00:00–00:50
Opening chat: Kerler explains that Bloomington, Indiana, is a small town in the centre of America. A team member asks the interviewee in Russian to sign the consent form for the interview, and the form and signature are discussed.
Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › Ryb Zbirzher
AHEYM-2018-056 · Zbirzher
Rîbnița (Ribnitz in the project's index)
2018-06-26
10 min · 5 stretches · 2 questions about words
Yiddish 75% Russian 25%
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
Interview with Zbirzher (Isaak/Srulik, born 1933 by his own statement) in Ribnitz (Rybnitsa), 26 June 2018, a camera file from the middle of a longer session. After opening talk about Bloomington and the signing of a consent form, Kerler asks how Ribnitz and Kishinev were called in Yiddish, then about the speaker's birth year, family languages, grandfather, Yiddish name and surname. The last part concerns the poems he composes and a request that he read one aloud.
Stretches
00:50–02:51
Kerler remarks that this is the first time the interview is in Yiddish and the speaker prefers Russian. He states the date and the place, Ribnitz, and asks what the town and Kishinev were called in Yiddish. The speaker gives forms for Ribnitz, says the town had no distinct Yiddish name, and gives a Yiddish form for Kishinev (Keshenev).
02:37–05:37
Zbirzher says he is a native Ribnitz Jew, born in 1933 and now over 85. With his parents he spoke Russian, while his mother and father spoke Yiddish together, as did his grandmothers. He names his paternal grandfather as Nune (?) and gives a year for him that is unclear.
05:27–06:58
He gives his Yiddish name as Yisroel, also Yisroel in Russian. He does not know the origin of the surname Zbirzher. He confirms a childhood home nickname, Strulik (?).
06:32–09:53
Kerler wants the speaker's childhood memories on camera. The speaker explains in Russian that his memory is good because he composes poems, in Russian and in Yiddish, and says he began as a child at about five and wrote about the war. Kerler asks him to read a poem aloud in Russian and then discuss it in Yiddish. The speaker looks for his glasses.
Questions about words
- 01:50How was this place called in Yiddish, Ribnitz or Ribnitzer? — Yiddish name of Ribnitz
- 02:02How did people say Kishinev in Yiddish? — Yiddish name of Kishinev