Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › 2013 Expedition

AHEYM-2013-146 · Debrecen

Debrecen (Debretsin in the project's index) 2013-05-27 11 min · 5 stretches · 2 questions about words Yiddish 100%

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

A camera-track file (10:40) from a session in Debrecen (Debretsin), 27 May 2013, with an elderly Yiddish-speaking man (no name in the index) and Kerler. It opens with a short Hungarian remark and a wedding rhyme the man recalls, which Kerler asks him to repeat. Kerler then asks about wedding music and dancing and about the rabbi at whose table the man ate shirayim. The man recalls his yeshiva-style study with a Gemara teacher, and the file ends with Kerler asking about the best times in his life.

Stretches

00:00–03:15

After a short Hungarian remark, the man recites a rhyme about Moyshe and a bride, which he links to Purim and to weddings. Kerler asks him to repeat it and when it was sung or said, and tries to prompt the continuation, but the man recalls only part of it.

Recitation before the war Songs and musicMarriage and weddingsPurim

03:15–04:50

Kerler asks what music was played at weddings. The man answers that there were Jewish and non-Jewish musicians, and that at Jewish weddings men did not dance with women, who were separated by a cloth (?). Kerler notes that less religious weddings had mixed dancing, and they discuss the mitzvah dance in which the rebbe dances with the bride and money is given.

04:48–06:34

Kerler asks whose shirayim (festive leftovers) he ate. The man names a rebbe, Ksie Likhter Shteyer (?), who also ran a tallis factory and made roller shutters. His son went to America and led the yeshiva when the rebbe was ill.

06:32–10:31

Kerler asks about his study with a Gemara teacher. The man says the teacher studied with them all day and tested them on Shabbat. He describes learning Gemara tractates, studying after work and early in the morning, and says he had to study. Kerler then asks him to tell something from his life.

Questions about words

  • 03:15
    What kind of music was played at weddings? — types of music at weddings
  • 04:04
    What is a mitzvah dance? — the custom of the mitzvah dance