The team arrives at the home of Polina (Pepe) Shulimovna Lebvol (b. 1920 in Zhovkva). She speaks of her recent visit to her daughter in the United States and her family life before and after the war. Her parents, Shulim and Rekhele, had eight children: Sima, Sure, Ksil, Khayim-Volf, Ester-Libe, Rivkele, Zishe and the interviewee herself. Her father worked as a butcher and a glass-blower. Lebvol also speaks about the region's contemporary Jewish community and the recent visit of her relatives from abroad.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol, b. 1920 in Zhovkva, talks about her daughter in the USA, whom she visited about ten years earlier, and gives her name, patronymic and address. She names her parents Shulim and Rekhele and her eight siblings, and says only she and one brother survived. Her father was a butcher and then a glazier. She also mentions a local woman who researches the history of the Zhovkva Jews, her mezuzah, and the visit of her relatives who need a US visa.
Adds her address, her Yiddish name and her grandparents, and the Joint-type aid and visa talk.
Lebvol speaks about prewar Zhovkva and the history of the Jewish house in which she lives. She describes the town’s synagogues and Jewish religious life, detailing various holiday observances, and explaining the differences between prewar and contemporary Passover–related practices.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol talks about the Jewish house in which she lives, which belonged to a single wealthy owner, and the wooden house her own family had before the war. She recalls returning from Stalingrad to find nothing left, the Jews who stayed with her in transit to Poland, and the synagogues of Zhovkva. She also describes Passover customs, the seder, the afikoman, matzo from Zhytomyr and a seder in Rava-Ruska.
Adds the return after the war and her use of the Haggadah.
Lebvol provides a long description of the “Yoysef-shpil” (The Story of Joseph), in which she performed during Passover in her youth. She recites the lyrics to several songs, describes the plot, and then sings the opening song (00:46:16).
From the machine transcript
Lebvol describes the Joseph play (Yoysef-shpil), which she remembers from Zhovkva in the 1930s and in which she took part. She tells its plot from Joseph's sale by his brothers to the reunion with Jacob, and recites several of its songs and rhymes. She then sings the opening verses beginning with Abraham and Isaac.
Adds the plot retold, the timing in the mid-1930s (?), and the question whether it was a Purim play.
Lebvol recalls observances and customs connected with Purim and Chanukah and sings fragments from the songs “Oy khanike, oy khanike” (Oh Chanukah, Oh Chanukah) and “Afn pripetshik”.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol recalls Purim customs, children's masks and the reading of the megillah by her father, and then Hanukkah and the dreidel. She sings fragments of a Hanukkah song and of "Afn pripetshik", and recalls Sabbath songs sung at her father's table.
Adds the Sabbath zmires at the end.
Lebvol states that she was educated for a short time in a Beys-Yankev religious girls’ school and then recites two prayers that she learned there: the “moydene” (“moyde ani,” or morning prayer) and “amoytse” (“hamotsi,” or the blessing over bread). Lebvol also reports that she began working as a seamstress at age 13.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol says she went for a year and a half to the Beys-Yankev girls' school, and recites the "moydene" prayer and the blessing over bread that she learned there. She says that boys went to cheder and that there was no money for her to stay on in school. She started at 13 with a seamstress, after seven classes, while her mother was a housewife.
Adds the cost of schooling and the cheder for boys.
Lebvol describes prewar entertainment at the cinema and in the theater, comparing these performances to contemporary ones by Christian missionary groups in the Jewish community today.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol answers questions about prewar cinema and the Polish films in Zhovkva, and recalls an evening at a theatre where Yiddish songs were sung. She says the show turned out to be a Christian missionary group that brought in an image of Jesus, and that the audience walked out. She adds that such groups perform in Yiddish and Hebrew today.
Lebvol describes customs related to the High Holidays, including “shlugn kapure” (a custom related to the forgiveness of sin) and “farfastn” (feasting before the fast on Yom Kippur). Lebvol shares an episode of intergenerational understanding of Judaism and “kashres” (kashrut) between her and her religious son-in-law.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol describes the pre-Yom Kippur custom of swinging a chicken (shlugn kapures) and the meal before the fast, with its dumplings and soup. She names the fast days and then tells how a religious son-in-law from the US, from Los Angeles (?), refused to eat her cooking until he saw that she kept kashrut. Her daughter Nadya remarks that her mother knew better.
Adds the fast days and the Sukkot question at the end.
Lebvol talks about her education before the war. She attended a Polish school in the mornings and the religious girls' school "Beys-Yankef" in the afternoons.
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks Lebvol about her schooling in Zhovka: seven years of Polish school in the mornings and, in the afternoons, the religious girls' school. Part of the passage is garbled and drifts into other talk before Kerler moves on to Sukkot.
The passage's later lines are garbled and turn to other matters (a reader, someone named Poliya?).
Lebvol addresses holiday celebration, in particular Sukkoth and Simchat Torah. She also describes the Great Synagogue in Zhovka and recalls shofar blowing on the High Holidays.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol recalls the family sukkah built in the corridor, with meals, singing and prayer, and her memories of Simchat Torah when only boys and men went to the synagogue and women and girls came to watch. She describes the Great Synagogue and the difference between rich and poor worshippers and the large and small synagogues, and mentions going to hear the shofar blown on the High Holidays. The kinds of flags carried by the children on Simchat Torah are also discussed.
Also covers the social divide between the large and small synagogues and women's attendance.
Lebvol explains how Polish soldiers attended synagogue services at the Great Synagogue on a Polish holiday before the war. She then recalls food customs on Shavuot.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol explains that Polish soldiers were brought into the Great Synagogue on a Polish holiday before the war because it was famous throughout Galicia. She then recalls Shavuot food, which was all made with cheese: cheese varenikes and flat pancakes (blintzes) filled with cheese. Kerler and Lebvol then chat about his family and his American connection.
Shavuot food is followed by personal chat about Kerler's children and a Polish-speaking visitor.
Lebvol converses in Polish.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol and others converse largely in Polish about trips to Poland, Wrocław, Kraków and relatives, and the train station that resembles the one in L'viv. Kerler then asks about her languages, English and German, and she tells of a flight to Moscow where she spoke Yiddish with a German.
Lebvol speaks about her contemporary travels, before she briefly returns to holiday food customs.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol continues about a German-speaking fellow traveler and where she learned German, in school. Kerler returns to Shavuot and asks whether blintzes were eaten, and the talk turns to a woman from the team and the planned trip to Drohobych and Boryslav, where there are Jewish organizations.
The passage includes the planned trip to Drohobych and Boryslav.
Lebvol addresses contemporary Jewish life and mentions a Jewish organization that provides charity. She then answers questions about cultural terminology.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol speaks about the Jewish organization in Lviv that helps her with charity, which Kerler takes to be a religious one. A few vocabulary items about honest people follow, and the talk turns to her request for vitamins and glasses and Kerler's promise to send things.
The passage is in effect about her needs for vitamins and glasses, and includes a short word elicitation.
Lebvol speaks about life before the war, in particular Jewish occupational structure and conversion. Lebvol also addresses the relationsip between Jews and non-Jews. She then describes the store, where her family bought hering, and how her father exchanged his glass work for food in the fall season.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol lists Zhovka's Jewish occupations: tailors, tinsmiths, butchers, glaziers and several ritual slaughterers. She says many Jews converted to Christianity and that she doesn't know of non-Jews becoming Jews, that neighbors were non-Jews with whom they got along, and that older non-Jews knew Yiddish. She describes her poor family: bread wrapped in newspaper, herring bought from a shop, and her father the glazier bartering glass for food in the villages.
Also includes Jewish converts and the Yiddish of non-Jewish neighbors.
Lebvol answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish questionnaire. She then discusses her childhood memories. Lebvol began her training as seamstress at thirteen. She recalls how she and her boss secretly worked on Sundays and hid when a soldier passed by the workshop.
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks a few dialect words (a tail, a shop, an honest person) and about sports and clubs in town. Lebvol then recalls that she began work as a seamstress at thirteen and that on Sundays they worked hidden from the police because work was forbidden, and hid when a patrol passed.
Begins with a short word elicitation and a question about sports and clubs.
Lebvol addresses Jewish life before the war, in particular Hasidic neighbors.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol describes the Polish fire brigade in the courtyard, and the bathhouse and mikveh in Zhovka. She recalls a Hasidic neighbor, Frenkel, whose wife wore a wig, and the names of their three children and parents. Asked about a Jewish library or youth movement, she says she did not go.
Adds the fire brigade, the mikveh and bathhouse, and the names of the Hasidic neighbors' children.
Lebvol returns to her performance in the "Yoysef-shpil." She then describes prewar Jewish Zhovka.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol returns to the Yoysef play, in which twelve brothers and a sister were needed, and recalls a blind man who led the player of Jacob and ran a library. She says the play was organized by one man and tickets sold, and that all the shops in the old town were Jewish except one Polish and one Ukrainian. Kerler plans to drive her around to show prewar sites, and asks about a good Jew in Zhovka.
Includes plans for a driving tour of town and a question about a 'good Jew'.
Lebvol answers questions about cultural terminology. She also describes how to prepare gefilte fish.
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks Lebvol about the term 'good Jew' for a rebbe, charms and remedies, the evil eye, and a pilgrimage site, then about Litvak, gefilte fish (sugar, pepper, onion and matzo), vodka, dybbuk, golem and sentences for the prayers for the dead. Lebvol answers each of these, with some Polish loanwords. In the last seconds S2 asks about the war years.
Includes questions about charms, the evil eye and a holy site, a dybbuk and a golem.
Lebvol talks about her life during the World War II. She evacuated to the Stalingrad region and worked on a kolkhoz. Her mother and four children were killed in Belz.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol says she was taken to Stalingrad region, with her sisters and brothers, where she worked on a kolkhoz. Her mother and four children were killed in Belz.
Lebvol speaks about her life after the war. She returned to Zhovka in 1945 and worked at the civilian registrar's office and then worked at a legal office. Lebvol attended a Polish school for seven years. She then talks about her family. Her first husband, whom she married in 1940, died during the war. She raised three daughters, who live in Russia and America.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol says she came back to Zhovka in 1945 and worked in an office issuing passports. She had seven Polish classes and taught herself Russian and machine sewing. She married Mikhail (Misha) in 1940 without a chuppah, and has daughters in Moscow, Leningrad and Los Angeles, and a great-grandchild. She says one daughter lives as a Jew and another with a non-Jew, and that no Jews remain in town since the death of Leyner.
Lebvol addresses contemporary Jewish life, before she talks about traditional weddings, including musical performances.
From the machine transcript
S2 asks Lebvol about the memorials in town, which she attended with the opening of the memorial where Jews were murdered. Kerler then asks about prewar weddings: the chuppah, music, klezmer musicians (local ones), and a song about a fiddler and bass player.
Begins with memorials and the unveiling of monuments.
Lebvol talks about prewar education, in particular the Beys Yankev school. She then describes traditional burial customs.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol says there was a Polish gymnasium but no Jewish one or yeshiva, and that she attended the Beys-Yankev school as a younger child like cheder. Kerler then asks about Sabbath garb and burial and mourning customs, including a glass of water and bread on the windowsill for eight days, covered mirrors, a candle and sitting on the floor.
Burial and mourning customs are explicitly covered.
Lebvol speaks about prayer customs. In particular, she recites a prayer to avoid dog bites. She then describes how her father read out loud on Sabbath and explains how her family celebrated Sabbath.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol recites a protective formula against dogs that she said as a child. She says she can't read Yiddish, only Russian, and that her father read from the prayer book on Sabbath after the meal. He was not Hasidic, and a Sabbath goy named Stepan came to the house; Kerler then starts the language questionnaire.
Includes a protective formula, reading habits, and the Sabbath goy.
Lebvol answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish questionnaire.
From the machine transcript
Lebvol answers Kerler's dialectological questionnaire, translating Russian and Polish prompts into Yiddish: greetings and thanks, body, house and food words, the pigeon, colors, adjectives, adverbs, breathing, comparatives and sentences. Some of the items are marked as not known to her.
