Community institutions

Rezmovits answers questions about Hungarian Yiddish speech, the vowel in 'Eloheinu' as pronounced by Polish and Hungarian Jews, and greetings such as good day and good year. He speaks of reading Sholem Aleichem in Yiddish only after the war, at a seminar, and of reading aloud in the Yiddish club in Budapest. He mentions Jews from Satmar and from the Budapest district where he lives.

Kerler asks about the postwar yeshiva in Budapest and puts questions about the words dybbuk and golem, including the Golem of Prague. Gross's wife then comes in; she speaks Hungarian and some Yiddish and says she did not learn Yiddish because she ran away from the private Hebrew teacher as a child.

Smajovics describes how cheder boys earned a little money before Passover by working at the communal matzo baking, as water, flour or wheel workers. He mentions matzo for poor large families and a communal collector. A word for secret deliveries of food is discussed, as is a term for a healer or miracle-worker.

Smajovics says he sang with his friends on Sabbath afternoons, learned Hungarian songs from his Hungarian master without knowing the words, and remembers little of them. He describes Purim in the village: baking 'kindlekh' with honey (a dough with honey cut into pieces), Purim plays by children and older boys, and collecting money for the poor with a sack. Kerler asks about words for these customs.

Herbst recites a rabbinic saying about honouring the place, and Kerler asks about the sense of 'makom' as God. Herbst describes a Yiddish club in Budapest and how he speaks Yiddish words to Jews he meets in the street. He recalls the prewar poverty in which his father still invited passing guests to eat while going without himself, and says he now offers food to anyone who comes. Kerler also talks about making a copy of the recording for him, and finally asks about Purim.

Kerler asks about Herbst's schooling, and he says he attended a four-class school in Berlebash, taught in Russian or Ukrainian. He then returns to postwar Debrecen, where he lived in a small room and received meals and money from the Joint, and mentions a yeshiva. He describes attending synagogue and meeting a Russian rabbi (Moshe Weiss, ?) and speaks of a rabbi's sermon in a mixed Hungarian and Yiddish setting.

Kerler explains to the man that the team is on an expedition to describe older Jews and asks for advice on where to find them, perhaps from the Carpathians or other towns. The informant mentions Carpathian places and Hasidic or yeshiva-related older people, and names a possible contact (Khaim Hersh Feldman (?)) with a phone number and a place such as Soylish (?). Kerler then thanks him and the conversation closes.

Kerler asks about stories of a Jewish folk character and Pearl instead speaks about the old Rabbi Rosenbaum, whose table was reused after his death, and about his own cheder years. He says he attended a few Jewish weddings before the war and compares them with later ones. He also mentions the extra payments his father made to the rabbi and the shochet at holidays. Kerler then thanks him and wraps up.

Doman talks about teaching Talmud at the Budapest rabbinical seminary in the 1970s–80s, with students from abroad and from Hungary, taught in Hungarian and English. He says a seminary head named Scheiber (Adolf Scheiber?) knew no Yiddish. S2 tells an anecdote from Doman's book about someone praying in a different tradition, and they discuss the strictness of Hungarian yeshivas, including expulsion for reading Hungarian books. They also discuss the plan for a Jewish university and Kerler's summers in Jerusalem. Doman mentions siblings or relatives living in Israel.

Gotlieb remembers a priest who visited her father and read and spoke Yiddish with him. She answers questions about local occupations such as leather work, tailors, shoemakers and watchmakers, and about the two mikvehs, Hasidic and Neolog, with their bath-houses.

Gotlieb recites the Purim shpiel verses that children sang in her home town, and answers questions about when and how it was performed, with children going from house to house. She and S2 also describe prewar Passover and Purim customs of charitable collections, such as for a poor bride's dowry, and getting new clothes for Passover.

Blobshteyn describes Purim in his town: wealthier Jews went around with two Roma musicians and Purim players to collect money for matzo for the poor, while children went around with Purim plays and received small coins and sweets. He tells a story from his childhood about his mother hiding honey cakes and his taking the key. Kerler also asks about Purim plays, and Blobshteyn recalls the sung greetings and rewards.

Blobshteyn describes how, in the 1970s, Jews leaving Mukacheve for America sold Torah scrolls. Only one poor scroll was left, and he criticises the Jewish traders who sold them. Kerler then asks about words such as 'to pack' meaning to deceive, a Russian-derived word for a trick, and words for a trickster, which Blobshteyn explains. Kerler also asks about kosher meat.

Smajovics recalls how a Purim shpil was said when shalakhmones were delivered, performed at homes by children. Older girls dressed up as gypsies and went from house to house collecting money. He then speaks about the Jewish old people's home in Budapest where he sometimes sings Yiddish songs. Kerler asks where he learned his songs, and he says before the war.

Smajovics speaks about postwar Jewish life in Sevlush, saying three shochets served the area and some people kept kosher at home, until the shochets left. He then talks about his life today, praying daily with tefillin and attending a club in Budapest where Yiddish speakers gather about once a month. He names other attendees, including Reizmovich and Tamás Milov (?). He tells an anecdote about a man who is kosher but does not pray, and about reading and writing Yiddish and Hebrew.

Reti talks about a rabbi in Debrecen, a descendant of a family of rabbis and ritual slaughterers who has brothers in America and Canada, and who is now head of a rabbinical body. Kerler notes the name and hopes this man will speak with them, then steers Reti toward his years of study away from Debrecen.

Tour of the Nyíregyháza synagogue with a local man (S2, Kiralyi per the catalogue) speaking Hebrew and some Yiddish and Hungarian. The talk touches on the history of the Orthodox and Neolog congregations, Jewish life in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, and the Jews of the town after the war. A Hanukkah gift is mentioned, but the transcript is mostly garbled.

Galambos describes a recent event in a synagogue where a man wept while speaking about the Holocaust. He says he came back to Vaja in 1944. Before the war Vaja had 184 Jews; 41 returned afterwards, and only a handful now remain. He adds that few survivors are left in the world, with a few in America and Israel, and mentions one man in Budapest.

Faiershtein talks about her life today as a poet: five books with 1,017 poems, and she explains their Russian titles. She mentions her sons, daughter-in-law and granddaughters, who have Jewish names. She speaks about a local teacher who builds Holocaust memorials, Holocaust denial, relations with non-Jews, and pensions, prices and Hesed help. She also talks about her late husband, a school director in Cupcini.

The sisters greet the interviewers, praise the warm welcome at the Hesed centre, and give their names and their father's. Mundrian and Dzigifker say their father was born in Kodema (Ukraine) and their mother in Vadul-Rascov. They recount that there were six children and two survive, and that a brother disappeared during the war after working in Uman. They mention relatives in America (Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Chicago). They then identify their home village Gertop/Vertuzhany in the Florești district, about eight kilometres from Florești, with Kerler looking for it on a map.

At the Hesed centre the sisters describe the warm welcome of the staff (Roza Yakovlevna is named), and the interviewers chat about being from America. The sisters then explain kosher practice at home: soaking and salting meat and the names Rachel, Rebecca and Leah (not Sarah). They describe the bread custom at the end of Sabbath, when a piece of bread was thrown into the water pail, and the crumbs on the tablecloth were shaken out only on Sunday morning, when the Jewish week begins. Dzigifker describes her prayer for a good week, and they discuss the morning Modeh ani prayer and Hebrew teaching.

Furman says he did not find his house on returning to Bălți, as it had been burned. The family lived in his grandmother's house through the state. He then describes the postwar synagogue, which operated until 1961, and a rented apartment used for services afterward. Today a minyan is still always present.

Boltykh says his mother attended a Romanian school but could pray in Yiddish from the siddur. Recalling her stories, he describes Jewish Briceni with many tradesmen's clubs and a Jewish hospital where the wealthy paid for the poor. A relative of hers crossed the border illegally to Palestine (?) and later lived near Washington. He also mentions robbers who attacked the rich before the war and the lack of rights for Jews afterwards.

Roif speaks about prewar Jewish life in Duruitoarea: a commune of three villages with a single synagogue (klois) supported by his father, and about 160–170 families (the number is not fully clear). He begins to say that the Romanians started shooting from their first day.

Roif jokes about his own wedding after five years of service in the Black Sea fleet, and says he has been married over fifty years. Kerler then asks about terms like the seven blessings, a Lithuanian Jew, dybbuk, golem, and about Hebrew in Yiddish. Roif talks about the decline of Yiddish among Ukrainian and assimilated Jews, intermarriage, and today's meetings and monuments to those shot. A Russian aside by another person intrudes.

Farber sings a Yiddish song with lines about mazel tov and about the Land of Israel, taken from a singer's disc. Afterwards the interviewers ask about its source; he says he got the words from old women at the Hesed. Lemster presses him on what he will sing next.

Shpitalnik says that after the war there was one synagogue, which was closed in the 1960s, and that Yom Kippur crowds could not fit in. She discusses Jewish singers hired for weddings, why Odessan Jews had more education than Bessarabians, and the many prewar Jewish doctors, lawyers, pharmacists and the Jewish cooperative bank, with few Jewish teachers.

Shpitalnik speaks about her current work in the Yiddish library, where she is the only Yiddish specialist. She has set up a Yiddish study room and published a booklet on Bessarabian writers, and mentions a new literature museum. The passage ends with arrangements for the next day, her remarks on being helped during her husband's illness, and thanks.

Abelsky speaks about Jewish life in Moldova today: the uncertain number of Jews, people who do not know they are Jewish, and his students and community, with hundreds of families around him. He mentions the Russian-language newspaper he publishes, his three books and others he is preparing, and a kindergarten and a school with a yeshiva.

Lipovetskiy tells of his return to Chișinău in 1944 and the end of the war. He describes the many prewar synagogues by trade, including the cook's synagogue that gave out food on Passover. He recalls Rabbi Tsirelson, his visits to the talmud torah and the gifts of clothing he brought. He describes a ritual slaughterer's street and the yeshiva.

Kishlyansky speaks of the hard life of the poor in Briceni and how people were helped, and about fasting on Yom Kippur. He recalls building a sukkah and mentions Purim. He reflects on Yiddish and Jewishness, saying the language should not be abandoned and many Jews no longer know it.

Asked about life today, Sherman describes working and retiring with his wife, the collapse of savings after the Soviet era, and a pension that rose over time, with support from Hesed and the Jewish cultural center. He gives pension amounts and talks about the hard years of his youth, when he tutored mathematics in Orhei to support himself in school and then went to Chişinău for his baccalaureate with money his mother raised by selling silver spoons.

Abelsky speaks about his past travels as an emissary of the Rebbe, then about the unreliability of historical books, which rest on archive documents. As an example he describes the Chabad rescue of Jewish children conscripted as cantonists in Russia. He mentions Dubnow, Graetz and the Rebbe's writings on historians, a Yiddish-language Chabad memoir series, and the fate of Jewish life under Communism. Kerler introduces the recording in the Chișinău synagogue and Lemster and another voice ask about Dubnow.

Benderskij describes how, before the holidays, he and his grandfather carried food and bread to poor people. A man nicknamed Yosele the Little and local assimilation are discussed, including a Jewish family whose son converted for a Christian woman. Lemster asks about poor and rich families, and about Christians converting to Judaism.

Benderskij recalls Passover in the 1990s, when they received three kilos of matzo from the Hesed. Benderskaia then discusses her father and kosher meat, with Kerler asking about meat terms such as brisket. She tells of a stay in Iași, where doctors prescribed non-kosher meat when she was ill as a child.

Rojtman describes how young people spent evenings and what Klezmer musicians played at weddings. She recalls wedding customs, with a master of ceremonies named Tuve who has died. She mentions charity for orphans' weddings and Zionist organizations, with many chalutzim leaving for Palestine in 1936 and fewer communists. She speaks about newspapers and the library in the synagogue and the doctor's private library, mainly in Romanian.

Raisa speaks about her mother and prewar home life; her blind grandmother Rivke was burned with other elderly people in the woods near the ghetto. She explains how to make gefilte fish (skinning, grinding with matzo meal, cooking two hours), cholent-like dishes and tzimmes with beans, and how Russian-speaking local intelligentsia came to eat at her home. She then talks about prices, pensions and the support she and Iosif receive from Hesed today.

Rapoport introduces himself as president of the Jewish community of Orhei. He describes the town's old Jewish population before the war, now reduced to very few Jews, and the many synagogues in the town and district. He mentions local benefactors and a textile factory, then explains that keeping the synagogue open for a minyan is important and that it is supported by the Joint. Kerler asks about the number of Jews before the war.

The camera records photographs while Sharhorodskij identifies a picture of himself after the war and a portrait of a rebbe. He then sends a message to Jews in Moldova, Israel and America: stay Jewish, help one another, be good to non-Jews, avoid war, and support Israel. He thanks the Joint for its help and ends with greetings to the interviewers' families.

Kotliar speaks about her mother-in-law's encounter with the Rîbniţa rebbe, and about the rebbe's winter bathing in Rezina(?), his work as a ritual slaughterer and his help to the poor. Lemster then asks about Moldovan words her parents used and she gives a few. Kerler encourages her, and Lemster notes the words he records.

Magetman returned from the ghetto with her sister and brother-in-law and lived with them until her marriage in 1953. Her husband helped her because of her injured hands and died in 1990; they had two sons and three grandchildren, and she now lives alone and sometimes comes to the Hesed. She taught chemistry and biology for 38 years in Soroca, and in Floreşti, the Rezina district and other places.

Mirenburg says there were craftsmen in Sguritzy, though none in her family, and recalls her mother sending her with Sabbath food to a poor tailor's family with several children. She also describes the kapores custom before Yom Kippur, with a chicken for each child, which was given to the poor.

Milevskaya remembers her mother's lovely singing of sad Jewish songs, which made her cry as a child, and she recalls fragments of a song. She says Yiddish is forgotten for lack of anyone to speak it with. She mentions Yiddish books received from the Hesed in Odesa.

Milevskaya recalls her pious grandfather, who prayed constantly with a Torah or prayer book and a black velvet bag embroidered by her grandmother, now with her sister in Israel. She remembers her grandmother baking matzo a month before Passover and making potato latkes, and her mother's subscription to a Yiddish journal from Moscow. She also mentions school antisemitism and the former rabbi Fishl who celebrated all the holidays and has since left for Odesa.

Klichinskaia recalls her grandfather's stories and the Passover table, where the children said the four questions. She mentions holiday food and going to synagogue at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. She describes the many prayer houses in Bender and the poor and the rich in town. She mentions a charitable society and names her siblings and the origin of their names. She says there were five children.

Moisei compares matzo distribution then and now. Asked about Purim plays, he talks about a second Purim and the Purim story; Lemster asks about masked boys. He recalls Yiddish songs sung by workers in Chişinău, though he says he has forgotten them.

Meir lists Jewish trades before the war, such as shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, tanners, barbers and watchmakers. He recalls Jewish organizations: craftsmen's and merchants' associations, Zionists and Communists, and the Maccabi sports club with football, gymnastics and an orchestra.

David explains why he does not move to Israel and speaks of his satisfaction in the local Jewish community. He also recalls how his mother prepared fish and holiday dishes, and describes dishes he prepared for the community, including varenikes and a Botoșani specialty.

Lemster asks about Maccabi and prewar Jewish sports, and David recalls the sports clubs and his brothers' travels. He then talks about present Jewish life: the local community president, abandoned Jewish houses, Hanukkah celebrations with children, and support for mourners and kaddish.

David speaks about his mother's teaching and about his father, then turns to Jewish life today: an elderly woman professor, the community president Salomon and his temperament, the fate of former Jewish houses, a visit to Debrecen with the federation president, and the medical aid the federation gives to elderly members.

David speaks about contemporary Jewish life: a 75-year-old man he helps who reads the prayers, and the few men who come to the synagogue. He tells of a recent visit to Debrecen, where he found Jews who could not speak Yiddish and met a large community with a committee and a celebration.

David states that about 19,000 Jews lived in Botoșani before the war, in whole quarters, owning the shops and working as tailors, carpenters and other craftsmen. He says about 92 Jews remain today, and Kerler and Lemster ask about conversion and mixed couples. David and Lemster then discuss Jewish youth, the Joint, camps for children and the communities in Oradea and elsewhere, partly in Romanian. Kerler ends by asking about a local bread type.

Brief talks about contemporary Jewish life in Romania, with few Jews left, and about community leadership. Kerler then turns to songs from Chernivtsi.

Brief recites a song about an orphan growing up and about the last dance. Kerler asks about a song on paper children. Brief then complains about the Joint's leadership and money in Romania. Lemster returns to Brief's youth, they discuss photographs and Lemster's origins, and Brief mentions cousins in Israel.

A long talk in Yiddish, apparently with a local man (probably Kurtsberg), about the small Jewish community of Siret. Only a dozen Jews are left, there is no minyan, and the speaker is one of the few who speak Yiddish. He tells of a man whose father died in Bershad and who became a president in Nazareth after the departures for Israel in the late 1940s. He also tells of a boy deported with his grandmother to Ukraine in the Transnistria deportations, and of a Rădăuți widow who married quickly to avoid being taken. Interleaved are chat about a bottle and about smoking.

Hershkovich says he went to the yeshiva in Dej alone after four classes in the village, staying about seven or eight years, while the family remained at home. He says Dej had a large Jewish community of perhaps two thousand and gives his impressions of Jewish life there in the 1930s. He laments that Jewish life has gone, and also speaks about the situation in Cluj today, saying a few hundred Jews remain and they gather mainly for aid packages.

Hershkovich describes Jewish life after the war: a few years of communal life, then Jews leaving as the communists took over business, and almost no Jews left in Cluj. He tells of his own difficulties in recent years and of requests for help to the community. He moved to Cluj in 1969 (?) and worked in the tax service, and he describes synagogues, weddings, a wedding rhymer, and Jewish and non-Jewish musicians.

Freundlich talks about a recently built synagogue in a Hungarian town, reported on television and attended by the chief rabbi of Hungary, and about a speech by the mayor. The passage is partly garbled and includes Hungarian side remarks on the synagogue's purpose, and Kerler comments on the interviewee's Yiddish.

Freundlich mentions a rabbi (Schonfeld) who left Cluj in 1958 and how her own family applied to emigrate and was harassed. She talks about her children: a son and a daughter in Canada and Israel, a grandson, and a daughter who is a piano teacher and a leader of the Jewish community. She speaks of her husband's grave, a memorial in Satu Mare for her parents and sister, and her father's saying on keeping a Jewish name.

Freundlich and the others discuss Jewish life today in Bistrița and Cluj: whether anyone is left in Bistrița, a planned trip there, and contacts with community members. Much of the passage is Hungarian talk about street names, the synagogue and community office in Cluj, and arrangements for the visitors.

Freundlich and others discuss the few remaining Jews and their lack of interest in Yiddish or Jewish life in Cluj, Bistrița, Târgu Mureș, Timișoara, Oradea, Satu Mare and Sighet, with much of it in Hungarian. Kerler asks about community presidents and places to visit. There is also a story of a wedding and a Passover seder that needed thirty people, a Yiddish term asked by Kerler, and a story about declaring Yiddish as mother tongue under Ceaușescu.

Miller tells how Rabbi Halberstam of Cluj, deported to Auschwitz, was freed by the Americans and, in his account, flown to America by Eisenhower. He tells of Halberstam's later life, including his money going to Netanya to build a yeshiva, synagogue and hospital. He then describes how in 1985 or 1986 (as heard) workers in Cluj found boxes of ritual objects and papers from his house on Dezsma street, and the dispute over them between Cluj, Bucharest and Netanya.

Isidor tells of Jewish life after the war: after deportation about three thousand Jews remained, many emigrated to Israel in the 1950s–60s, and there were two shuls after the war. He describes a planned museum in the synagogue about the Jews of northern Moldavia, funded by the federation. In the closing minutes he starts to talk about his childhood and the interview proceeds at his home with an offer of cognac.

Isidor recounts postwar religious life in Dorohoi, where lay cantors led the services. Once the cantor fell ill before the High Holidays, he was pressed by his strict mother to lead prayers himself, which was his debut. He studied at a cheder for about three years just after the war, then with a Hebrew professor, and he was elected president of the community. He also explains how local Jewish traders used to gather at his home for religious services.

The group goes inside the synagogue. Abramovich recites a few words of prayer and shows the women's gallery upstairs and the holes in the wall where Russian troops shot at a royal crown or emblem when they entered during the war. He recalls that on returning after the war the Jews found horses and straw, so the building had been used as a stable, and that they cleaned and repaired it, including the roof, with little money from the federation. Kerler and Lemster tell him they come from Israel (born in Moscow) and from Bessarabia.

Kerler introduces the team to a woman, Shifra, who says she saw them in Iași the day before; they speak of passing through Hîrlău without knowing Jews lived there. Abramovich then talks about the Yiddish school with teachers brought by the community committee, and about the prewar kehile. He also went to cheder, where the rebbe's name sounds like Glik; he recalls the rebbe's strictness and mothers bringing food, and Kerler asks whether he remembers the modeh ani prayer.

The group talks about the Yiddish theater under the communists and the distance to Bucharest. Finkelshteyn then shows the former Jewish hospital and says that it is now an ordinary hospital. He describes an old people's home for the childless elderly, called an "azil" (?). The rest is camera positioning and talk among the team in Russian and Romanian, and Kerler arranges a gathering of Yiddish speakers.

At the memorial by the former Jewish hospital, Finkelshteyn and Kerler discuss the monument erected in 1947 for the Jews murdered in the 1941 Iași pogrom, and Finkelshteyn describes the large hospital and an orphanage. Kerler asks about expressions, such as "a Jewish head" and "a goyish mazl", and Finkelshteyn explains them. Finkelshteyn says he worked in hospitals and schools in Iași during his apprenticeship.

Answering Lemster, Resh lists Jewish organizations in Chernivtsi (Maccabi, Borochov, Hasmonea, student and Zionist groups), but says he was too young to know writers. He speaks about children's games and about non-Jewish children who spoke Yiddish, the rarity of conversion, and good relations. He is asked about a Jewish fire brigade; the passage ends with his mention of the ghetto.

Resh says that all Jews of Chernivtsi were in the ghetto, where he stayed two months before deportation to Transnistria. He then describes Maccabi's sports sections and the football teams of the other nationalities in Chernivtsi, naming the German, Romanian, Polish and Ukrainian clubs, and says his father was referee and general secretary of the Maccabi team and his brother-in-law also played for it.

Shtaigman describes the Iași Jewish community as well organized, with daily programs and a youth organization headed by his younger daughter. He tells about his wife's family, especially his father-in-law, who ran a kosher restaurant that was nationalized after the war, and about his in-laws' piety and emigration to Israel. His daughters do not speak Yiddish, though they understand it, and Kerler asks the family name (Gelberg?).

Shvartz says he belonged to the Zionist youth organization Gordonia, where young people put on entertainments in the evenings. He says he could not attend every day because he worked, including on Sabbath. He then mentions a postwar organization, the Jewish Democratic Committee, which opposed emigration to Israel.

Shvartz names the local rabbi and the shoykhet, and a Hasidic-looking elder who prayed in the synagogue and read from the Torah. He says about a dozen Jews remain in Bîrlad. Asked about the expression "a good Jew", he says there were good Jews who helped his family, and he mentions a doctor who was president of the community. He describes the Jewish bathhouse, which non-Jews also used.

Freund talks about the Jewish community today: 765 registered members but only about 300 real Jews, many of mixed marriage. He answers Lemster that many left for Israel after the war, mainly because of the communist and socialist regime, whereas few emigrated before the war. He then says he has to leave.

Freundlich talks about poor peasant visitors from Maramureş who came to Baia Mare and other towns in Transylvania, and about how Jewish households fed and lodged them over the Sabbath. He describes how the synagogue beadle arranged hospitality for them. He also discusses who spoke Yiddish in the region, including non-Jews, and a Maramureş maid who spoke Yiddish with the children. He mentions that Hungarian replaced Yiddish among his own friends after the yeshiva.

Kerler asks Freundlich how pickles (cucumbers) were made in his home area, and the two discuss the method, containers, brine and the local word for the jar. Freundlich also discusses the present state of the Jewish community in Oradea and Cluj, assimilation and intermarriage, and the links between the communities. The passage also includes a long, hard-to-follow stretch about an earlier interview and a communal office.

Grinberg talks about prewar religious life and charity in Fălticeni: collecting donations for the needy, and the two rabbinical families, including the Rozen family. She says a Rozen rabbi gave her father the name at her naming and names the role of the marriage helpers, with Kerler and Lemster asking about naming customs for girls and the term for the person who gives the name.

Grinberg talks about her good parents and being an only child. She says her father, a pious man, led the prayers, and recalls Sabbath at home. She tells how he founded a prayer house next to their home and brought food to a poor old neighbor. She also talks about the name Borukh being shared by father and husband, and Kerler's Yiddish.

Cojocaru answers questions about words like golem, dybbuk and orl, and explains that non-Jews who learned crafts from Jews spoke Yiddish. She and the interviewers talk about speaking Yiddish by telephone with relatives abroad. She mentions the cap and hat maker Moshe, a relative, and the efforts of her son to be involved with the Jewish community. She tells of her husband's family: several generations of furriers (?), his age (80), his blindness, and her own family of tailors.

Cojocaru says she has not been to a Jewish wedding or circumcision since her daughter's wedding and son's brit. She speaks about a relative in Bucharest who died without papers and was buried with vagrants. She says songs and stories are forgotten when no one sings or hears them.

The team meets the head of the Sighet Jewish community, who says he knows little Yiddish and speaks English and Romanian. Kerler and Lemster ask about the community and its centre and which language to use; they then ask whether the building is a Jewish house and which synagogue it is, and Kerler asks how many Jews live there today.

Asked about Transnistria, Kurtsberg first tells how Romanian television once filmed him. He describes a trip of rabbis, a rabbi's wife from the Bucharest federation and yeshiva students to Siret and Rădăuți, where they met in the big synagogue and he told the woman a few episodes. Lemster asks him to tell what he remembers.

Talks about Suceava as a "crazy" town whose people were always drunk and quarrelsome. He then discusses the current mayor and a teacher, a professor who also served as community president. He also describes a former Securitate officer, a Communist party member who had changed his family name. He begins to speak about his own father, a butcher, and says he does not want some of this recorded.

The interviewers are introduced to the community head, Petraru, and exchange pleasantries about Canada, America and Israel. A woman gives her grandfather's name as Lanner, who may have come from Poland. Most of the passage is Petraru and others talking, partly in Romanian, about community and synagogue administration, payment for the work and a phone/recording matter. The garbled speech makes much of it unclear.

Petraru speaks about the Suceava synagogues, mentioning the big synagogue in the town centre, now the site of a fast-food shop, and the destruction of the synagogues, dated to the 1950s (the year is only partly clear). He gives the Jewish population as about six thousand before the war and fewer than two thousand after it, and about eighty Jews today. Kerler asks why there is no minyan; Petraru says the men do not want to come.

Petraru says his mother died in Transnistria and his father in Israel, and that both were born in Dorohoi. He gives Dorohoi's prewar Jewish population as about twelve thousand, with few returning after the war. He says he went to the synagogues there, and speaks of young Jews and weddings in Suceava today. He moved to Suceava in 1953, and was cashier, vice-president and president of the community for many years.

Petraru tells of a foreign visitor and his wife who left a donation of a dollar in the box, which he pressed back to them. Kerler and Petraru discuss American donations of a few thousand dollars and what sums are allowed. The footage of the synagogue follows in the catalogue but is not in this transcript.

Mehler and the team enter the Vatra Dornei synagogue; the camera then films while she talks about contemporary religious life. The congregation is small and old, with holidays such as Shavuot kept with dairy food; Passover seder cannot be held. She speaks about the gendarmes and the guarding of the synagogue, and about relations with non-Jews, and mentions visits by communal officials and a Hanukkah event.

Mehler describes Jewish life after her arrival in Vatra Dornei, mostly in Romanian. The Jews of the Bukovina region were deported to Transnistria in 1941. The rich sometimes bought themselves out, and one family avoided deportation by faking illness. After the war many returned to find nothing and emigrated in a mass departure, up to about 1961. She also talks about prewar Jewish trades and the good relations before Antonescu, and about the Romanian Jewish leadership. The passage ends on Ştefăneşti.

Mehler describes the Ştefăneşti rebbe as a holy man and miracle worker. She also mentions the Paşcani rebbe and compares them with present-day rebbes. She mentions a more recent rabbi, Rose, and her own work as accountant and secretary of the community, with the keys. The team thanks her and ends the formal interview, discussing how a German journalist's interview of her was published.

Kerler notes swastikas carved on the wooden doors of the synagogue being excavated, and Steiner speaks about the cemetery. Gravestones were toppled some years ago and money was raised to repair it, and he describes the repair ceremony and good relations with local priests. He tells of a ten-day trip of priests to Israel, including Yad Vashem, and of the support of Rabbi Sher Yashuv Cohen. He says his family lives in Israel, and there is talk of phoning a man for the interviewers, and of plans to travel to Prešov and see the museum and synagogue from outside. He also discusses contemporary relations with the authorities and Jewish communities. He explains a memorial of the deportation route, with names of Košice Jews deported toward Auschwitz read at a ceremony. At the end he tells a cheder joke and there are languages questions, and car-travel talk partly in Hungarian.

Weinberger names his father, Leyzer Kirshner of Krosno, who was a Polish citizen and so gave his Slovak-born son no citizenship. On arrival in Budapest he stayed in a prayer house with Jewish refugees, learned a little Polish and went to the Polish Committee under the Polish name Yosef Chibotsky (spelled Przybycki in the catalogue). He received papers, money and food, worked in the fields and a bakery, attended services and received meal vouchers from the Jewish community. Kerler also asks about the date of the crossing, which he gives as late December 1943, and about the arrival at the Budapest station. Weinberger also mentions the deportation of Jews from Subcarpathian Rus.

Chaimovic speaks about the Košice rabbi, who comes from Israel, is intelligent and organizes Hanukkah events, and says only two people in Košice speak Yiddish. He then recalls Prešov, where he had no relatives and ate each day at a different family's table. He says visiting preachers (magidim) came to town.

Steiner speaks about Zlaté Moravce, where Hungarian was the main language and Yiddish was not spoken. He was born in 1936, lived through the war, and went to Palestine in 1949 from a religious family. In Jerusalem he learned Yiddish and Hebrew in yeshivas, including one in Petah Tikva, and he says his Yiddish is Jerusalem Yiddish. He has been in Košice about five and a half years, describes how the community feared a bearded rabbi, and mentions Hanukkah celebrations and the size of the community.

Chaimovic says he has no children and no relatives in Slovakia; the children of his brother live in Israel. Kerler mentions the rabbi Yosi Stein and the few Yiddish speakers there, and talks of other very old Yiddish speakers interviewed in Ukraine and Romania. At the end Chaimovic gives his address to be written down.

Miaskovskaia talks about Jewish life in Balta today, including Friday-evening prayers and a younger man who speaks Hebrew but no Yiddish. She recalls her mother-in-law's baking, a Russian Passover and Jewish baking, and a postwar shoykhet. She mentions the synagogue and her school, with children of various backgrounds.

Kerler asks Berman for his biography from childhood on. He speaks of his mother's family, the Krzemieniec museum, and a Jewish communal leader from Rivne. He gives his age as eighty-one and describes the festivities for his jubilee on 7 November 2003, when he was made honorary citizen, the only Jew among eight. He says he is chief cardiologist of Bila Tserkva. His wife Sonia is asked where she is from, and they discuss Yiddish dialects, including Rivne-area Yiddish as Lithuanian-like and the Yiddish of Brody and Dubno.

Berman describes what he wants to show the team in Bila Tserkva: the house where Sholem Aleichem lived and its memorial plaque, the former great synagogue that he is trying to have returned, and the Sakhrishe (?) synagogue, built by the philanthropist Brodsky (?), later a yeshiva and gymnasium. He says there is a minyan today under a Lubavitcher rabbi, with thirty to forty people on Sabbath, and mentions Peretz Street, the name used until the war.

Speaks about Jewish life in Berdychiv today: a wasteland that has been rebuilt, the synagogue's revival with help from Americans, pensions, and the husband's service at the front at eighteen with medals. The speaker links this to Jewish revival. Katz then begins a question about the 1920s.

Skobilitskii names his cheder teacher as Leybl and says there were about twenty children, in the later 1920s. Every synagogue had a cheder. He recalls that cantors used to come, and that after the war the community collected money to bring a cantor from Kyiv for holidays. Katz asks what the synagogue building was called before the war, since it stood for over a hundred years.

Skobilitskii speaks of the present-day yeshiva in Berdychiv, where Yiddish songs are sung, the Torah is read and Jews are invited for cholent on Sabbath. He mentions American support of five dollars a month and Kerler asks whether it is Chabad; he says it is Skvira. He then returns to the Yiddish school, where subjects such as physics, geometry and botany were taught in Yiddish. The books were destroyed by the Germans, and he still has some prewar Yiddish books.

In the soup kitchen of the community center, the team talks with members and staff. The talk touches on the blessing said after meals and a Russian-language text for the blessing before eating, on the community's office, and on a doctor who visits on Sundays for the old people.

Tour of Berdychiv by van with Skobilitskii: Makhlevka (now Sverdlov street), signs in English and Hebrew, a hotel building bought by Menlovich (?) for visitors from America, Chabad and its relations with the Skver rebbe, a monastery, and the ghetto monument. Jewish houses and the Lubavitch house are pointed out, and the group says it will return to see the synagogue of Feygele Magazanik (?).

Breuer says Zhytomyr has several thousand Jews, that he is responsible for the surrounding towns, and that there were eight weddings last year and a yeshiva. He then speaks about his Hasidic descent, with rebbes of Chernobyl and other courts. He explains the differences between Chabad and Polish Hasidim, with a story of two Hasidim and their rebbes. The talk turns to the Messiah, Vilnius, and a Chabad Yiddish newspaper.

Kerler elicits Yiddish words from Soyfer, such as 'sick', 'pious' and 'honest', and he explains how his old grandmother used them. He says his wife is blind and bedridden and mentions the Joint's help and the loss of savings. Lemster asks about theater after the war, and Soyfer recalls a Jewish troupe from Moscow.

Soyfer says that Berdychiv has no new Jewish cemetery but an old one, that earlier Jews and non-Jews were buried together, and that the rabbi is now to be given a plot. Lemster asks about Soviet Yiddish writers.

Soyfer talks about life today: the family's pension and income are small, he lives with his daughter, and the Joint helps them. He recalls a mother-in-law's death, lost savings, and prices, saying life was easier in the Soviet period. His daughter and wife speak some Yiddish, though at work he spoke Russian. He ends with a story about his father being questioned about the synagogue.

Berzon speaks about Lipe, who ran the synagogue, and his sons. She says there were many synagogues, about thirty, in Berdychiv before the revolution, and that one reopened after the war. Kerler asks about the Berdychiv rebbe Levi Yitskhok and his grave. She says older people knew where the tsadik lies.

Shveibish, who works for the Jewish old people's home in Vinnytsia, tells how she was deported to Pechora as a child, and says over sixty thousand lie there. She describes the monument, the fence she rebuilt with help from Vinnytsia, the Hesed and her family, and its upkeep. Lemster says he is from Bessarabia.

Vainshelboim describes the soup kitchen, which fed the poor, and prewar Jewish occupations in Berdychiv. Asked about his father, he says that he was a prisoner of war in Austria in the First World War. He lists his siblings, including his brother Shloyme and two sisters, one of whom died of scarlet fever. Another sister, Polye, finished ten Yiddish classes at eighteen and was killed in 1941. He then begins to introduce the start of the war.

Soyfer talks about life today: his wife was bedridden for twelve years, his daughter cared for her, and they live on his pension. He talks about hard work, lost savings, the cost of medical treatment and an operation for his daughter, and help from the Joint and Jewish donors. In answer to Kerler, he says Yiddish was spoken at home with his wife and his daughter understands it, that there was no Yiddish school, and that his father did not teach him to pray.

Vainshelboim speaks about prewar religious life and Soviet persecution: the Bolsheviks said there was no God and turned the soup-kitchen synagogue into a club. He says few Jews remain, perhaps five hundred, and the community is small. He speaks about the Chabad rabbi Moyshe, who helps bury the dead, and about the other rabbi, Shloyme.

Walking tour of Novoselytsya in which a local man points out former Jewish houses, a street once lived on, and a building that was a synagogue and later a sports hall, with Kerler asking when Jews settled in the town. There is talk about a non-Jew who keeps the Sabbath and considers himself a Jew, and about a Jewish school and soup kitchen. The group enters the building and discusses its decay and what restoration would cost, with figures for the town's Jewish families and students. The informant recalls the tailors' synagogue, the shoemakers' prayer rooms and small klayzlekh, and his father attending synagogue, before talk of the team's onward route by van.

Inside the synagogue the men talk about the many former synagogues in Berehove and say they are Orthodox Ashkenazi. One says he is from Seliš (Vynohradiv) and has lived in Berehove for about fifty years, while the other is a Berehove native. They discuss how few Jews remain, the minyan, and the absence of women singers. Kerler and Lemster ask about languages spoken (Yiddish, Hungarian, Russian, Czech, English), about nearby Jewish villages and Yiddish speakers, and about the Hesed.

Sklyarskiy shows photographs of his wife, twin grandchildren, and a son in Israel. He tells of his wedding in Bershad' in 1951 with klezmer music, a second wedding of sorts with partisans in the forest, and his awards as a partisan. Questions follow about relatives still in Bershad', his two sons and a daughter, who died in childbirth in 1980, and the help he receives from Hesed.

Berkovich says he was once in Kyiv in Russia, where he worked as a carpenter for an exhibition. He mentions Jewish and non-Jewish colleagues. Lemster says he lives in Israel and mentions Russian-speaking help at home, a woman from Moldova. Berkovich talks about who pays, partly the Hesed. Kerler and the second man ask about the number of synagogues.

The cemetery caretaker, speaking Russian, shows the team around and gives information about local graves. He mentions a mill owner named Soliterman (?) who was shot, the graves of Nathan and Nachman's Bratslav disciples, and the tourists and Hasidim who come, including large crowds at Rosh Hashanah on the way to Uman and Mezhybizh. He also points out the grave of Kupershmid (?) and his family, a man who saved Jews in the war, vandals taking bricks from graves, and the few Jews still in Bratslav, including an old man David Geller (?) and a woman Kelmenson, whom he suggests the team visit.

Koifman says she returned to Vapnyarka in 1946 after the evacuation. She had worked during the war, apparently in a mine. She talks about her pension, whether the Hesed helps her, heating with coal and wood, and the neighbours and sons of acquaintances nearby. Kerler asks about the number of Jews left. The team then walks through Bratslav with her toward Kelmenson's house.

Khavin recounts the recent setting up of a Jewish religious community and prayers at first in apartments, then in rooms obtained after a fire. Talk with Kerler about a former theater building, the Hesed and the Kyiv rabbi Bleich, which was not given to them. He says they pray five times a week in the new room, and Kerler and Katz arrange to attend morning prayers.

Bielaia says little was sung or spoken in Yiddish because of politics, and people were afraid to be known as Jews. She contrasts this with today, with the Hesed and synagogue.

In the van Khavin talks about the Jewish community today and its prayer. He mentions people who come only to make trouble, or who do not come, and one man, Zusia, described as having changed. He says the congregation prays while the rest sit and wait, and that a man named Krichevsky speaks some Yiddish. Kerler also speaks Russian with the driver about the route to the cemetery.

Khavin explains that the Jewish cemetery of Chernihiv could not be used for burials for about 25 years and was overgrown. Recently the community, with money from donors and from its rabbi, hired three men to clean it. Kerler identifies the rabbi as the young man the team met; Khavin says he is self-driven and has opened a school.

Khavin tells how a fire broke out at his family's house in severe winter frost, and his mother was affected, fell ill and died. He then talks about a grandson's birth date, the yahrzeit and years that have passed. Finally he complains that community money is being spent without results; the details are not clear.

At the mass-grave site Khavin says the community gathers each year in September to pray, say the memorial prayer and Kaddish, since the Jews were killed in September (1941). Kerler and Katz read the monuments: one erected after the war names only Soviet citizens, and a separate community stone gives a number of Jews, which Khavin puts at about fifteen hundred and Kerler reads as 800. The number is unclear in the transcript. Khavin also jokes about money and pensions.

Khavin recounts how after the war Jews prayed in a club in a basement and then received a building through the Hesed, with Sasha as chairman until he and his wife emigrated to Israel a couple of years earlier. They collected money to buy tables and a kiddush table, and the talk covers support from Zhytomyr and payments. Kerler and Khavin discuss a young Hebrew-speaking rabbi (?) and a bearded man named Nokhum. The passage ends with Russian proverbs, which Kerler renders in Yiddish.

Burg describes his role as chairman of the Steinbarg Jewish cultural society and his efforts since 1990 to start a Jewish school with Yiddish teaching in Chernivtsi. He recounts how a Yiddish-language curriculum was undermined by pressure to teach Hebrew and by funding from Israel. He mentions the small attendance at weekly prayers, the Yiddish instruction in Kyiv and the Chabad school. A discussion of who counts as Jewish follows, in which Burg describes his daughter and granddaughter's status. Kerler also mentions the role of Hasidic communities in keeping Yiddish alive.

Gimelbrandt talks about life after her sons left. Her sister in Israel urged her to come, but she stayed and has visited twice. Her younger son, an officer, lives with his family; the elder has a daughter in the army. She feels lonely at home, says the children telephone, and tells of a Latvian neighbour who advises her to stay. Her sons speak Yiddish on the phone; she mentions Dr Barsiak at the Hesed. Kerler promises another interview.

Kerler asks about the taste of her mother's gefilte fish. Gimelbrandt says she makes it the same way, with a little sugar, and bakes a Sabbath loaf for the Hesed group. She names the dumpling she calls kezelekh against the Bessarabian name (?), and discusses brandy at kidesh and yortsayt. She then recalls her grandmother's remedy for the evil eye and agrees to give the wording.

The rabbi says he was born in Chernivtsi in 1946. His parents came from Siberia, and his grandfather, a rabbi (a Belz Hasid, as the discussion suggests), taught him religion in the afternoons. He studied physics at the university and became a professor. He describes rebuilding the synagogue's kitchen and mikveh, daily minyan, and the small size of the community, which is shrinking through emigration. He names his parents, and a son in Israel and a daughter who teach. He talks about links with Chabad and Rabbi Zalman Abelsky in Moldova. Kerler explains the Indiana project.

Shternberg talks about prewar Yiddish culture and Eliezer Steinberg, a Yiddish writer, though the passage is hard to follow. She describes the Sabbath gatherings at the Hesed today, and the Yiddish theater in Khotyn, where touring artists from Moldova and Romania performed; she mentions a Sidi Tal performance (?). Kerler thanks her at the end.

Shternberg talks about a video interview made for a Ukrainian project, in which she sang two camp songs, and mentions Spielberg. She and Kerler look at a newspaper clipping about her late husband, a cantor at the synagogue, and about the Hesed. She then sings a song about childhood years and the house where she was born, and Lemster asks about the camp songs again.

Burg speaks of his health and the official visit the previous day by the governor, the mayor and others, which tired him. Kerler and Lemster talk with him about Yiddish writers and other contacts: an Austrian writer, Kerler's book of poems, Moyshe Leyb (?), Felix Mitterer (?) and the Vienna conference, and Kleiman (?) as the one person who reads to him. They discuss the death at 103 of an old writer, a phone call to Itche Goldberg in New York, and Burg's illness and the cost of medicine and doctors. A phone call in German interrupts, and Burg says he cannot give a long interview.

Shames confirms she is from Yanushpol, not far from Donets (?), and says she remembers little now. She was born before the war and had one sister. Her father Shleyme was killed by the Germans, and her mother was Sarah. Until the war she lived in Yanushpol. Kerler also asks whether Hesed helps her.

Shames speaks about Jewish life in Khmil'nyk after the war: she and her mother worked and prayed there, a synagogue existed for a time and was later closed, and she cannot say when. Today there is no synagogue and she says few Jews remain. Kerler asks about a shoykhet, Yom Kippur fasting, whether she receives matzo or help from outside, her TV viewing and Israel, which she has never thought of visiting. She speaks of a Christian helper and her family.

Shekhovich briefly mentions a Yiddish song her husband sang to the children, then answers questions about words such as dybbuk and golem, which she does not know. She talks about attending cheder, her mother's candle blessing and the koshering of meat by soaking and salting, and says her mother baked challah. She describes the lack of Yiddish speakers today, even in the Hesed.

Bukshtein recites the words of a Yiddish song about Yiddish being spoken everywhere in the world, for which he composed the melody. Kerler asks where the text was published, and they discuss the newspaper. Bukshtein then reads a humorous story by Avrom Karpinovitsh (from his book on Vilna) about a doctor who has a patient complain in Yiddish instead of bad Polish. They talk about who reads Yiddish literature, and about the Hesed newspaper he receives from Kyiv.

Bukshtein tells of his tailor's apprenticeship in Novoselitsa with Usher Roytman, who was also a cantor, and his fellow apprentices. In 1937 he moved to Chernivtsi to work for his sister's husband, a ladies' tailor, and learned some German there. He sings a Yiddish-Russian drinking song (the toast 'Lekhaim, mayne yidn') and tells how he set the words to a melody for a Jewish community event led by Meir Markovitsh.

Bukshtein describes a Jewish funeral from his youth: the cortege stops at each synagogue, the burial society carries the bier on shoulders, and the cry of charity saving from death is heard. He mentions the charity box for buying cemetery land. Kerler asks about how the dead are invoked and then announces that he will put questions in Russian for translation into Yiddish.

Fishman says many Jews, including Hasidim, lived in Chudniv. He recalls that a small community used to come from Zhytomyr and met in a house, until its owner died in an accident. The community then dwindled, and he mentions that he has a daughter.

Fishman talks about his family. His daughter is disabled, his son died after illness, and the Hesed in Zhytomyr helps with parcels. His sister lives in Baltimore with relatives in San Francisco, and cousins live in Israel and Canada; he gives their names, including Alla Fishman and a Feldman. He gives his name and patronymic and says he does not remember his grandparents. His grandmother died in evacuation in Kazakhstan.

Geller discusses politics and the change after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He speaks of ideology, wages and prices, how people were left poor, and the Joint reviving in the early 1990s. He also speaks of growing old under the new conditions.

Lys tells of the town's synagogues and says Jews prayed secretly in his father's house after the war. The synagogue buildings became an evening school, a music school and a factory. He describes celebrating Victory Day with Jewish veterans, the many Jews in professional and official posts after the war, and later emigration to Israel, America and Germany. He mentions a letter from a former teacher abroad, and Kerler ends with a Yiddish phrase question.

A woman, named Liudmila Vladimirovna in the Russian lines, recites Russian poems. One is about a former synagogue that became a sports school and about Passover, a rabbi and longing for Israel. Another, called 'hands', is a personal poem, and a Russian tribute to the late community chairman Wertman (?) closes the set. She also recites a humorous Ukrainian verse about a godfather and a river. In between, others discuss booking a hotel in Zhytomyr.

After the service, community members chat informally in Yiddish. They discuss earlier visits by the team in 2002, 2003 and 2005 (the years are partly unclear), the passing of years, a woman aged 92, and which person was born where. A speaker mentions the old synagogue and the neighborhood called Piatka. They talk of arranging time to sit and talk, and someone is to be asked about a man from a good family.

Outside Gelman's house and on the drive to the old town, a speaker (probably Gelman) with Kerler discusses a small prayer house and the old buildings of the Jewish district of Kamianets-Podilskyi, when they were demolished and when the synagogue was closed by the Bolsheviks. At the former Great Synagogue, now a restaurant, they talk about its origin under Turkish rule and its later history, and local Russian speakers describe its fires and restoration, the old town, the prison, the burnt archive and the church. The speaker (apparently Gelman) tells how his family fled in the war, the sister died on the way and the father died in 1943 (?), and he found his mother and a brother on returning in 1946. From about 26 minutes Kaplan, in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, tells Kerler about the Jewish museum, the community room, the old cemetery with its tzadikim and the synagogue's weekly and Passover events, and about Polish volunteers, the monuments to victims of the camps and ghetto (Pechora, Skazyntsi), his army service and communism, and how prayer continued in homes until a synagogue opened in 1948. He discusses prewar Jewish numbers, synagogues, hasidim and shoykhets, relations with the Baptists who took over a synagogue building, the community leadership, and a critical view of Joint, Hesed and Sochnut aid and of emigration.

Kaviner explains that people traveled to rebbes and good Jews for blessings, and tells a story about his great-grandfather Yidl, a rich merchant and Zinkiv Hasid, who was made to join the dishonest burial society by the Zinkiv rebbe, who knew from afar what was going on in Derazhnya. When asked, he says he knows many stories of the Baal Shem Tov.

Kerler, Lemster and Kaviner talk about the places the team has visited and the Jews found there, including Bershad', Odesa, Balta and Nikolaev. They discuss who still speaks Yiddish and mention Chabad and yeshivas. A woman in Khmel'nyts'kyy is described who read Yiddish and whose daughter speaks it.

Asked about Jewish weddings, Vaisblai recalls a wedding of a man named Barukh, with klezmer music, dancing and singing, and notes he was later killed by the Germans. He then tells a story about a postwar gathering of Jews in Chemerivtsi, including a man from Chernivtsi and an anecdote about boots, and answers Lemster on whether a huppah was set up.

Zinger talks about his trip to Israel with the Swiss group, flying from Budapest about six years earlier, and his two-month stay with his son near Tel Aviv. He describes his son's work at a bank, their contact and his grandchildren. He speaks of his late wife and his daughter, who cares for him in Uzhhorod. He recalls the Mukacheve rebbe's food assistance, funded by the Joint and since ended.

In the Khust synagogue Repkin explains its history in Russian: construction began in 1861, much of it is original, the paintings are original, the lions part came from Oleksandrivka, and the wiring was replaced two years before the visit. He recounts the Khust Jewish population in 1940 and its losses in the Holocaust, the ghetto from April 1944 and deportations to Auschwitz, and that Soviet authorities tried to close it for a club in about 1965–66 and a protest by women and children, apparently, saved it. He describes the books found there, with stamps from villages in the region and Yiddish, Hungarian and Slovak printings, and his catalogue of owners for a future museum. He also describes the repair of doors, donors from abroad, the mikveh-side rooms and a slaughtering knife found in the building, and talks about his own career at the shoe factory and the synagogue's upkeep, caretaker and minyan.

Asked by Katz about earliest memories, Smelanskii says he cannot recall them, and does not remember his grandmothers. His paternal grandmother lived in Cherkasy, and a paternal aunt's children included a son killed in the war. He says his father built a small prayer house after the war on returning from evacuation, and describes how a minyan needed official permission and a list of members. Katz asks about prayer and Russian is spoken at the end.

Shapiro, the last surviving child of his family, describes how he brought a man named Levitas (?) into the Jewish society in Kyiv. He asked him for the chance to teach Yiddish and Hebrew in a synagogue hall, and says he taught on alternate days. Kerler asks about the years, and Shapiro places it perhaps thirty years back. He begins to speak of the family travelling to Odesa.

Shapiro says two of his brothers left during the Petliura time, and that his father was an elder of the synagogue in Vinnytsya. He speaks of the elders' society and the wish that its members live to a hundred and twenty. He ends by explaining the name Ilya to a man in the society.

Shapiro tells how he explained a name and a father's name to the head of an elders' society, and he sent a book of his own. He says the man later became editor of a Jewish newspaper in Ukraine and received an order. Kerler tells him the interviewers are interested in Shapiro himself and ask him to tell his own story.

Katz and Kerler explain who they are and what the AHEYM expedition is. Kerler mentions his father, the Yiddish poet Yosef Kerler. They discuss a Vinnytsya man (Glovman, name uncertain) and plans to meet him, and Kerler outlines the route of the trip (Vinnytsya, Zhytomyr and other towns). They then ask to see the books.

Kerler puts questions on food terms (sour, sweet-sour dishes, tsimes and why it is made, latkes, chopped versus stuffed fish) and on the word 'Galitsianer'. Torchinsky then tells how the Sunday Yiddish school in Kyiv was founded, and shows the camera a newspaper clipping about it. Its president Levitas asked him to teach there, and Torchinsky was hesitant because of his limited schooling and decades without using Yiddish. A friend, the poet Yosl Bukhbinder, encouraged him. He later wrote a reader and poems, some printed in Birobidzhaner Shtern and Sovetish Heymland.

Derbaremdiker talks about a film on Yiddish culture, apparently made for the Moscow Kultura channel. He gave the filmmakers cassettes and sent one to his brother in New York, who had it converted to the American format. He offers the brother's phone number and a Russian text. He then speaks of Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, chief rabbi of Kyiv for about fifteen years, whom he met around 1991, and of how his work as a laboratory head kept him from the synagogue.

Derbaremdiker says he went to Berdychiv once, when his brother from New York visited and Rabbi Yaakov lent them a car. He knows the Berdychiv rabbi. He describes his life now: he cannot leave his sick daughter, only goes to the synagogue, and gets some help from the Hesed organization. The talk turns to the team's coming travels in Podolia, to a Yiddish folklore and proverbs course he once gave, to his brother's work for the Russian Forverts, and to the Yiddish forms of family names such as Yente and Yontl.

Vider tells how his parents, before they were married, were brought to the Botoshaner Rebbe, who gave them a religious wedding, while the civil registration was done separately. He says he was too young to remember Jewish weddings or a badkhn well, and recalls matchmakers, the Rebbe's gabbai and payments and gifts to the Rebbe. He tells of a cousin of his mother, Reb Mayer, a cantor and righteous man who owned a mill and was paid well for singing in Iași, and of the Rebbe's wife and three children, whose names he gives; he cannot recall the Rebbe's full name.

Vider says when the synagogue reopened and how the first Christian visitors came, including an old woman from Kosiv with a sick child. He talks about his two marriages: twenty-eight years with a Jewish Communist wife, with no children and no wedding canopy, and a difficult relationship in which they lived apart for four years. His present wife is a Christian woman who attends the Hesed centre and is liked there. He listens to cantorial recordings at home.

Vider briefly describes how the Kolomyya synagogue works now: few regular worshippers, a minyan expected the next morning, and people who come for yortsayt. Kerler arranges to meet the next day and speaks of Krotsh and Greyf. Others joke about cooking and Sabbath.

Biter compares local antisemitism with that in Lithuania, which he knew from time spent in Norilsk (?). Asked about Jewish–non-Jewish relations and Zionism, he says he had no contact with the Zionist groups but took an interest in the Jewish agricultural committee in L'viv and its journal. He recalls a Jewish agricultural school near Kolomyya funded by Baron Hirsch, which was destroyed by Ukrainian bandits.

Asked by Lemster about Jewish life in postwar Kolomyya, Krotsh says Jews gathered cautiously, for example on Yom Kippur, and the authorities knew. He worked at a military auction. He says he was nearly the only one to eat matzo on Passover. Kerler asks whether Jews still spoke Yiddish, and Krotsh says that many did, in the street and when playing games. Lemster ends by asking about Romanian songs, and Krotsh names a few.

Krotsh begins by performing a song in Romanian, saying he does not remember it in full. Kerler then talks with him about fieldwork in Romanian Moldavia and Bukovina. They discuss the few Yiddish speakers found there, the town's Jewish committee head, the synagogue in Rădăuţi (?), and an older woman who would not give her age.

Belous talks about the yeshiva where he teaches Yiddish and its lack of teaching materials. He asks whether Yiddish textbooks can be sent, and Kerler offers to send some. They discuss addresses and e-mail access.

Kerler asks whether Belous has converted. He says he would have but the conditions do not permit it. He speaks of Rabbi Aharon, for whom he has worked for about eight years, and who was born in Holland and came from Israel.

Continuation of the museum visit. The guides show books, newspapers and a songbook from a festival at which songs were sung in Yiddish, and mention a play about Janusz Korczak. They describe the activities of the regional association of Jewish shtetls: outreach to small towns and villages, finding people of Jewish descent, Holocaust lessons in schools, Jewish participation in the Red Army, a regional Sunday school, a family camp, festivals, community programs and charity. They add that the Jewish population is aging and shrinking, with some emigrating to Germany, and that the programs depend on volunteers and have funding problems.

Kislinskaia gives her birth date, 15 March 1924, and talks about life today: a grandson with a disability, medical costs, prices, pension, and help from the Cherkasy Hesed. She also tells of her mother's brothers in America and the house she lived in before the war. The old house was left unfinished, and she signed her prewar house over to her daughter. Her father David was a shoemaker and her mother Etl a housewife who later worked.

Nisman reads the names of her two husbands: her first husband, Israel Nisman, was shot on 8 July 1941, and her second husband died seven years ago at 86. She mentions a daughter in Kyiv and one in Israel, and shows a photograph and a photocopy sent from Kyiv. She tells how she met Dorfman after singing a Yiddish song at a Hesed event, and shows Eliezer Steinberg's book, bought from his widow. They also talk about Chernivtsi writers and the artist Arthur Kolnik.

Nisman shows a new Haggadah that she was given, with the death toll in Bessarabia, and a certificate and handmade work from the day centre. Kerler asks whether Purim plays were staged in Rezina, and she says theatre troupes came and mentions the Jewish National House in Chernivtsi.

Leibel talks about Purim players who went door to door, and about the cost of his schooling, which was partly covered by the state and by a Jewish committee. He recalls the Passover seder and the Four Questions, Chad Gadya, and the hiding of the afikoman, and answers Kerler's questions about Shavuot greens. He says he does not remember a Hanukkah play about Joseph.

Meler answers questions about Shavuot, when dairy foods such as cheese pastries were eaten, and about Hanukkah latkes. He then tells of an antiquarian who found a parchment in the L'viv archive recording a killing of Jews by Khmelnytsky. He talks about a kosher kitchen next to a synagogue today.

The group looks at the old gravestones from the Polish period, with Kerler and Katz reading dates, and Katz speaks Russian with a cemetery worker. Dorfman then takes them to the grave of the Yiddish writer Alexander Lizen. He tells of Lizen's work, translations into German and role as first chairman of the Jewish society, and says he was his teacher.

Passing the former ghetto area, Dorfman and bystanders discuss, in Russian and Yiddish, the killing of Jews by the Ukrainian police. He describes the conditions in the ghetto and the memorials: a monument unveiled in 1992, funds from Jews abroad, the Soviet-era plan for three monuments, and the sculptor and architect. He also speaks about prewar Jewish life in Lviv, the numbers in the city, the Soviet arrival and deportations, and what happened after the war, including the museum collection and the bridge known as the Gate of Death.

Driving and walking through L'viv, Dorfman points out former Jewish sites: a Yiddish theater, the street named for Meir Balaban, where Sholem Aleichem lived (marked by a monument), the two synagogues on a former Jewish street, the old cemetery and Jewish hospital. He also names the Jewish community building, the Bnai Brith house, the gymnasium and other institutions. Parts are in Russian and Polish with the driver, and Kerler asks about street names and the end of the Yiddish theater in 1947 (?).

Dorfman, Brandler and Kerler chat in a car or street about people in the community: a veterinarian, a woman poet who reads in Russian at the Hesed, a visiting American professor, and the Hesed meeting. Kerler says he will interview Brandler. A man named Brandler (Natan, born 1919 (?)) is discussed, and books on Lviv Jews and a Yiddish book by Golda Meir are mentioned.

Brandler says he worked in Peremyshlyany for about forty years (?) and liked going to the forest alone to pick mushrooms. He married in 1948 and had a son born in 1949 and a daughter born in 1952, who died abroad in an accident. His wife died in 2002, and since then he has lived with his son in L'viv, at a street address he names. He attends the Hesed and the Sholem Aleichem society in L'viv, which he says he has lived in since 2003.

Lemster asks about Jewish life in Luts'k after the war. She says Jews gathered in a private apartment on Sabbath and holidays, there was no synagogue, a man was imprisoned, and she fasted on Yom Kippur. Few knew when holidays fell; matzo came from Israel. Questions about minyans and schools follow, and Lemster asks for a Jewish story or anecdote, which she cannot recall.

Outside the building, Shoikhetman and the others talk about the surrounding structures, once Jewish, now a repair workshop and car showroom. They also mention the charity administration (UEV) and the writer Dina Rubina. He says he worked in archives drawing plans of these buildings, and he speaks of mass graves, one without a marker and another with one, and of a possible visit to the cemetery area.

Fiksler tries to recite the morning prayer Modeh ani but says she has forgotten much of it. Yakov remarks on how hard it is to get prayer books and religious services nearby. She says that after the war the kosher meat came from a shoykhet in Khust once the Solotvyno one had left. Poultry was slaughtered locally. Kerler then asks her about the start of the war.

In Mukacheve the team is welcomed by Vider, and Kerler explains their project of collecting interviews on Jewish life, history and Yiddish. Vider says he was born in Munkács in 1922 and now lives there, and that his three brothers left after the war. He speaks of a rebbe, mentions a Hungarian Hasidic song, and sings a song about a rooster and the coming of the Messiah. He laments that in Mukacheve about five hundred Jews, nearly all Russian-speaking, no longer pass Yiddish or Hebrew on.

Vider talks about attending the setting of a new gravestone for a Jew in Berehove, and about the last Yiddish speakers there. Kerler introduces him as born in Mukacheve in 1922. He gives his father's and grandfather's names, with a father from Sighet, and discusses the Vider family name, the town's Jewish population (about sixteen thousand), and a Kleinbart family. He remembers the wedding of the rebbe's daughter and mentions the rebbe's funeral. He describes the town's many synagogues, prayer today in Russian with only a few praying in Hebrew, and bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah customs. He recalls Mukacheve as a 'little Jerusalem' with a multiethnic population where Hungarian was the main language and half of the non-Jews knew Yiddish, plus the Hebrew gymnasium under Dr. Haim Kugel, the orphanage, and the Munkács Hasidic court. He ends with his children (a daughter in Hungary and a son with Canadian citizenship) and a short Yiddish-Russian exchange about a word.

On the walk toward a former synagogue, Vider points out former Jewish buildings, among them an orphanage with a menorah facade from the 1920s. He says the old Jewish cemetery has been built over and gravestones were stolen. Fragments of stones were walled in, and Americans paid to protect the site. He mentions the grave of Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapira and rebbes' graves. Interspersed are a pharmacy aside and talk about Hungarian and Romanian words.

Vider explains greeting customs, such as a Latin-derived word for greeting and handshaking, and the Hungarian influence on them. He says his Yiddish is weak and that he mostly watches Hungarian television. He talks about Jews in Hungary and Budapest today (a Jewish hospital, a choir, the old Jewish street and ghetto, and a children's summer camp). He answers a few terminology questions, then mentions that Nayman survived the Gulag with him and was born in Rakhiv.

Vider shows photographs and documents. They include a picture connected to the ghetto in Mukacheve, a wedding, a Jewish school class in the 1930s, and a rabbi's funeral. He then shows newspapers and a certificate of merit from a Hasidic or Jewish communal fund. He mentions a person with a telephone number to contact, who knows several languages. The speech is partly garbled.

Vider tells a joke at the expense of the Jews of Berehove, whom the Mukacheve Jews considered foolish, about carrying stones up and down a hill. He explains the difference between a shul and a besmedresh and the small kloyz and shtibl prayer houses of Mukacheve. He talks about Hasidic groups, Zionists and the Jewish street today, saying he is an honest Zionist and works for the Hesed and the community. Kerler then asks about people in Berehove and more stories, and Vider reads out items from the internet. The segment ends with talk about wild blueberries, coffee and Russian-language anecdotes about Mussolini and the 1944 front.

Endelshtein talks about Jewish life in Mykolayiv today. He says young Jews marry Russians, that few attend the synagogue or events such as Victory Day, and that there is no one to speak Yiddish with. He mentions a Jewish school with about 180 children, many of whom have only one Jewish parent, and refers to Israel and Chabad. Lemster asks about Jews who went to Argentina from Bolgrad, and the question then turns to his army service.

Answers questions on Yiddish terms such as dybbuk, golem and 'a yidish feld' (?), after a phone call and a remark about a Jewish neighbor. He mentions rabbis in Chernivtsi and a Jewish center in a restaurant. He recalls Jewish weddings after the war with a huppah and klezmer musicians, says about a thousand Jews lived in Novoseltsy afterward and that they emigrated, and that prayer was held at home.

Listengurt tells Kerler about Odesa Yiddish writers and about contemporary Jewish life: she attends a synagogue on Pushkin Street and compares crowded high holidays then with now, when many non-Jews come. She says that at the Hesed a woman named Anna Lvovna (?) can tell about the music competition and violinists. She names Wieniawski, David Oistrakh, Buzya Goldstein, and Leybele Weisbein.

After the host's Russian opening of the weekly Sabbath meeting, Bondarchuk talks to the audience in Russian. He asks the date by the Jewish calendar and the year 5768, discusses Adam and the name Adam, and the rule against counting Jews. He goes on to May events in Israel and the Soviet Union, such as Israeli Independence Day and Victory Day, then Lag BaOmer and the counting of the Omer, and Shavuot and the giving of the Torah. He then leads into the candle lighting.

After joking about beards, Tokar talks about his health since his wife died: a doctor, prescriptions and a volunteer who comes twice a week to cook. He says there were no good times before or after the war, mentioning the crisis in Poland. After the war he studied in the evenings at a construction institute for six years. He says his wife, born in Odesa, was a district doctor, and that her relatives live in the United States.

Tokar describes Jewish communal life in Odesa today: the several synagogues and Chabad, the lack of a single Jewish committee, and Joint-funded aid such as food cards, medicines and the Hesed. He then names his wife as Maria (?) and says her mother, who came from Grodno and spoke Yiddish, died in the 1970s.

Dorfman says the Velednik tsaddik helped people, for example children who could not speak. After the war the little house was repaired, kerosene was sold there and visitors were not allowed. He himself did the first repair, and people from Uman later did a major one. He offers the address of a 98-year-old man who can tell more.

Dorfman describes religious life today in Ovruch. Two young men from Israel, sent from Zhytomyr by Shlomo Vilgenets(?), come for the major holidays and help organize them. They speak Hebrew, not Yiddish.

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.

Feldman says that until about ten years ago he led the minyan at the Ovruch synagogue, until too few people were left. He describes what happened to the Torah scrolls of the old minyan: one went to the Korosten synagogue and one to Israel. Katz then asks for the Aleinu prayer and passages of the Torah (the opening of Genesis, with the Yiddish for earth, waste and darkness), the haftarah blessings and Simchat Torah. Feldman says he cannot recite the beginning of Genesis without a book.

The conversation turns to religious life today, including where a rabbi might be consulted: Zhytomyr, or a rabbi who comes on Sabbath. Turovskaia says there is a prayer gathering on Lenin Street, and she names local Jews who live nearby. She recalls how her father led the seder before the war. She says two visitors, one from America and one from Israel, came recently for Passover, with a translator. Kerler asks about the word for translator and then about the dybbuk.

Turovskaia remembers her mother's charity: sharing cherries from their tree, sending food and matzo, and going with other women to collect for the poor. She says her father visited the tzaddik every Elul and, when too old, still kept the practice. She tells how her grandmother's dream gave her mother's name Alte, and of a 'good Jew' (a tzaddik) who gave it. The passage ends with her account of Leybl of Khabne in Polesye, who could foresee events and was approached for advice.

Turovskaia answers questions about Passover and Purim in her childhood home: her father asked the four questions and read and told stories, and she recalls the custom of banging with feet on Purim. She describes her mother's Passover preparations with geese and fat and sending food to a poor neighbor, and her mother's generosity to the needy.

Turovskaia recalls collecting money from Jewish houses to help people, and talks about holiday food: geese and ducks, challah baked every Friday, and the custom of throwing a piece of dough into the oven. She describes the seder, her father leading it, the kittel her mother sewed, wine, Elijah's cup and the afikoman, and mentions young yeshiva graduates.

In the Berdychiv synagogue Kerler and Lemster speak with several congregants about praying and about a minyan. They recall that the team had visited before, in winter and summer, for interviews, and mention a late rabbi (called a tsadik(?)) who was ill in 2005. A congregant relates that a Jew ran out of a mass-killing pit during the German occupation. A man introduces himself as Berzon, born in Berdychiv, says he lost an older brother, fought at the front and was invalided, and the interviewers ask to speak with him and his wife. Much of the stretch is garbled.

Back at the museum, Kerler asks to look at Bentsianov's publications. Bentsianov shows an article about a Jewish boy, a congratulation on his seventieth birthday, and a certificate from the Jewish community. The talk turns to his articles on Markish and those translated into Yiddish.

Vainsheinboim describes a 'shive-kikh' (?) in Ostroh, where children were given rolls with cocoa. Kerler asks who organised it and when, and then asks about a fire brigade.

Vainsheinboim says there were Jews in the fire brigade, with Soviet people, and then answers Kerler's question about the Jewish library in Ostroh, which held Yiddish and Hebrew books.

Fish speaks of the old Jewish cemetery, destroyed by the Soviets and replaced by a school, with only a small mixed plot left. He says there is no holy place or tsadik's grave in Rivne and that no real rabbi remained after 1941, though Hasidim once visited. He mentions Ben-Gurion's visit and cantor Kusevitsky's broadcasts. He then explains that Jews and mixed families receive meals and help from the community.

Fish says he knew nothing of Hasidim or rebbes in Rivne. He explains a "good Jew" as someone who gives help and charity to the poor. As an example he describes a Rivne cloth shop whose owner gave small coins monthly to long lines of poor people, and he mentions that he worked briefly as a bookkeeper there after the gymnasium.

Fish says that after the war some Yiddish artists, including a Lithuanian woman singer and an accordionist, still came to Rivne, but Jewish audiences had dwindled. He mentions the Hesed. Kerler asks about prewar Yiddish theater, and Fish recalls a Yiddish theater under Polish rule that his brother took him to as a child.

Litvak says she worked as a kindergarten teacher and later in a textile knitwear factory, after living in Germany. She explains her husband's pension as an officer and her own small pension. She describes today's economic hardship, high rents and costly medicines, and says only the Hesed keeps her from hunger. She mentions her brother in Israel and her son, an ecological engineer. Kerler suggests returning to school.

Litvak says some people today go both to the synagogue and to the church to get help, and she does not understand it. Kerler brings up the term meshumed (convert) for such people.

Her mother was a pious woman, often ill, and the rabbi permitted her to eat on Yom Kippur; her kitchen kept meat and milk separate. Her mother headed a committee helping poor families. She tells how she was kept from learning of her mother's death, which she heard of in Novohrad-Volynskyi only after her relatives told her much later.

Shvartzbroit describes her family's life before the war: her father's sewing workshop with two non-Jewish servants, and her mother's weekly Sabbath help for old people whose wealthy relatives had been deported to Siberia by the Soviets. She also recalls taking in homeless people and giving her house for poor couples' weddings, and she mentions grandchildren in Germany and America.

Fish says only a few Jews remain in the surrounding small towns, such as Zdolbuniv (?) and Kostopil (?), and that they do not speak Yiddish. Kerler and Fish discuss the head of the local Hesed and a former colonel. Fish says that the veterans have non-Jewish wives, and that of his sons only the eldest married a Jewish woman, while the youngest's first wife was Ukrainian, and he reflects on Jews marrying non-Jews.

Kleiner explains that an aunt, who had no children, took her in at age two, and that this happened to other children in town. Her uncle was a tailor. She describes Shepetivka as a Jewish town with many trades, the closing of the cheder in the early 1930s and of the Jewish school later, the six synagogues, and Rabbi Shapiro, who was sent to Novosibirsk after the war; his son Shlomo lives in Baltimore. She also discusses a charitable society for the poor on October Street, the surviving synagogue, a Russian shoemaker's sons who attended the Jewish school, and children's games (forfeits, tag, hide-and-seek, sledding), with Kerler asking about terms.

Kleiner describes Friday night and Sabbath at home: blessing the candles, challah, her uncle returning from synagogue and bringing poor men home for the meal. She lists the food, among them gefilte fish, chicken soup with beans, kugel and babke, baked goods, pirogi and Purim-like pastries, with Kerler asking about the difference between kugel and babke.

The second voice says that they have a son in Chernivtsi and a daughter in Shepetivka. They discuss Jewish life today in Shepetivka and Khmel'nyts'kyi. There is a Hesed, but few Jews and few speak Yiddish. People are emigrating, factories are closed and pensions are small. After the war Yiddish was not taught. Kleiner has no one to speak Yiddish with; his daughter understands but does not speak it.

During the tour of the synagogue complex, Shvartsburg explains that he designed it from pictures brought by Americans of the old synagogue, and that building it took four years because money was short. He describes the hotel, the mikvehs, the large prayer hall and the size of the building. He also mentions pilgrims, the Twersky Rebbe's visits, and an American claim to the property that was settled for money. Kerler asks about visitors, the Berdychiv rebbe and the minyan on Sabbath.

The tour continues with talk about fundraising, including a portrait and the Chabad rabbi's contribution, and about the burial place of Itsik Twersky. Shvartsburg recalls that a synagogue was built in 1860s (?) and that the Soviets later closed it. Kerler asks about the postwar period and who still prayed there.

Klein explains why the Yiddish schools were closed, then speaks about the Yiddish press she read, her mother's piety (candle blessing until death), and Sabbath cooking such as cholent and gefilte fish. She says there was a rabbi's absence today but a synagogue and Hesed, and that the shoykhet died years ago. She notes that her parents were both from villages, Hrybenynka and Sakhnovtsy.

Klein says her school taught many subjects and produced professors, and that many relatives were killed. Kerler and Klein discuss sending copies of photos and material through a Hesed. They talk about the great synagogue and about Gotlober, whose name she checked, and Kerler says he left memoirs and works in Yiddish, Hebrew and Polish.

The guide gives the history of the synagogue in Lviv: built under Poland and not destroyed because of the nearby railway station; the Germans used it in 1941, and after the Soviets a sports club used it and the community got the building in about 1990. A new rabbi from New York came, whose wife heads the Jewish school. Kerler asks whether he is a Hasid; the guide says he is a Karliner Hasid, and speaks of Chabad in Ukraine, a kosher restaurant, a mikveh, and rabbis from Belz, and people leaving for Israel and Canada.

The team walks through Teplyk while a local man in Russian points out old Jewish houses and the former market square. They then meet the town mayor, who tells in Russian that he took office two months earlier and that only about forty Jews are in the community. He sends the team to a local man who knows the old residents.

Interview with Preger outside her home. Preger says she was born in Tomashpol' and that her parents were from there too. She calls Yiddish a jargon and says she prefers to speak Ukrainian. She describes the seven-class Yiddish school and the pedagogical technical college in Vinnytsia, where she studied for three years. She describes wartime in Tomashpol' and her work as a teacher of large classes of 45 pupils until retirement. She also covers present-day hardship, prices, health and the Joint help. She says her father was a worker, her mother a housewife who baked on Friday, and mentions the prewar synagogue.

The end of the conversation with Preger, in a mix of Yiddish and Russian-influenced speech. She talks about local non-Jews breaking into houses and stealing, about killings of Jews by Germans and nearby villagers, and about the war's end. She also addresses the emigration of Jews to America and Israel, the use of the term Erets Yisroel, and complaints about pensions, prices and politics, plus an unnamed local woman and the Jewish community in Vinnytsya. Kerler also arranges the next stops.

Shveibish in Tul'chyn describes the present-day Jewish community: about 172 Jews, including children, many of them elderly, living on small pensions, with some 35 helped by Hesed and the Joint through patronage. She tells of old people and a man aged 91, and of lost state support and closed factories. She describes organising a bus trip and meeting at Pechera with former prisoners from Kyiv and a school group, with television and radio present, and how she raised money and food for it. She also speaks about relatives of acquaintances who emigrated to Israel or America, about antisemitism, distributing matzo, and says some thirty Pechera survivors remain.

Asked about Jewish holidays she remembers, Shveibish recalls that her grandfather Yekhiel was a trader and that there were ten synagogues in Tul'chyn, none of which remains. Candles were blessed, Sabbath and Passover were kept, and food was kosher; today there is no shoykhet. She speaks of the community's modest help for the sick and poor, and of paying for burials of lonely people. Kerler asks what is meant by erecting a memorial, and he also asks about her father, whom people called Nyune.

Shveibish answers dialectological questions on words for colours (blue and light blue), pigeon, 'also', near, late, ceiling, floor, face and cleanliness, and on the dreydl game. She also talks about Tul'chyn: its Jews, today's Jewish concerts, pensions for camp survivors and the religious revival. She describes the one postwar synagogue, the shoykhet, and prayer meetings broken up in the 1960s. Kerler and Katz ask about Jews in nearby towns (Mohyliv, Vinnytsia, Nemyriv, Bratslav, Uman, Sharhorod) and about the Romanian-run ghettos and Pechera during the war.

Kerler asks about matzo in the 1950s and 1960s, and the women say the community baked its own matzo. They discuss expensive matzo from Israel and America and the Four Questions at the seder.

Shveibish says Yiddish was the only language in Pechera and that some non-Jews still speak Yiddish. She discusses the dwindling Jewish population and the antisemitic remarks heard at the market. She tells of rescuers' children who need help, of local Jews and of Jewish returnees from Israel, and she and Kerler speak about the holidays and the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Shavuot. The interview ends with talk of arranging further visits.

Waldman talks about her brother in Germany and his son, who opened a school there. She also mentions her husband, who worked at the post office, and says she has no children of her own and helped raise his children. She is now a pensioner who works with the Soviet veterans' organisation and helps people, and she has ties with Israel and America.

Halpert speaks Hungarian on the phone and then in Yiddish about arranging the team's further interviews, giving an address and a phone number so that a local man, a former head of the Uzhhorod Jewish community who speaks good Yiddish, can be met. Kerler asks about local prayer times (minyan only on Friday night and holidays) and for more phone numbers; then Kerler announces he will put some sentences to translate from Russian.

Naybauer speaks about the start of antisemitism and the pressure on observance, then recites a few prayers when Katz asks. He recounts that he married in 1957 and that his son was circumcised in 1959. The KGB harassed the family for half a year, and his mother, accused of arranging it, was sentenced to three years but escaped the sentence through Jewish journalists and acquaintances. He then discusses the synagogue after the war, including which buildings were returned, a small prayer house and a mikveh.

Zinger describes prewar Jewish life in Velykyi Bereznyi, which he calls a large village. It had a synagogue, a study house and a few other prayer houses. His father carved gravestones in summer and Zinger painted the inscriptions and gilded the letters. His father was an honest Jew rather than a great Hasid, and taught him to lay tefillin at his bar mitzvah. He then discusses the present-day Uzhhorod synagogue, a buyer's offer for it, the rabbi Teichman, and a new mikveh and yeshiva.

At the Berdychiv Jewish community there is singing by a man, followed by talk in Yiddish and Russian around the community kitchen, where food such as dumplings is made and tasted. Kerler then talks with people present, including a woman. He asks about their birth in Berdychiv, the family, a grandchild who attends a Jewish school, and whether they remember Yiddish being heard on the streets.

Shor talks about her activities today. She chairs the women's club, whose members meet on Saturdays to sing Yiddish and Russian songs and review the press. She has also organized a Yiddish choir that is preparing for a festival in Kyiv in October. Kerler asks about the club's address, the Hesed centre and whether he may come and photograph the group, and S3 helps with details.

The choir women discuss what Yiddish songs to sing, partly in Russian, while the team waits and waits for the director. Chirkova comes up to the interviewers and says she can talk Yiddish. Her father was a rabbi and her grandfather a cantor, and she complains that she is not allowed to speak Yiddish or keep the holidays freely. She lingers over her religious upbringing, her parents' deaths and her old age. Kerler arranges to visit her at home. The choir women then sing together, and a second woman, probably Nesye Katz, says she was an orphan raised by an aunt and describes how the group meets and sings Yiddish songs.

Chirkova sings "Lomir zikh iberbetn", with verses that exchange gifts and objects. She then says people at meetings did not let her speak Yiddish, and she tells of confrontations with others, including antisemites, who tried to stop her speaking and singing it. She stresses that she wants to be loved and respected and that others only imitate Jews.

Furer speaks about life today: living alone, health, medicine costs and the help from the Hesed. He remembers his late wife Roza, from Kryzhopil', and their life together.

Furer describes his present life: he has difficulty walking, eats at a communal canteen, and meets people. Kerler asks about his sons, one of whom lives nearby and visits weekly. Another child, he says, studied at a polytechnic institute and went to Israel to work in computers, and a grandchild lives in America. He talks about his grandchildren and their working lives.

She remembers a non-Jewish family in Vinnytsya that spoke Yiddish because the mother rented out her houses to Jews. She comments that Jews once wanted to become gentiles and now gentiles want to become Jews. She talks about help from the Joint and a food parcel. Kerler then begins asking about Yiddish books and newspapers.

Russian talk among the group and locals, with Katz commenting. A local man speaks English, saying he has led the Jewish community since 1994 and that very old Jews are gone, buried in the cemetery or emigrated to Israel, Germany and Australia. Kerler then asks whether Jews kept dogs. Barshteyn says she had a dog and a cat, in a house lower down near the river.

Tsodikovich says he trained as a pharmacist at a technikum and worked in a pharmacy. He then moved to a construction organization and came back to Vinnytsya, where he again worked as a pharmacist. For the last three years he has been a volunteer at Hesed. His wife has died. One son is in Israel and another lives in Vinnytsya. Lemster ends by asking about songs in Kopayhorod.

Yatskova says people are leaving the area because there is no work or livelihood. Asked whether the Hesed (?) helps her, she says she receives a pension as a ghetto prisoner.

Opens briefly on holiday customs, with Kerler asking about Tisha b'Av. Poberevskii then talks about poor but gifted classmates, many of whom were killed in the war, and about her own studies in Kalinin. She says her father the rabbi did not take her or her mother to shul, and describes her brothers, one of whom studied Talmud and became a lawyer. She also answers questions about the meaning of 'a good Jew' and about her mother's brother. The rest is largely a dialectological questionnaire put by Kerler, with Katz commenting. Items include words for the cross and for converting or baptising (the difference between 'geshmad' and baptising a child), candle-blessing and Friday preparations, 'evening' and 'ear', and 'attic' and 'potatoes'. Further items cover latkes, foods for Shavuot and Hanukkah, Hanukkah games such as the dreidel, and household words. She also answers on kinship terms such as 'mekhutn', on rabbi/rebbe/rov terms and on 'almost' and 'exactly'. She says she hardly speaks Yiddish any more and describes seven years of Yiddish schooling. She speaks of severe poverty in her childhood home: her mother had eleven children and sold yeast at the market, with no pension even though three sons were in the army, and the house was cold in winter. She also says there is no rabbi or functioning synagogue in Zhmerynka now and that about 300 Jews live there.

Poberevskii answers Kerler's dialectological questions on a few words and phrases for a naive person, falling into a pit or cellar, and a woman's name. She then speaks warmly of her life today: a good flat, a pension, and help from the Jewish community in Vinnytsya, with holiday celebrations, food, medicine and doctors. She mentions her brothers, one in Israel and one deceased, and that she is the only one left of her family. The segment ends with the team in her garden, where she describes her exercise routine and morning and evening habits, partly in Russian.

Lebvol continues about a German-speaking fellow traveler and where she learned German, in school. Kerler returns to Shavuot and asks whether blintzes were eaten, and the talk turns to a woman from the team and the planned trip to Drohobych and Boryslav, where there are Jewish organizations.

Geller discusses the Joint's aid and how people get help, and compares it with the war years. He says Polish Jews fled to the Soviet Union, and mentions his invalid's pension. Kerler asks about an idiom and some Russian-influenced words. Geller then begins an anecdote about a prosecutor and a tailor.

Burshtein explains how a music teacher at the Zhytomyr Hesed learned that he knows Yiddish songs, and he wrote them out in Yiddish in her book. He is often invited to sing at the Hesed. He then takes up songs sung by Jews from Germany who came to the town, and begins to sing a song about a poor refugee, after Kerler asks whether they were Polish Jews returning from Germany.

He recalls childhood in Ukraine as a time of constant fear, with fear of Whites and Reds, kolkhoz, war, and price rises. He then compares life today with the Soviet period: his pension, the price of bread, and paying for medical care. He mentions the Jewish charity (Hesed) that provides meals.

Antsis describes the help she receives today. Meals are brought to her all week, young people come and assist her, and Hesed picks her up once a week for the bath and a social gathering. She says she loves being among people and prays for her health and that of her relatives, recalling how her sister died in her sleep. She ends by saying that many Russians helped Jews during the war.

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.

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.

Geller, in the Zhytomyr synagogue, says he comes from Pyatka, a small town between Berdychiv and Chudniv. He talks about the Zhytomyr rabbi and his Russian, about Jews living in Zhytomyr as if in exile, and about the lack of proper Jewish burial for a 93-year-old man. He also describes young visitors who know no Yiddish, a dictionary he gave one, and who in Zhytomyr still speaks Yiddish. The rabbi's trip to Polonne, where a wall for a tsadik was built from gravestones, leads to a note on a Pyatka word for a small wall.

A short account of the history of the renovated Zhytomyr synagogue. It was built about 130 years ago on a street with other synagogues and was used by traders. It was open until 1941, when the Germans used it as a warehouse, and was handed back to the community in the early 1990s. During repairs, prayer books and the names of women were found hidden in the walls. The speaker describes today's community, with a daily minyan, a school and an orphanage. Informal talk follows about the cantor Krinsky, hearing the Megillah on Purim, and Lithuanian versus Hasidic towns in the region (Rovno, Lutsk, Slavuta, Yampol).

Discussion of plans for a children's home and a Jewish 'town', which needs a name and about three million dollars. A second woman from Zvil, now Novohrad-Volyns'kyi, is then introduced. Her parents spoke Yiddish at home, and the interviewer explains that the team is collecting material on Yiddish.

Shraibman talks about Jews in Zhytomyr today, which has about two thousand, and about its history. He discusses an old Hebrew press, the rabbinical college in the nineteenth century, a card index of victims of the 1930s and rabbis' meetings in the 1920s. He describes working in the archive and what his late wife said of it.

She talks about life today: two young Jewish women and the local synagogue help her, and she mentions its rabbi. She says Jewish doctors and many others emigrated to Berlin, Israel and America and did not return. Kerler explains the recording's purpose.

The speaker mentions that the son in Kazan was greeted by phone in 1985 (?), and talks about Jewish girls supported by the synagogue and a yeshiva in Kazan. The rest, a discussion about a match for a young woman and her father, is largely garbled.

Nibulskiy tells how his grandfather Avrom, a tailor, burned a hole in a customer's garment, and the Veledniki rebbe, who happened to arrive, advised him how to repair it. He then explains the family: his great-grandfather Shimonke and grandfather Avrom Alters, who was killed by the Germans in 1941 after refusing evacuation. Avrom was a synagogue warden and supported a poor shoemaker's family on the Sabbath. Nibulskiy compares this with the complaints about aid today.

Shraibman speaks of the large family he came from, which is now scattered. A cousin lives in Kyiv, a cousin in Moscow, an artist relative (name unclear), and others in Israel and America. He tells of visiting the old town and its graves and meeting elderly non-Jews who recognize the family name. His wife died about nine years ago and he lives alone. He mentions working with the current rabbi Shlomo and with the former chief rabbi Plotkin (?).

Shraibman speaks about religious and communal life in Zhytomyr today. He helped Rabbi Shlomo when he arrived and speaks Yiddish with him. He works at a boarding school for half-orphaned children, with a Jewish gymnasium and a cheder, whose non-Jewish director has a Jewish wife. He mentions the director's daughter, who married a Jewish man from Moscow and works with the Jewish community. Kerler then asks about his childhood memories.

Sandler talks about his family. His father was a wigmaker and his grandfather David a shoemaker; his grandmother was killed when a ceiling fell in the old house. He had eight siblings, of whom two sisters live in Germany and a brother in Jerusalem, and he lists several by name. A second speaker then tells of a grandfather who headed the community just after the war, in 1945, when a synagogue was being built on Babin Street; the Krevitsky name comes up.