Feldman talks about holiday food in his childhood home: Rosh Hashanah, the pre–Yom Kippur meal, Shavuot dairy dishes, and the Sabbath cholent with kugel. The interviewers ask what went into the cholent. He mentions walking to a river for tashlikh and his father bringing a shoykhet from Volednyk. Kerler also asks about Kol Nidre, and Feldman begins to describe the one Jewish family in his village.
includes Kol Nidre, tashlikh at the river and the shoykhet brought by his father
Feldman says he studied in cheder in Volednyk and Slavechna(?) and in the Belarusian town of Lyel'chytsy, travelling by horse and wagon in summer and sleigh in winter. A sister lived in Lyel'chytsy. Katz asks whether the Yiddish there differed from his own, and Feldman answers with the local form of the word for "where".
the dialect difference between his village and Belarus
Asked about his childhood, Feldman instead says he married in the 1930s. His eldest daughter was born then; she lives in Canada and is a dentist, and has lived in Israel. He mentions a son-in-law who worked as an editor in Simferopol.
Feldman recalls childhood summers bathing in the river and winters skating and sledding down the hill. He says he had little pleasure because his father was killed in 1919 and he went on studying. Katz asks the distance to Lyel'chytsy, and he describes the journey by a big river. At the end the interviewers arrange to meet the next day.
The interviewers and Feldman arrange to meet next morning at his home, around eleven. He asks where they are staying (a hotel) and where they came from (Zhytomyr), and begins to mention aid he receives from Hesed.
Feldman talks about his hardships today: he receives no food parcels from the local Hesed, is a first-group war invalid with a small pension, and does not go to the canteen because it is not kosher. He asks the interviewers to write to the director of the Jewish center in Zhytomyr, and to a rabbi who has not replied to letters. Katz asks two dialect questions, the words for ceiling and floor.
includes his complaint about Hesed aid and a short dialect elicitation
Feldman and Kerler talk about the Hasidic rebbe buried in Volednyk (Yisroel Leyb, son of Yosef), the shtetl and its Jewish absence today. In Ovruch he led a minyan of older men until recently, and handed two Torah scrolls to the community. He complains that the rabbis of Zhytomyr and Kyiv do not answer letters. Kerler then asks about his home village.
adds the rebbe's grave in Volednyk and the Ovruch minyan
Feldman names his home village, Yanova Rudnya, which had only six houses, and discusses how its name was said in Yiddish and the origin of "rudnya" (ore). After his father's death he lived in a town and worked in a shop. He describes the water mill his father leased, the fish in the river, and being taught at home by a hired teacher together with four sisters. He begins to mention the holiday songs he sang with the minyan.
Asked by Katz, Feldman sings a holiday prayer melody he remembers from synagogue, the Adon Olam, and notes that it has several verses. A Russian-language remark is interjected.
Katz and Kerler ask Feldman about prayers around the Torah reading and the Sabbath service. He recalls studying the Pentateuch, the Hallel and Pirkei Avot, and the Sabbath morning prayers. He mentions the prayer books he inherited from his father, including holiday prayer books.
Feldman recites several blessings and psalm verses from memory and shows prayer books from his father. The interviewers praise his memory. He says he has lost his eyesight in recent years and cannot read or write.
Feldman says he remembers the Four Questions and the Haggadah only in part, and not Chad Gadya's melody. At Katz's request he sings a Yiddish Passover song about a grandfather who traveled to Yalta and learned what must not be told outside cheder. He then reflects that Jewish life was beautiful before the war.
Feldman tells about his younger brother who served in the army in the Far East, and came home with medals and crosses. His father threw the uniform into the river and the brother swam after it. He emigrated to America before a war, was drafted in World War I, wounded, and later as a veteran sent money so that their mother received 38 dollars a month. Feldman names the brother in America (Harry) and says their house was bought with that money.
Feldman says that for Purim the family travelled to the nearby village of Skrebelychi, where there was a minyan, to hear the megillah; they did not sing anything there. Katz and Feldman compare how Purim is pronounced in his area and among Lithuanian Jews.
Feldman says Belarus begins about 90 or 45 km away, and answers dialect questions on how Yiddish was spoken there and on Purim. He is asked about hamentashn (three-cornered) and the Purim story with Esther and Mordecai; the names of Haman's sons are not remembered.
Feldman says his father was a hasid of the Volednyk rebbe, and of the Chernobyl rebbe Shlimke, whom he visited on a Sabbath. Katz asks about Chernobyl Jews, Tisha B'Av and Rosh Hashanah customs (apples with honey), Hanukkah candles, and the dreidel. Feldman says he was a believer who went with a tallis. Kerler then asks about his life before the Second World War.
Feldman says he studied until 1923, and that the family worked land at Yanova Rudnya. After the revolution, in 1928 (?), the landowners' land was divided among the Christians, and he was given a plot at Skrebelychi, which he worked. Later a kolkhoz was formed, which he joined for a few years, and no Jewish trade remained.
Feldman tells how he was sent from the kolkhoz for about six months to a course in Korosten (?) to train for cooperative trade, then worked as a storehouse manager and in a large purchasing office until he retired. Kerler asks whether he studied before or after the war.
Feldman says he was about ten at the start of the First World War and was still in cheder. He barely remembers the German occupation, except that they spoke German and some Yiddish. He remembers the 1917 revolution, attacks on Jews, robberies and killings, and says the Red Army defended Jews. Kerler then asks about his father's death.
Feldman tells how his father was killed in 1919 by a band of local peasants, apparently Poles, who wanted his boots; he had refused. The band took him to the forest at night and killed him, and the family searched a week before finding the body. After that they moved to Skrebelychi.
Feldman says the family moved to Skrebelychi, where his grandfather had lived. When his brother in America died, the mother received a pension of 38 rubles for years (?). Using it, she bought half a flat in the 1930s. At the start of the war she stayed put, and her sisters from other towns were killed, including sixteen relatives.
Feldman says he was working in a warehouse when he was drafted in 1941. He served in an anti-aircraft unit near Voronezh (?), was wounded in the leg and hand, and became a first-group war invalid. His pension is about 246 hryvnias and he gets no more aid. Some Russian is mixed in.
Feldman says half his pension goes on medicines and utilities. Katz and Kerler ask how a friend in California could send dollars to Feldman; he answers that letters with money do not arrive, but bank transfers do. A relative in Philadelphia has sent money that way. He gives his address in Ovruch for transfers. Feldman then explains Tisha B'Av and the destruction of the Temple, and says there were opponents (mitnagdim) among the Jews, who disbelieved the Messiah's coming.
adds sending money from abroad, his address, Tisha B'Av and the mitnagdim