Baia Mare2013-05-1911 min · 4 stretches · 4 questions about wordsYiddish 97%
Not online: the recording is held by the project and is not on Media Collections Online, YouTube or archive.org. Everything below is a paraphrase of a machine transcript, the weaker of this site's two transcript layers — see how it was made.
Summary
Camera file of a 2013 Baia Mare session, about ten minutes long, with an elderly informant whose name the index does not give. The file begins mid-conversation with the informant on prayers recited by heart and learned from a sidur (?). Kerler then asks about children's Hanukkah games, Purim and the non-Jewish Sabbath helper. The rest covers Jewish cemeteries and towns, the team's travel plans through Romania and Ukraine, and a short rhyme.
Stretches
00:00–02:37
The informant talks about prayers and what she was taught in the month of Elul, and about washing and saying a morning blessing (?). Kerler asks whether she can recite the Modeh ani (?) prayer by heart. She says she has a sidur and needs a cue word to recall the prayer. Romanian talk in the room about finding a place on the internet cuts in.
Kerler asks what children played at Hanukkah. The informant says they got Hanukkah money, and Kerler adds the dreidel game. She says poor children were helped by a Jewish society, and no special games were played at Passover. She describes Purim masked players and a Purim play. She also recalls a non-Jewish Sabbath helper who lit fires in winter, was paid for it, and also came on Purim and at the non-Jewish New Year with a greeting for Saint Basil. Kerler asks about a woman who spoke very good Yiddish.
A woman's great age is discussed, and Marcos (?) and Baia Mare and Sighet are named. The informant says the big Jewish cemetery of Europe is in Iasi, and Kerler says Mohyliv and Berdychiv also have huge ones. Kerler then discusses the route: Sighet, then across the border into Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivsk (formerly Stanislau), Kolomyia and Minkowitz (?). They plan one or two more nights in Romania. Someone's family is said to be divided between Israel and Budapest.
Kerler asks whether she remembers a children's game or rhyme. She says no, then she and Kerler recite a short humorous rhyme about a sick body, wife and hand. The last lines mention American donors and Jewish charity but are unclear.