Jerusalem(Yerushalayim in the project's index)2018-01-0714 min · 5 stretches · 3 questions about wordsYiddish 98%
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 session in Jerusalem (7 January 2018) with the elderly Mr Solomon, whose Yiddish name is given as Asher Zelig Solomon. A second voice, probably a family member, prompts and interjects, and Kerler interviews. The conversation is hard of hearing and fragmentary: Budapest relatives, belief in God, the informant's Yiddish name, a rebbe and kosher food, grandchildren, and arrangements to return in June.
Stretches
00:00–02:45
Talk about a large house in Budapest and a relative who was a tailor and made sacks. A name is given, unclear in the transcript. Brief remarks about a king who has just died, and Kerler declines an offer to see something, already having seen it.
The informant speaks of learning Talmud and of Jewish practice, and says that Hitler killed six million Jews (stated as six thousand in the transcript). Kerler asks whether he goes to pray in Israel and then asks repeatedly about belief in God. The speakers discuss the word for God in Russian and the informant mentions a woman with a sheitl, apparently his mother.
The informant recalls studying where there was a connection with Budapest and says half the Jews there were killed. Kerler asks what people ate in the 1930s and 1940s. The informant mentions a shoykhet, and Kerler explains that blood in an egg makes it not kosher.
Kerler arranges to return in the morning and asks the informant's Yiddish name and what his mother called him at home. The informant says he spoke Yiddish with his parents and gives the name Asher Zelig Solomon; what the mother called him is not clear.
The informant talks about a rebbe connected with Satmar (?) who ate kosher, and Kerler asks whether the father used to go to the rebbe. A king is mentioned, then the informant says he has grandchildren and Kerler asks about great-grandchildren. S2 says one ear was lost in the war, and Kerler says he will return in June.