00:00–01:19
Opening chat as people sit down and photographs are discussed. The informant mentions new pension papers brought the day before and says he composes songs himself and sings them every week at the Hesed.
Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › Ryb Zbirzher
AHEYM-2018-055 · Zbirzher
Rîbnița (Ribnitz in the project's index)
2018-06-26
56 min · 18 stretches · 9 questions about words
Yiddish 40% Russian 60%
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
Recording with Zbirzher in Ribnitz (Rybnitsa), 26 June 2018, camera track from a longer session. It opens with chat and the informant performing a humorous Russian song of his own composition about famous Jews, followed by Kerler's questions about Yiddish songs, weddings and the informant's memories of the Ribnitz rabbi, then his parents' names and family, a series of Russian comic songs and talk about his memory, and the Joint and his daughter in Germany. Russian predominates and the informant often replies in Russian while Kerler pushes for Yiddish. Second half of a session with Zbirzher in Ribnitz, 26 June 2018, mostly in Russian with some Yiddish from Kerler. It covers the family of the interviewee's late wife, her father the shoemaker, and the family's language and holiday observance at home. It then covers his religious doubts, the languages he knows and the songs he can sing, a mezuzah, and his pride in the Jewish people.
Stretches
01:19–04:00
The informant sings a humorous Russian song of his own making, in which each verse names Jews who are famous (businessmen, musicians, humorists such as Zhvanetsky, Newton, Moses). Kerler asks for the title and the room praises it.
04:02–06:34
Short Yiddish song fragments ('Bay mir bistu sheyn'), then Kerler asks about songs his grandmother sang and about Margaritkelekh. The informant does not recall Yiddish weddings and cannot describe a chuppah.
06:34–10:02
The informant says in Russian that he remembers little of the wedding of a cousin in 1946. He then talks about a rabbi, Khaim Zanvl (?), persecuted by Soviet authorities and later in America, who came to his grandmother's Sabbath table, and about the anti-religion work required of teachers. The rabbi served as rabbi and shochet and was a close neighbour.
09:51–16:51
Kerler asks him to tell about the Ribnitz rabbi in Yiddish. He describes him as a very honest man who spoke only Yiddish (and some Romanian), came from Bessarabia/Moldova, and a tale in which soldiers who were to shoot people were frozen like stone, with talk of hypnosis. He prayed for many hours, slept little, lived in a bare home with a small table and benches, had a Torah scroll, and held a minyan on Sabbath.
16:21–19:47
The informant says Ribnitz was a Jewish town of thirty thousand people, of whom perhaps fifteen thousand were Jews. Kerler asks about kapores and morning prayers; the informant says he never prayed himself and that his mother did not know how, though grandmothers did. They talk about the mezuzah and his wife's father.
19:31–24:04
Family history: father Itsik (born 1912(?)), a coachman/cart-driver by trade; mother Khaye, born a few years after him; her family name possibly Akselrod. The informant was an only son. A sister died at about one year during famine in Stalinabad (?). Grandfathers Mordkhe Akselrod and Khaim Zanvl are named.
24:06–25:56
Kerler asks how to say 'cousin' (female) and about the expression 'a good brother' as a friend rather than a blood brother. The informant says he does not know the Yiddish word.
25:56–28:27
The informant performs Russian comic songs in Odessa style about Rachel, with risqué lyrics, plus a Yiddish-sounding verse about a father and mother.
28:27–32:44
The informant explains that composing songs keeps his memory sharp and tells how a Joint representative from Kishinev tested his memory with questions. Kerler learns his daughter, with two children, lives near Berlin in a town Kerler calls Halle (?), and the talk turns to her marriage.
32:44–34:46
Talk about the interviewee's daughter in Germany and her family. He then talks about his late wife's family: her Jewish mother and her father's brother who lived four houses away and spoke only Yiddish. The language of the wife's home is discussed, as is the Yiddish his grandmother (died 1962) spoke with him. Kerler also asks briefly for the Yiddish word for the in-law relation.
34:46–38:43
The interviewee describes his wife's father, a shoemaker who trained in Moscow and worked as a master shoe designer. He tells the story that the father shook hands with Tsar Nicholas II when receiving his qualification. Kerler asks about his craft and what the interviewee's own father did, and it is mentioned that the wife's mother died in 1942 in Baku during the evacuation.
38:43–42:51
Questions about home life: the language spoken with his wife, which was Russian, and the daughter's lack of Yiddish. They cover the Jewish holidays kept at home, with Passover and Shavuot named, and his wife's cooking, with forshmak and a bean dish asked about. He does not eat boiled fish and prefers fried. Matzo was ordered, not baked at home.
43:03–44:31
Kerler asks about a dance with makes (poppies?) at Jewish weddings, called 'makes (?)' in the transcript. The interviewee says this was done at his daughter's wedding as an old custom, and the interviewer and S2 ask who wanted it.
44:31–49:10
The interviewee says his wife was religious and from a traditional Jewish family. He himself was not taught the customs, since his father died in the war, and he was educated as a biologist in an atheist spirit. He reflects at length on his doubts about God, says he has read the Christian Bible and the Talmud, and says he can answer sectarians. S2 says he is studying to be a rabbi, and the interviewee and Kerler discuss why people need faith.
49:10–52:05
Kerler asks what the word yidishkeyt means, and the interviewee says it is Jewishness. He says his daughter knows almost no Yiddish. He lists the languages he knows and says he learned them at school, technical school and institute. He can sing Ukrainian, Moldovan and Russian songs and knows only a few Yiddish ones, which Kerler questions him about.
52:05–52:59
S2 asks how old the mezuzah is, and the interviewee says it dates from when they moved into the house, in 1965, 73 years (?) ago in the transcript. He does not remember who nailed it up. He also mentions an earlier wooden veranda and another mezuzah at the entrance.
52:58–55:59
The closing exchange: thanks are given. The interviewee describes himself as a patriot of the Jewish nation, which he calls the cleverest, and cites educated cousins, scientists, writers and engineers. Kerler objects that nobody is cleverest and that boasting is unseemly. The interviewee ends by mentioning a cousin's daughter's son in Germany, a musician who performs in Berlin.
Questions about words
- 17:26What does 'shlogn kapores' mean? — explanation of the custom
- 24:17How do you say 'cousin' (female) in Yiddish? — Yiddish word for female cousin
- 24:58What does 'a good brother' mean? — meaning of the idiom 'a gutn bruder'
- 32:56How do you say 'mother-in-law of the daughter' / the word shviger? — the Yiddish word for the in-law relation
- 36:30Kerler supplies the Yiddish for 'svek' (father-in-law): shver — Yiddish term for father-in-law
- 36:56What does 'modelier' mean? — meaning of the word modelier (designer)
- 41:21What kind of fish did you make? Gefilte? — the fish dish and its taste, sweet or salty
- 43:03At a Jewish wedding was a dance with 'makes' danced? What does 'giving makes' mean? — the wedding custom of makes (poppies?) and its name
- 49:10What does the word yidishkeyt mean? — meaning of yidishkeyt