MDV 76 · Lea Gotlieb

Gotlieb names her siblings, two brothers and two sisters, including David and Meir. The youngest sister is named Gedole and is eleven or twelve years old. She says David studied to become a rabbi in a town about eighty kilometres away, where he lived with a relative.

Names the siblings and says David studied away from home.

Gotlieb says her mother advised her to stay in Pest when the Germans came, and recalls hardship and the help of strangers. After the war she returned to her hometown and married in 1946 (the year is unclear in the transcript). She says her husband, a Jewish Red Army soldier, had lost his family, and she gives his name as Bela Gotlieb and his Jewish name. They had one son, who died young, in 1948 by the transcript's wording (this does not fit the catalogue's age of 48, which may be a mishearing). She then speaks about living alone today, her few contacts and her religious observance.

Gives her husband's name and Jewish name, and the decline of observance among others today.

Gotlieb describes prewar Jewish life in her hometown: about three thousand Jews, Neolog, Orthodox and Hasidic communities, and her own Orthodox family. She mentions early morning prayer and study, two mikvehs, three ritual slaughterers, three large synagogues and many small stiblekh. She talks about Hasidic dancing and mentions a rabbi whose son now lives in New York.

Adds the three communities, mikvehs and small prayer houses.

Gotlieb names her paternal grandfather Moshe Friedmann and grandmother Malke (née Blumenfeld), and mentions five uncles and one aunt on her father's side. The family dealt in leather. She helped her father, then after the war ran her own business with her husband until the Russians took everything. She speaks about her town's location, now in Hungary, and about her very religious mother's last words on keeping the Sabbath.

Names grandparents and mentions the mother's Sabbath admonition.

Gotlieb speaks about prewar holidays at home, noting that her family was not rich but gave generously to others. She says her mother taught her Hebrew reading, and that she attended two Jewish schools, a Neolog and an Orthodox one, taught in Hungarian and Yiddish. She tries to recall a poem or song from school.

Adds poverty and charity at home, and a poem recalled from school.

Gotlieb recalls prewar childhood: listening to cantors in the synagogue and preparing for Passover with separate dishes, the four questions asked by the youngest, and new clothes. She describes going from house to house in a mask at Purim to deliver food gifts. At Kerler's request she recites a Purim rhyme and a verse from a Purim shpil, repeating it slowly several times so he can write it down.

Passover preparations and Kerler's request to write down the rhyme.

Gotlieb says she spoke Yiddish as a child and learned Hungarian in school, with some German. She mentions many Jewish children around her and that some non-Jewish children also knew Yiddish. She remembers her mother as clever and helpful, then describes the Sabbath food: soup, meat, compote and the baked Sabbath stew (cholent). She also talks about fish dishes and the difference between Hasidic and other tastes.

Adds the languages spoken and a discussion of fish dishes and terms.

Gotlieb describes how her mother koshered meat by soaking and salting, removing the neck and checking the liver, and roasting it over a fire. Kerler asks whether any words were said while salting. She says her family bought bread on Sabbath, only taking challah when it was baked, and Kerler asks for her word for Sabbath bread.

Gotlieb says her brother David studied at a yeshiva away from home and was clever, but he and all her brothers were unmarried and perished, as did her parents and relatives. She recalls fragments of a song her mother sang. Then she talks about the tsadik Yismach Moshe (Teitelbaum), whom people visit for blessings from around the world, and about her own visits to his grave.

Adds the loss of her family and a song her mother sang.

Gotlieb says her father was not a Hasid and visited the tsadik's grave only once a year on the yortsayt, as did her uncles, who were Orthodox. In response to Kerler's questions she explains terms such as baal-shem and the cup-pouring at Passover, and what "good Jews" meant.

Adds the terminology questions.

Gotlieb speaks about Sabbath-ending prayers and the greeting "a gute vokh" with its replies, then the prayers she learned as a child. She recites the morning prayer "Modeh Ani" and other prayer texts, though the transcript is largely garbled here.

The Havdalah greeting and replies, and other prayers.

Gotlieb recalls a big Purim shpil performed by Hasidim in which men dressed as women, and she says it was in Hungarian as well as Yiddish. She recites some Hungarian verse from it. It was about the story of Esther, in which Haman is hanged; she says she was a small child and does not remember more.

Gotlieb says stories were told at Sabbath gatherings but she recalls none. Kerler asks about words such as dybbuk and golem and then about Hanukkah food; she names meat and soup and, with some difficulty, fried dough foods. She tries to give a recipe for flódni, partly in Hungarian, and Kerler discusses strudel and poppy-seed flodn.

Kerler's questions about golem and dybbuk and the terms for pastry.

Gotlieb describes the family sukkah with paper cut-outs and decorations, where her father slept. She says she knew of no non-Jews converting to Judaism, and of Jews who converted to Christianity she says her mother considered them worse than a cat or dog. She recalls non-Jewish servants who spoke Yiddish, including one who worked for a rabbi, and then answers Kerler's questions about Hebrew-derived words used to prevent non-Jews understanding.

Adds conversions, Yiddish-speaking non-Jews and Hebrew terms.

Answering Kerler's questions, Gotlieb lists Jewish trades in town, including baker, shoemaker and carpenter. She discusses the words for the Sabbath bread (barkhes, challah, kalach) and for potatoes. She says there was no regular theatre, only children's plays at school and at Purim.

Adds the bread and potato terminology and the lack of theatre.

Gotlieb recalls prewar Jewish weddings as beautiful, with singing but no instruments among the Orthodox and men and women separate; she says the rebbe danced a mitzvah dance with his followers. She describes sermons in the synagogue given in Yiddish or Hungarian and Hasidic life of study and singing. The passage ends with a discussion of the difference between rov and rebbe and their plurals, with Neolog and Orthodox rabbis.

Adds the sermon language and the rov/rebbe plural questions.