Opens with a remark that people from Russia, here and Canada all speak Yiddish. Kerler and Lemster then try to get Brief to recall the poet Shvartskop (Shvartskov) from Mohyliv, and the talk drifts to actors and artists. Brief says he has forgotten much.
Opening remarks on Yiddish speakers and talk of artists are not in the catalogue entry.
Brief says his parents spoke Yiddish at home and describes the Yiddish books in the house. His father read a Romanian newspaper all day. Brief discusses rabbis and rebbes and the difference between a rav and a rebbe, mentions a visiting rebbe, and describes a dish made of white flour and potatoes.
Includes the rav versus rebbe question and food made of flour and potatoes.
Brief talks about wartime hunger and going out of a camp with a small sack to look for food in the villages. He describes clothes made from sacks and twisted shoes. Lemster mentions that his own mother was in a camp. Kerler then steers back to Shvartskop's songs and the poet's family and name.
Brief speaks about the poet Shvartskop. He then tells an episode about the king visiting Chernivtsi and his encounter with a Jewish tailor. He also recalls the thief Hershele Feldhamer from prewar Chernivtsi.
Brief says he saw and heard Shvartskop's Yiddish songs but does not know where the poet came from. He then tells a story about a king visiting Chernivtsi and a Jewish tailor. He also recalls the thief Hershele Feldhamer, whom the police could not catch for years. Kerler again presses him to recall a Shvartskop song.
Both the Chernivtsi king story and the thief Feldhamer appear, as the catalogue says, but the Shvartskop talk is more about the poet's origin.
Kerler and Brief discuss the song "Vu iz dos gesele" and its translation, though the singing itself is not clear in the transcript. Brief then turns to politics, talking about Russians still being afraid and about Putin as a former KGB man. Kerler comes back to Shvartskop's songs and the Four Questions.
Brief speaks about hearing Shvartskop a couple of times. He recalls children's customs in the synagogue at Passover (playing with nuts in holes) and a performer who sang and danced. Kerler and Lemster try to get him to recite the Four Questions from the beginning, and Brief mentions someone in New Jersey. He starts a riddle-like rhyme about a pot with holes.
Adds the children's Passover games and the attempts to elicit the Four Questions.
Brief recites a humorous rhyme about a pot with holes and galoshes, and Lemster corrects him. They then discuss songs in general: Brief says he dislikes Romanian songs, and they bring up a Russian song, a joke about vodka and girls, and the Soviet army.
Brief gives opinions about the Iraq war, Vietnam, President Bush and Hitler, saying that Bush is worse than Hitler. Kerler disagrees. Kerler thanks him and the interview ends.
