One conversation with Klara Meerovna Antsis, continuing over MDV 790, MDV 791, MDV 792.
Yiddish books.
Antsis says she wants to find Yiddish books and that few are left. Kerler asks about stories by Soviet Yiddish writers from the 1950s–60s. She says she used to read newspapers and books, and that reading helps her forget herself. Kerler thanks her warmly.
Kerler asks about Soviet Yiddish authors, and the transcript shows her reading habits rather than only a search for books.
Concluding the interview.
A man asks Antsis whether she has relatives in Kyiv. She says she has none: her relatives are all in Israel or America. He explains he only knew a man in Kyiv with the same surname, and the interview is closed with thanks.
Relatives all abroad, and the question about Kyiv relatives.
Outside shots of Antsis’ house and neighborhood and Russian explanation of the project.
A Russian-speaking member of the team (Petr Ivanov, per the catalogue) explains the project to the camera. It is an expedition of Indiana University with Dovid Katz and Dov-Ber Kerler, covering Kyiv, the Vinnytsia region and Zhytomyr, and begun some ten years earlier. It started from nothing, without transport, equipment, money or contacts, and developed a working method for building an archive of older people's speech and folklore. Afterwards a few remarks are made about photographing the house.
The speech is a Russian account of the project's history and method.
(Not Described).
(Not Described).
At the synagogue a man who says he is American, from near New York (Monsey), talks with the team about finding old Berdychiv Yiddish speakers. He mentions a phone call, a local Berdychiv Jew named Iakov (Yasha) Shor, and says the team wants a local Jew rather than a Litvak. They discuss a minyan the next morning at nine, getting the shul opened, and hotel arrangements.
Finding Yiddish-speakers in Berdychiv.
Conversation in Berdychiv about the Jewish community today, apparently with the rabbi: about five hundred Jews remain out of a city of some ninety thousand, where Jews were once the great majority. Other topics are the hotel and its water supply, a song attributed to Avraham Fried, old synagogue items, a visitor's family from Slovakia and Skver, and plans for travelling on.
Tour of the synagogue in Berdychiv (check begin time).
Same stretch as the preceding passage: talk in and around the Berdychiv synagogue about its old furnishings and how much of it is old. Also about the small Jewish population today, an American visitor's papers and visa, and the schedule for travel to Zhytomyr. The transcript does not clearly show a guided tour.
Town footage of Berdychiv.
Mostly background talk over town footage of Berdychiv, fragmentary: days of the week and Sabbath, a stay in Zhytomyr, distances by road, and a building that looks like a synagogue.
Biographical introduction and family.
The interview with Shor opens. The people present compare their origins (parents from Rogachov in Belarus, a Litvak's Yiddish, a team member born in New York), and Kerler states the date and place. Shor gives his name (Yosl/Yosef) and his father's name (Hershl), and the family name Shor (Hebrew for ox). He was born in 1926 in Orhei (Urive in Yiddish, Moldova), and his mother Feyge came from Telenesht. His only sister Rive died at nine, and the family spent about three war years at Stalingrad. His father was a trader, with the item (eggs or hay) unclear.
Also the preliminary talk about origins, Litvak Yiddish, Shor's birth year, and his sister and father's trade.