among the wealthy there was no separate synagogue, only a study group. Russian comments about the concrete structure date it to the 1920s.

Adds the explanation of the inscription and the book title, and the concrete structure dating.

27:02

The team continues to drive around Zhovka with Lebvol and Dorfman, while she explains the former Jewish neighborhood of Zhovka.

From the machine transcript

The team continues to drive and walk through Zhovkva as the informant and the companion explain the former Jewish neighbourhood. They point out where houses stood, mention Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Ivano-Frankivsk (?), and the informant recalls arriving after the war (the year is unclear in the transcript). A Polish gymnasium and a former town hall are also mentioned.

29:35

They stop in the Zhovka town center and Lebvol describes the buildings. The team then bids farewell to Lebvol.

TourInformal Local Jewish history MDV 559 · MCO
From the machine transcript

In the town centre, Lebvol describes the former Polish magistrate building used as a prison, where nationalists were shot at the start of the war, and the former homes of Poles. She and her companion recall that King Jan Sobieski lived in Zhovkva and that a synagogue is named after him. The team says farewell and the visit ends; Lebvol gives her name, Pepe (Pesye) Shulmanovna Lebvol, and that Pesye was her sister's name.

Adds the prison/magistrate, Sobieski, and her name and farewell.

Questions put in this conversation

Items of the dialect questionnaire asked here; each link plays the moment.