MDV 779 · Lazar Eilovich Burshtein; Shmilik Landsman; Yosel Shor

Filmed prayer service in the Zhytomyr synagogue. Hebrew prayer and chanting is heard, and the transcript is largely garbled. Near the end a man reads a long Russian-language psalm text, and an unidentified man is praying in Russian as the catalogue says.

Includes an extended Russian-language psalm reading near the end.

Kerler and Katz introduce the project to men at the synagogue and ask where they are from and who speaks the best Yiddish. An elderly man says he was born in Zhytomyr. The other man from New York, with a father from near Vilna and a mother born in America, is the interviewer Dovid Katz, not an informant. The interviewers explain that they are looking for speakers of Zhytomyr Yiddish to record, and that participants are paid.

Katz chats briefly with a man, apparently Landsman, who gives his name as Shmilik ben Lipe and says he is a kohen. They discuss Yiddish versus Yiddishkayt and whether Jewish life still has young people. The man's family name is asked, and Leyzer is then called on to sing a Yiddish song.

Landsman's reflections on Yiddishkayt and the young.

Burshtein sings the Yiddish song about taking a bit of luck (mazl). Katz and Kerler react briefly afterwards.