Jewish identity and attitudes

Rezmovits speaks about his arrival in Israel and says he and his comrades there left Jewish observance behind. He mentions that he was the leader of a Hebrew club where people came who did not speak Yiddish but kept holidays and put on tefillin.

Rezmovits recalls the Passover seder at home before the war, where the youngest boy asked the four questions and the afikoman was stolen, which upset his father. He then reads a text of his own about the four questions and antisemitism, and mentions writing in school.

Herbst says people went to see the Purim play and recites a Purim rhyme, with Kerler asking about a word in it. Kerler mentions his own trip to a Carpathian place, and Herbst mentions a man who came from the Carpathians. Kerler asks whether Jews in southern and western Hungary spoke Yiddish. Herbst replies that Hungarian Jews were called 'Hungarian donkeys' and Carpathian Jews 'Polish', and he explains Hungary as 'mameland'. Kerler ends by turning to Passover and the four questions.

Herbst and Kerler discuss people in the community today, especially a man nicknamed Tsures-bachi who prays in a synagogue on Csekonics(?) street, and others whom Kerler names. Herbst recalls a few postwar months in Debrecen working in a hospital, and says he then worked for forty years as a technician at an institute of physics and received a recognition from the academy. He talks about a friend near Donetsk who wrote him a warm tribute, and about Professor Scheiber, whose books Kerler knows. He also tells of a woman visiting from Israel who criticised Carpathian Jews, and recalls his son's bar mitzvah.

Gotlieb answers questions about terms for a cemetery, a good place and a good (pious) Jew, and says she does not know the expression 'Hungarian donkeys', the word for an opponent of the Hasidim, or the word for a Lithuanian Jew. In Budapest she lived among Jews who were less observant than her family at home. She met Polish and Ukrainian Jews but not Romanian ones, and discusses names for Polish Jews. She says that Polish Jews were called untrustworthy, and gives an anecdote about her husband's father, a trader.

Rezmovits describes an older community member who understood but did not speak Yiddish, and his father's friend Nosn Gotlib, with whom he discussed politics in Debrecen (the fall of Singapore). Kerler asks word-pair questions (such as 'zikher/gikher' and 'kokh/kekh'), and they discuss the Yiddish of Carpathian-area speakers. He then reflects on the decline of Yiddish and Kerler's mission, and describes encounters with ultra-Orthodox Jews, including a Satmar man and a Hasid seen in Debrecen dressed as a non-Jew.

Rezmovits speaks about Jewish collaboration during the Holocaust, mentioning Polish Jewish informers and the Hungarian Rezső Kasztner. He criticizes Kasztner's dealings with the SS (Eichmann, Kurt Becher) and the rescue train to Switzerland. He also recalls the controversy over Kasztner in Israel, and promises Kerler a book.

Rezmovits speaks about a Polish official who, according to him, helped the Polish administration yet saved many Jews, and about his son, who became the first prime minister after communism fell. The talk then turns to Kerler's book of poems, which Rezmovits has begun to read and praises. He mentions that he writes in three languages and was told about Kerler by a woman, Sonya (?).

Rezmovits discusses the Hebrew poet Nathan Alterman, whom he considers unique in Israel, and says he has translated four or five of his poems into Hungarian. He explains that translating feels to him like a duty, and that he has shown the poems to an expert but they are not yet published. Kerler suggests he should publish the translations, and both reflect that the more one learns, the less one feels one knows.

Herbst and Kerler talk about Jewish speakers of Yiddish in Budapest after the war, and about Herbst's wish to keep speaking Yiddish. He says Yiddish, the mother tongue, comes from deep in the heart, more than Hungarian does. He says he came to Budapest after the war.

Outdoors, the team chats with several men of the community about Yiddish. They discuss who speaks it, among Hasidim and Lithuanian-style Orthodox, in Israel and in Hungary. A speaker mentions someone from Mukachevo who now prays here, and the talk turns to Yiddish in the yeshiva system and shiurim given in Yiddish.

The team talks with Eduard Deblinger, born in postwar Vienna, about how he knows Yiddish and about Yiddish and Orthodox Jews in Vienna. Kerler explains the project of interviewing older Yiddish speakers, mentioning Ukrainian shtetls visited. There is an exchange of contact details and of his name.

Pearl says he stayed attached to Jewish life under Communism, kept out of the party, and made patents as a scientific worker, three of which were accepted, and is working on another. He could keep Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at the factory, where colleagues knew he had a holiday. His children went to the Sunday school and he sent them to cheder, and he tells of being checked once about where he lived and how he raised them. The Russians asked for him as a specialist in Russia but local officials would not let him go.

The passage begins mid-conversation about languages, mentioning Polish and Russian and Ladino among the Jews of Salonika. It then turns to closing the interview: Kerler says he is leaving soon and plans to spend the night commemorating the Holocaust. Greetings are sent to relatives, thanks and farewells are exchanged, and the interviewee says he rarely gets the chance to speak real Yiddish. A woman who learned Yiddish in Lithuania and reads Yiddish and Hebrew books is mentioned, followed by brief concluding remarks about Yiddishkayt.

Gotlieb talks about living in Budapest and says she lost her husband and her son. She has relatives in Israel, speaks with them by phone a few times a year, and wishes to visit once more, but she and Kerler note the current war there. Kerler then asks when she left her hometown.

Gotlieb and Kerler discuss the idea of founding a school for learning Yiddish in Budapest, and Kerler's wish to come and teach. They talk about Yiddish study at the university and among Lubavitch Hasidim. Gotlieb recalls a young man in Israel who would not or could not answer her in Yiddish.

Blobshteyn explains several terms (golem, a non-Jewish house of worship, dybbuk) in answer to Kerler's questions. He goes on to compare Christian and Jewish teaching, including the weekly Torah reading and Sunday services. They then discuss the Christian claim to be the true Jews and the origin of the Arabs. Blobshteyn also recalls a Jewish butcher who was denounced and imprisoned, and a village man he knew as a child.

Herbst explains his work in the community, making and restoring prayer books for several synagogues, and the recognition he received for it. He shows a Chabad prayer book in Hungarian and English, discusses its nusach, and shows his awards and certificates, with some Hungarian speech. He also reflects on peace in Israel.

Kerler and Doman briefly discuss the state of Yiddish and Jewish life in Russia, including a rise in antisemitism there, in eastern Europe and in western Europe. Kerler then outlines the interview plan, asking about the difference between Yiddish and the German used in the yeshiva and about Yiddish in Budapest. Doman says he studied in four yeshivas, naming Verpelét, Dorog (?) and Galánta, the last now in Slovakia.

Galambos describes Purim in Vaja: going to the megillah and then going door to door with a Purim play for small coins. He says part of a Purim rhyme, which Kerler asks him to repeat so as to write it down. He answers that a chimney-sweep play was not done and that the shoykhet organized the Purim performance. He lists the festive meal, then answers Kerler's questions about the four questions at the Passover seder and the Haggadah, and links them to Auschwitz.

Galambos and Kerler discuss belief in God after the Holocaust. Galambos mentions prayers said by women, including the prayer to the God of Abraham at the end of the Sabbath, and Psalms. Kerler asks about the future of the Jewish people and whether he has relatives in Israel. Galambos answers about the Land of Israel and a story about Moses and the sea.

Kerler asks whether people from Vaja used to travel to a rebbe or a grave. Galambos says his father went to the grave of the Kaliver tsadik, and he himself did not. He tells an episode about the Tosher rebbe, to whom Jews came in the ghetto asking what would happen, and who answered that he was a simple man; Kerler tells a story of his own. They mention the rebbe's son in Canada. They then turn to Jewish weddings in Vaja.

Galambos recites Purim-play rhymes for Kerler, who explains that the scholars find them interesting. Galambos then says he visited Israel about eight years earlier and liked it, but has mixed feelings about the Hasidim there. He also recites a prayer he said on Yom Kippur for Jewish children and finds it hard to translate.

Galambos and Kerler talk about stale noodles, then about America and Canada, democracy and Israel, and how the United States has helped Israel. They go on to talk about the Jews of Debrecen, Romania, and Galambos's learning of Hungarian. Galambos says he spoke only Hungarian at school and Yiddish at cheder.

Kerler asks whether Galambos could continue his studies after the war. He answers by describing what he saw of the Jewish catastrophe, and bitterly says the wealthy American Jews did not come to help the survivors. He says he has no relatives in Israel but his brother's son lives in New York and calls occasionally. Kerler then turns to questions about the evil eye.

Galambos says his mother read the Tsene-rene at home, for his sisters and the neighbors, and Kerler asks when this was. He answers questions about the term baal shem and a "good Jew". He then reflects on the state of the world and prays for Eretz Yisrael, before starting to talk about the hardships of a yeshiva student.

The Katerbergs talk about contemporary life: they speak Yiddish together only a little, do not hear Yiddish broadcasts, and there are few Jews in Briceni. They say they have no contact with former residents, apart from a quarrel with a relative in Israel. Kerler and Lemster thank them and end the interview.

Goldberg describes prewar High Holiday observance, when a cantor was brought from Chişinău. For Simchat Torah she recalls processions with the Torah scrolls and a children's rhyme, and the interviewers press her to sing, but she declines. Questions on Hanukkah lights, Hoshana Rabba, Shavuot dairy food and the river for tashlikh follow. Near the end the interviewers discuss with her why remembering matters for historians.

Goldberg describes Sabbath table customs with kiddush and zemirot, and says prewar Jewish trades were mainly tailors and shoemakers. She says that now many people want to be Jews in order to emigrate to Israel or Germany. Questions follow on a tale of Hershele Ostropolier, the phrase "over there crazy" about a nearby town, and annual cemetery visits.

Goldberg says that after the war she studied for four years in Bălți to become a medical assistant and worked as a nurse for forty-five years in a hospital. She talks about her pension and what she wants her grandchildren to know. Kerler and Lemster talk about her grandson's knowledge of Jewish history, the Rojtman family and Purim plays.

Goldberg describes the Călărași market and recalls the custom of kapores before Yom Kippur. She says her childhood and prewar and postwar life were hard, and that her best time was after her marriage when her children were born. The synagogue was closed by the Soviets, and people travelled to Chişinău to pray. At the end she says that people at first miss a place they have left, and that she has lived in Călărași all her life.

Roif talks about the present day: speaking and losing Yiddish and Hebrew, his daily unpaid community work, help to sick and elderly Jews through a German sponsor, and payments made to homebound people. He then speaks about Romania's official recognition of the Holocaust, the denial of it by ordinary Romanians, and the estimated numbers of Jews killed in Bessarabia. Kerler asks which government recognised it, and a passage on Jews without citizenship follows.

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.

Kerler asks how Roif's Yiddish speakers talk about the dead, and Roif gives several set phrases for the deceased and for blessing. They discuss whether a grandfather is said to intercede with God on behalf of the living. Roif also remarks on troubles in Israel and tensions with Arabs.

Kerler puts questions on words Roif used, including some Moldovan-influenced words, and on terms for 'tied up' and 'rough', and some dialectological items. Roif says he is not confident speaking Yiddish, and they discuss Yiddish speakers in the area, Ukrainian Jews, the Hebrew and German components of Yiddish, and Ladino. Roif also mentions a Soviet dictionary from Birobidzhan. Lemster joins briefly to say that he and Roif came from neighboring villages.

Roif describes the strong sense of community among Jews in prewar Bessarabia, contrasting it with Ukraine. He says that rich and poor met as equals at festivals and in the synagogue, and that a Jew was simply a Jew whatever his clothes or work. Lemster recalls a childless man from the village.

Farber sings a Russian-language song about a gefilte-fish recipe and a Jewish home, partly Yiddish and partly Russian. He then sings Hasidic-style melodies with Russian lyrics about Jewish wandering and the Sabbath, with others joining in the refrain syllables. The interviewers then discuss where the tune comes from.

Farber speaks about performing before German audiences who took a keen interest in Yiddish songs. He says he was asked in Israel why he sings in Yiddish rather than Hebrew. The interviewers urge him to record songs, and Farber says he sees his as the last generation to know Yiddish.

Shpitalnik recalls that in 1940 Jewish refugees from elsewhere in Romania came to Chișinău, among them a Hungarian-speaking family from Transylvania whom her family took in and another from Bucharest. She says she was then in the sixth class and switched easily to Russian. She answers Kerler's questions on differences in Yiddish: Bucharest speakers, Baltic Jews who think theirs is the true Yiddish, and her own Bessarabian speech compared with Lithuanian Jews.

Shpitalnik speaks about the prewar Yiddish Kultur-Lige: its meetings, members who wanted Yiddish at home, Lipe Altman (brother of the writer Moyshe Altman), the librarian Gitl Shvidkaya (?), and literary evenings. She says Rosenthal was a Zionist while the league leaned left, and reflects on peaceful relations among differing camps. She then describes her work as the only librarian handling Yiddish books today and the few remaining readers.

Abelsky speaks about his work writing articles and publishing in a Chabad newspaper and on the internet. He discusses at length the messianic controversy within Chabad about the Lubavitcher Rebbe and says he was among the first to write about it. He mentions disagreements with other Chabad figures and gives his name to Kerler. He also begins to say he was born in Moscow and evacuated during the war.

Abelsky says he is the chief rabbi of Chișinău and Moldova and discusses the weekly Chabad press and the messianic question. He argues at length about the Lubavitcher Rebbe being the 'yakhid ba-dor', quoting the Talmud, and about opponents (mitnagdim) and Chabad figures. He also mentions yeshiva students and a friend from yeshiva days now in Paris.

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.

Abelsky talks about a Chabad yeshiva in Jerusalem where his student teaches and the students learn Gemara in Russian. He discusses the place of Yiddish versus Hebrew in Chabad and other Hasidic institutions, with Katz and Kerler commenting. He notes that few yeshivas teach in Yiddish and that Chabad uses Hebrew as the easiest route to Jewishness.

Shpitalnik says her father died young in Chișinău. She gives her views on whether Jews will remain in Chișinău, noting that mainly old people are left and some return from abroad. She tells of a young Yiddish singer whose parents opened a restaurant, and describes her monthly Yiddish radio program about Jewish personalities and anniversaries.

Lipovetskiy recalls childhood games with Rabbi Tsirelson, the reading of the Shema at a newborn's bedside, and his bar mitzvah. He discusses how Yiddish differs among Jews of Russia and the local Jews, as well as Bukharan, Georgian and Lithuanian Jews. He talks about the Russian-speaking rabbi's Sabbath sermons and says he understands Yiddish. A Russian-speaking woman briefly takes part and the interviewer hears a Hebrew-Yiddish exchange.

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.

Kishlyansky recalls the return after the war, finding the house where the family had lived and speaking Yiddish with a neighbour. He grieves for the murdered Jews and asks where God was. He says he is now old.

Katz asks Roif for a last message for the archive and for future students. She answers that people coming after should be honest and not worse than we were, and complains that today there are only thieves, pickpockets and rising prices. She says she and her husband could have built a house when they were young, unlike the luxury houses built now.

Roif goes on with her message about honesty, helping others and not stealing. She recites a Yiddish poem about human greed and the need to live and let live, which she says she once sang to an uncle who was a miser and had no children. She then begins to speak about her husband's work as a kolkhoz chairman in Moldavia.

Gordin sends good wishes to Jews all over the world. He criticises the Iranian president's statements about Israel. He talks about Holocaust denial and hostile writing in Moldova and Romania, including a television discussion of a book. He says antisemitism is not felt in daily life, recalls his trip to Germany, and reflects on why many Jews did not flee early in the war.

Kerler asks Sherman about his views on God. Sherman answers that it is a delicate question and recalls a university-style lecture on God by a professor, speaking partly in Russian. Kerler then turns to the years of evacuation.

Diner recites a Russian poem on Jewish fate, which she says she assembled from three quatrains by Gubermann. She then talks about her life today: she helps neighbours with injections and is afraid to go to the polyclinic. Kerler asks her about God, and she says there is one God and hopes for peace. She comments on contemporary politics, including Russia's relations with Iran compared with its earlier friendship with Hitler.

Kerler asks how to say 'come here' and 'go there' in Yiddish, and Mitlaeva gives forms and says she has not heard others. She mentions a stay in Chernivtsi and an episode involving antisemitic abuse, then answers questions about God and religion. She says she was an atheist and a Communist Party member and describes being valued as an honest communist. Kerler then begins a question about postwar prayer in Chișinău.

Muchnik tells how she started travelling to Orhei to find the graves of her relatives and finds her grandfather's Yiddish gravestone; on the day she mentions it is a brother-in-law's yahrzeit. She speaks of the rabbi's wife Leah Abelsky, the Sabbath table, and the rabbi's Lithuanian-style Yiddish. She asks the rabbi about a Hebrew birth date.

Muchnik discusses a prayer text and a request to transcribe it into Russian letters, and her reaction to being called a nationalist because of her support for Israel and the Jews. In answer to Kerler she says she must believe in God. She stresses that she is the last of the Muchnik family and tells a story of a friend rescuing her from a fire, which she calls a miracle. Kerler then starts asking how one says 'why' in Yiddish.

Abelsky continues about a dispute in a correspondence with a rabbi abroad over whether the Lubavitcher Rebbe is the Messiah, and about the lack of replies from other rabbis. He explains the Chabad idea of the 'tsadik of the generation' and the Rebbe's role in preserving Judaism in Russia. He also mentions his own writings, a planned website and the republication of a booklet.

Abelsky answers Kerler's question on the difference between Russian (Chabad) and Polish Hasidism. He contrasts Chabad's intellectual approach with the Polish groups' emotional approach, and lists Lithuanian Hasidic groups. He tells an anecdote about a misnagid and a Hasidic Sabbath gathering. He says Chabad alone survived in Russia and remarks on Chabad's attitude to visiting tsadikim's graves, with a story about the Rebbe Maharash and his elder brother at Lubavitch.

Abelsky continues with the Russian army-style Hasidic song and its connection to a Budyonny book. He then turns to Moldovan culture, trying to recall a well-known Moldovan Jewish writer or poet. Lemster suggests names, and they discuss the family name Iimenesku (?) and the Jewish origins of many notable cultural figures.

Abelsky speaks about today's generation, which he calls a generation of the messiah, and about secular Jews who are not culpable for transgressions out of ignorance. He discusses what an apikoyres (heretic) must know, with an anecdote about Abraham Mapu. He tells of a self-declared atheist, a doctor of philosophical science, who came to the synagogue to buy matzah and whom Abelsky questioned about his unbelief. Lemster comments on priests who became atheists, and Abelsky talks about a Spinoza institute in Jerusalem.

Goldman and others comment on contemporary Jewish life: few Jews attend synagogue and non-Jews stand by the Torah, with remarks on who counts as Jewish. Asked about songs she sang while sewing, she recalls few; she names what she sewed. She mentions a book by her brother and her husband's wish to speak.

Rotner says she speaks Yiddish as it was spoken in Bessarabia and comments that others now speak it differently. The speakers discuss Lithuanian (Litvak) and Galician Yiddish. She mentions that in recent years she has had no one to speak Yiddish with, and that she speaks Russian and Moldovan with a daughter who studied in Moscow. She says she is not ashamed of being Jewish. Kerler then introduces the word questions.

Kerler asks whether Jewish history and holidays were taught in the Yiddish school. Manevich says they were not, since it was a Soviet school in an essentially Russian city. She says that outside the home people spoke Russian rather than Yiddish and that a person can be Jewish without Yiddish. She mentions speaking Turkish during the war, and recalls a time in Moldova when only Moldovan was supposed to be spoken, and how the Jews were regarded by others.

A short elicitation: Manevich is asked how to say a given Yiddish sentence, and she says she may forget Yiddish for lack of Jewish company. Kerler asks whether she knows the rabbi's wife and the rabbi (Rabbi Zalman) of the synagogue in Chișinău. Asked about Birobidzhan, she recounts that people went to Israel and returned to Birobidzhan. She says her sister lives there. She then comments on conflicts in Israel and Egypt and on violence everywhere, as she sees it on television.

Yaruskaya talks about her visits to America and Israel, preferring Israel and its Sabbath observance. She recalls prewar holidays: Sukkot, with the sukkah and decorations, and Purim, when her father played an instrument. She also describes Yom Kippur fasting at home and going to the water. At the end Kerler asks for the Russian words for water, river and lake.

Kleyman talks about hardship today: the small quarterly payment from Germany that Jewish survivors receive, her expenses for soap, utilities and gas, and aging acquaintances who are sick or paralysed. She complains that non-ghetto survivors get nothing and contrasts Germany's treatment of Jews with the poverty here. Her son went to Germany six years ago and is an immigrant there. Katz questions her about the sums.

Rapoport speaks about the revival of Jewish religious life in Moldova, including the first returned synagogue buildings, and the old synagogue and the central Jewish street with its small houses and the former Jewish hospital. He answers Kerler's questions about the age of the old synagogue and says he worked as head of an economic planning department, with ties to the hospital. He closes by thanking the interviewers.

Sharhorodskij says Jewish weddings with a huppah took place after the war, including his own, and that people became more observant after the war. Prayer was held in private houses with ten or twelve men. Asked about wedding songs and melodies, he says he cannot sing or remember any. He then speaks of the Jewish duty to help one another, praising Khaim Zanvl, the Rîbniţa rebbe, for his charity. He ends with contemporary Jewish life, the Hesed and the matzo distribution, with little Jewish observance.

Sharhorodskij says he cannot recall the rebbe's melodies. He asks about Kerler's residence and discusses America and politics, comparing the American slogan to the German one. He says the Jewish situation in Moldova is painful because few Jews remain. He says that belief in liberation helped him survive the ghetto, and describes working in a German hospital, where he met a Hamburg field-feldwebel who read the paper and said Germany had lost after Stalingrad. A political argument with Kerler follows over fascists in Russia and democracy.

Kerler thanks Sharhorodskij for his long account, which closes the formal interview. Sharhorodskij says he has told only one percent of what they lived through and speaks of the few Jews left and the lack of Jewish births. Kerler asks whether he remembers a melody of the Rîbniţa rebbe, which he cannot give, and the talk turns to photographs and a portrait of the rebbe.

Roif sings a Yiddish song about the rich and the meaning of life and giving to the poor. She then talks about Jewish life and charity today. She gives alms and lives on small pensions plus support from Germany for survivors. She gives figures for pension and prices. Katz asks how elderly Jews without that support manage.

Talks about her life after the war in Chernivtsi, which was a Soviet city with many Jews and no synagogue she can recall, though she took matzo there. She says her daughter lives in Soroca and she has grandchildren. She recalls her father's sayings about trust in God and not boasting, and Kerler compares them to another informant's parents. She also mentions her father's childhood as a young widower's son.

Asked by Kerler what she would say to future viewers, she gives her memories of prewar Soroca. It was a clean small town with good doctors and skilled craftsmen, and the Jews were decent and hard-working. She stresses the values her parents taught: honesty, humanity and not slandering others. She answers questions about the meaning of an honest person and an honest Jew, and Kerler thanks her at the end.

Nusbrokh and Lemster discuss the synagogue in Soviet times, when people rented an apartment for services, and the Jews of Soroca today, about forty with some children. Nusbrokh also tells of a friend, a Hasid from Zguriţa, who died, and the troubles of his widow over a house.

Goldshteyn says there was no rabbi in the village, only in Bălți; there he and his brother obtained tefillin at thirteen, learned the blessings, and had a bar mitzvah with a tallis and kippah. Lemster then asks about the term 'a gutter yid'. Both informants explain it as an honest man who helps the poor and also as a rebbe visited by Hasidim. The talk turns to terms such as 'Litvak', 'Galitsianer' and 'Bessarabian Jew'.

Grinberg says she goes to synagogue now. She has bought a plot in the cemetery because she wants to be buried as a Jewish woman, in a shroud and with a Jewish burial. She mentions her parents and asks whether the interviewer understood her Yiddish. Lemster then turns to the Jewish holidays she remembers.

Moisei gives closing good wishes for peace in Israel, America and Moldova, and asks that greetings be passed to Bessarabian Jews around the world. Kerler thanks the couple and the interview ends.

Meir says many non-Jews in the town spoke Yiddish, some Romanians better than Jews, having worked with Jews as craftsmen. He recalls Jews who converted, mostly women who married non-Jews, and one man who took a Christian name and worked as a carter. He says non-Jews who adopted Judaism lived in Bucharest, not Botoșani.

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.

Kerler asks David for a closing message about remembering the Jews of Botoșani. David speaks of the many intellectual Jews who left for Israel and of those who remain keeping up Jewishness as far as they can. He wishes all Jews health and unity, and Kerler ends with Amen.

Kerler and Brief discuss the song "Vu iz dos gesele" and its translation, though the singing itself is not clear in the transcript. Brief then turns to politics, talking about Russians still being afraid and about Putin as a former KGB man. Kerler comes back to Shvartskop's songs and the Four Questions.

Brief gives opinions about the Iraq war, Vietnam, President Bush and Hitler, saying that Bush is worse than Hitler. Kerler disagrees. Kerler thanks him and the interview ends.

Grunfeld answers Lemster's questions about the terms "a good Jew" and the Baal Shem Tov. He says he grew up in a religious home and talks about what he heard of the Ștefănești and Vizhnitz rebbes, as well as Satmar. His mother's brother studied at the Satmar yeshiva as a follower of Rabbi Yoilish, and he says he himself is a Cluj Hasid. He briefly discusses Ashkenazi and Sephardi prayer customs.

Grunfeld speaks about Jewish observance in Cluj and Hasidim he saw in Cluj, Dej (?) and Oradea, and about distinctions Transylvanian Jews drew between themselves and Jews from Maramureș, Moldavia and Bessarabia. He says Maramureș Jews were more religious. Asked about Lithuanian Jews and which Yiddish is correct, he says everyone considers their own Yiddish the right one, and he recalls adapting to Bessarabian speech. The passage ends with jokes and Chełm stories.

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 shows photographs of his family, including a grandson's bar mitzvah in Israel, a brother-in-law buried in Israel and his sister's grave in Cluj. Kerler asks about Jewish weddings and famous cantors visiting Dej. Hershkovich names some cantors, including Rosenblatt. The conversation turns to Kerler's own background, his documentation of Yiddish, and Litvaks and the Vilna Gaon.

Kerler and Lemster thank the two men for sharing their Yiddish, and the men say how much they value hearing it. Lemster then asks for sayings; they give drinking toasts and wishes for the sick, including one about a cloudburst. They mention Bessarabian Jews whom the second man knew from the army or work, and he compares words such as pocket (kesene and tash). A woman in the town who also knows Yiddish is mentioned, and the second man begins to recall a Havdalah song learned from Bessarabians.

The second man performs or describes Havdalah songs learned from Bessarabian/Moldovan Jews, with Kraus adding lines. They say they have spoken little Yiddish in recent years, since synagogue announcements and community talk are in Romanian or Hungarian and few know Yiddish. The second man mentions visiting Israel every few years, where he has relatives. Lemster closes by asking about Jewish weddings.

Freundlich recalls speeches by Jewish public figures at a Munich event about Jewish continuity. She says that, unlike under the Communists, Jews elsewhere are free to practise. She mentions a brother and sister in America and says that no one in her family married out. She is then asked her surname.

Freundlich speaks about Jewish life in Cluj today, with a few Jews and mixed marriages. Documents including a diploma of a family member are shown. She begins to speak about her sister's print shop.

Freundlich discusses Sabbath table songs (zemirot, Shalom aleichem) and the Passover songs, and recalls her father singing at home. Kerler asks about a Passover song, about Hasidic melodies and whether the songs were sad. She mentions her two brothers, one buried in Satu Mare, and reflects that Jewish joy is never complete in exile.

A song about the rebbe's house and the messiah's arrival is sung. Kerler explains the archive project, and Freundlich speaks about a Hungarian radio program on religion and Jewish matters. She talks about Jews in town today, with mixed marriages and a bar mitzvah.

Freundlich talks about her family and life today. Her children and grandchildren keep in touch, and she mentions relatives in Florida, Flushing and California. Her limited eyesight means she listens to the radio. She recalls conditions of Jewish life in the postwar years and her uncle who was a bank director.

Asked what should be remembered about Jewish life in the region, Hershkovich mentions the Jewish rabbi there. He says people used to learn respect for one another and had closer ties. Today, he says, there is more enmity among Jews. Kerler asks about life with non-Jews, and Hershkovich says it was harder in antisemitic periods but otherwise not much of a problem.

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 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.

Freundlich recalls the census question about mother tongue: nobody answered Yiddish, though some did later, and she could not deny being Jewish. Kerler then asks about a name, Avraham Yankl, which Freundlich says was a Wallachian nobleman. The passage ends with Hungarian talk about visitors from Indiana University.

Miller says his father, a Vizhnitz hasid, came from a village near Uzhhorod and moved to Cluj. He grew up in a thoroughly Jewish home with three sisters and three brothers (the count is as heard) in a poor household. He reflects at length on what real Jewish feeling means, learned at home, from washing hands and blessings at the table to the father asking the children about cheder.

Kerler asks Miller about songs and other voices respond in Hungarian. Miller says the Cluj community has produced good results, with Jews raised in Jewish homes who understand Yiddish and know what Jewishness means. The passage is partly garbled.

Kerler concludes the interview with Miller, who is thanked and given good wishes. Miller reflects that it is easier to be Jewish in Israel than elsewhere, since one need not pray to be a Jew there. Kerler thanks everyone and begins to ask about yeshiva study before the war.

The talk is largely garbled and mixes Yiddish with Romanian. It covers a visiting delegation from England, a former teacher of Romanian, a banquet of teachers and the search for a telephone number. Kerler explains the project and the 800 hours recorded with older speakers about prewar life and Yiddish. Isidor's own words about his family are not clear in the transcript.

The speaker tells of prewar Dorohoi: a rabbi chosen at 21, mostly mocked by older rabbis. He describes the Jewish town with 24 synagogues organised by trade, and recalls their closing or becoming a museum. The rest is practical talk about visiting relatives in Cluj and Săveni, a Yiddish-speaking couple, a telephone, and being called Tuvye.

Grimberg speaks about her observance compared with her mother's, and how she keeps Passover and a kosher home as far as her strength allows. Her son lives in Satu Mare, was circumcised, and married a non-Jewish woman; her grandson is also circumcised and wore tefillin. She describes the few Jews of Satu Mare, who speak Hungarian and Romanian, not Yiddish, and her own prayer-reading there.

Hirsch reflects on the future of Jewish life in Romania, in Yiddish with Hungarian asides, then describes Luduș before the war. He lists Jewish shoemakers, tailors and bakers, says there was much poverty and many children, and names a wealthy wine dealer, Heller Moshe, along with Aron Moritz. He speaks of Jewish pubs and drinking at the seder, and of poor Jews in the villages. He also mentions bochers from villages being fed in Jewish homes on assigned days, poor people eating maize porridge, and pellagra.

Chajim recalls singing Sabbath songs on Friday evening and says he is glad to be nearly a hundred and healthy. He says he held the wedding canopy, that two best men were killed or died, and that he says kaddish for Jews who no longer know it. He sings a hymn from Yom Kippur night and says he still blows the shofar. He says he is preparing for the next world and discusses whether there is one.

Chajim talks about Purim and its customs, mentioning gifts, and says he spoke with an old Jew in Bat Yam over 100 years old. He tells of his youth, when he played music and liked girls, and says he would not marry a rich girl.

Chajim says that the people around him were mostly Jews but also Christians. He says he can read and speak Yiddish and used to sing Yiddish songs. He reflects on how hard it is to be a Jew, naming Kiddush, the Shema, candle-blessing and Hanukkah. The wedding is hardly addressed. Kerler then asks about life under the Communists.

Finkelshteyn speaks of his postwar work on the railway as the only Jew among a hundred Christians. He explains his religiosity: he would not do anything not kosher, and he is now eighty-three (?). He mentions how in the train wagons people had cried out to God for rain and water.

Finkelshteyn says his father read and wrote Yiddish, and received Yiddish periodicals from his brother in America, reading them aloud in the courtyard in summer. He describes his father's advice to the children about conduct, drinking and thinking before acting. He adds that he himself was known in Iași as an honest carpenter whom people trusted with the keys to their houses.

Pnina gives her maiden name Albrecht, her father Haim's and mother's names and her brother Baruch, and says her father was a Zionist from Frumușica who taught them Hebrew. She is a pediatrician. When she was in her fourth year at the faculty her father was arrested, and she was expelled from the faculty. Ruti and Iakob explain their Hebrew and Yiddish names (Rukhl-Leye, Yankl Shimshn), the names of their parents and grandparents and the added name Alter. The talk moves to religious and civil weddings and mixed marriages in Israel.

Resh recalls Polish Jewish refugees who arrived in Chernivtsi in 1939, including a lodger in his family's home. In answer to Lemster's questions he discusses the terms Litvak and Galitsianer, the Austrian background of Bukovina and Galicia, and the dialects of Yiddish in Romania, saying that the children and grandchildren in Israel no longer speak mame-loshn.

Chirilau discusses mixed marriages between Jews and Christians, before and after the war, saying they were not a catastrophe. She mentions Jews from Czernowitz who stayed in Mihăileni after Transnistria and married Christians. She says that Christian women could convert to Judaism and describes their Sabbath customs, but that Jews did not enter monasteries.

Asked about life now, Chirilau says things are not good in any respect, and Kerler hopes they will improve. She says she regularly visits the Jewish cemetery, before Passover and before Rosh Hashanah, to see that no weeds have grown over the graves. She asks for blessings and a long life there and mentions the grave of her mother, which is fenced.

Leichtner talks about current events: Israel, the Arabs, the attitude of the world to Jews, and the shooting of a professor in America. The professor is described as a Romanian Jew who had lived in Israel. At the end he is asked where he was born and answers that he was born here.

Freundlich recalls women from Auschwitz and a household with a governess who was deported with them. She then describes a woman from Budapest who came to the synagogue wanting a conference on why Jews do not keep Jewishness, and her own reaction, with reflections on Jewish history and fate. Kerler interjects with a Yiddish saying about being born a Jew.

Freundlich sings a Sabbath zemer, then speaks about hearing Yiddish songs on a car and how a Yiddish language requires living among Jews. He addresses prewar Purim: he and his brother prepared a Purim play and went from house to house for money, and he begins an episode about his brother.

Freundlich recalls a Purim play and reflects on his Jewishness. He describes the poverty of yeshiva boys, favouritism toward rich students, and the honours of the minyan in a small village. He became a Communist at eighteen or nineteen and stayed away from synagogue until about sixty, and married a non-Jewish woman in 1956.

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 reflects that he did not have a youth and that younger people see these years differently. He says that in the years before the war he joined a Zionist organization, first Bnei Akiva and then a left-leaning one (name unclear). The beginning of the passage is garbled.

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.

In the community center, Grinberg and the interviewers discuss a dialect word for Purim and where it is used. She says Rădăuți Jews were less pious than those of Fălticeni, and that many in Rădăuți married non-Jews even before the war, which surprised her. She discusses children of mixed families who come to her wanting to be recognized as Jews.

Grinberg speaks about the future of Yiddish and about the many Jews who no longer know it. Kerler asks about her late husband, described as a khabadnik. She explains the word and talks about Chabad and Lubavitch. Her daughter recalls a rabbi (name not recovered) who took in about a hundred orphaned children from Transnistria after the war and married some of them.

Marcus and Kerler discuss Yiddish after the war. Many non-Jews spoke Yiddish, because they had worked as servants in Jewish homes. Yiddish was heard in the street, shop and market, and before the war three quarters of the town were Jews. They mention a woman of German origin, Maria Kirilov (?), who speaks Yiddish well. Marcus says Romanian Jews in Israel are ashamed to speak Yiddish.

Salamon says she returned in 1946 and describes the loss of faith among camp survivors in Jewish life after the war, who asked where God was; she also says some kept hope. Lemster asks about the reopening of schools.

Salamon discusses who counts as Jewish in the small present-day community, the difficulty of forming a minyan and why Hasidim do not use the synagogue. She recalls the prewar rabbi Dantziger, the small prayer houses with cheder, and the old synagogue with its mikveh, which was demolished after the war. She says the community brought in a cantor for the holidays and her father would finish praying quickly to hear him. She also describes why Jews emigrated and her visit to Canada, where the children knew little Yiddish.

Bercovici is asked what was done against the evil eye and says she does not believe in it and calls it superstition. She says she has gone to the synagogue for the memorial prayers (yizkor, in the transcript as 'Ischer') since her father died in Transnistria in 1944, and on the holidays. She describes herself as a good Jew but not religious and says she cooks ordinary food. She then recounts her schooling: lyceum in Chernivtsi, a university in Iași, and work as a teacher (dates unclear) and later at the national bank. The conversation ends with her saying that she has been interviewed before.

Galambos argues angrily about the Americans' failure to bomb the camps and save Hungarian Jews. He claims that Americans took a train of Jewish gold, for which Hungary later received compensation, and speaks about restitution. He says he gets a lifelong pension from Germany. Kerler then asks about yeshivas in the area.

Asked for the happiest time, Galambos says his life was hard. He had some good life before the troubles came, and he names relatives who survived, his parents and sisters. Asked how Vaja's life should be remembered, he says he cannot say much. Kerler thanks him and the formal interview ends.

Weinberger recalls the end of the war, when he met Soviet soldiers and a Jewish army doctor who spoke Yiddish and came from Ukraine. A Jewish officer also spoke Yiddish with him, gave him chocolate and explained the front situation. Kerler asks whether they held a Passover seder together, and Weinberger describes his return home and his relief.

Weinberger recalls songs learned in cheder, including a verse about Rachel's grave that he sang as a child, and describes how the cheders and teachers varied in learning. The talk turns to folk remedies for the evil eye using coals, to Sabbath rules about milking and electricity, and to opinions on modern religious practice.

Kerler asks about the usage of 'or who' and related forms, and Weinberger comments on which are possible in Yiddish. Weinberger then speaks about Isaac Bashevis Singer and his Nobel Prize speech, and about Yiddish and Hebrew and its prospects among Hasidim. He recalls Yiddish songs from Polish records and Kerler asks about his mother's songs.

The women speak about aging and the dwindling number of Jews in town. The second woman says she was given a room in a communal apartment at thirty, where she lived with her mother and son. Both thank Kerler and Lemster for visiting and for speaking Yiddish with them, and Kerler says they came because they were told Jews lived there.

Asked about Jewish weddings in Balta, Miaskovskaia says she remembers none. She mentions that she married a second husband after fifty years. Lemster and Kerler ask about cake, dancing and the chuppah, and she only knows a chuppah. The interviewers also explain the project to her.

Katz asks Guzman what she would want to say to Jews in the world. She answers that there should be no more war. Kerler and Katz thank her, and talk then moves to photographs before the camera cuts.

Berman recounts postwar work: a post as district health head in the Bila Tserkva region and suspicion over his Jewish colleagues, then return to Bila Tserkva as a famous doctor. He describes writing in Yiddish for Birobidzhaner Shtern and Sovetish Heymland, and his article on Ehrenburg's unpublished letters. Kerler and Berman compare their debuts in print around 1958. They also discuss a folklorist friend, Shlomo (?) Kuper (?), Berman's patient, with whom he corresponded.

The Vaismans talk about antisemitism in Soviet times, when Jews were not taken for work, and about how few Jews are left in the town. Beyle Vaisman says that after the war, when away, she gave Kiev or other places as her home rather than Berdychiv, because she was afraid to say where she was from.

Talks about weddings before and after the war, with half marrying Jews, and about the daughter and grandchildren in America and a grandchild who knows Hebrew and English. The conversation then turns to whether Jews drink, and the informants argue that Jews seldom get drunk.

Fania speaks about Israel and the Arab conflict, then gives personal information. Kerler asks for her name and the names of her parents (father Hershl, mother Hinde). She was named Feyge Leye and her documents were altered.

The team is in the van, with a Russian remark that there were eight Jewish schools in town before the war and a comment that the town was largely Jewish. Skobilitskii speaks about the old synagogue and the school building no. 9. The passage then turns to the difference between 'honest' and 'pious' in Yiddish and an anecdote about being asked about his beard. Someone says he is a professor of Yiddish, and then a speaker begins to tell of a family wedding.

The interviewee tells of the war, in which she lost her father, mother and a young sister, and says some forty family members were killed. She speaks of her anger at God over the passing years and of her husband's help.

The speakers recall that they knew little of Jewishness or the Berdychiv rebbe's grave, and compare the Soviet period with today, saying clothes are plentiful but money is lacking and pensions are small. They also talk about relatives in America and Israel, dental costs and the present situation in Ukraine and Israel.

Vainshelboim describes weddings where a local fiddler (name unclear) played and sang Yiddish songs. Asked for Jewish anecdotes, he says he no longer remembers them. He reflects that he survived by belief in God and by escaping three times, and says believers fared better under the Soviets, who promoted atheism.

They discuss the war years. Wealthy Jews stayed in Berdychiv because the Germans had not harmed Jews in 1914 and they believed money would save them. One family lost its relatives, and they recall the interviewee searching for her family at the station. She also reflects on war today in Israel.

Kerler asks what is meant by a good Jew, and Vainshelboim explains generosity and humanity in several languages. He speaks about the small minyan today, about donations and whether he goes to synagogue on Sabbath. He recalls his work on a collective farm and a garden, and bartering bread for milk. Some Jews call him a righteous man. The passage ends with a joke about a drink.

Closing exchange of blessings and farewells between Vainshelboim and Kerler. Vainshelboim tells how visitors from England or America asked him his age, and he said that God counts the years and people need not. Kerler asks about his year of birth, which is unclear in the transcript, and then says goodbye.

Vainshelboim answers questions about relatives in Israel, including a cousin of his mother, and about people phoning and sending money from abroad. Kerler recalls the team's first visit in 2002, when there was no electricity. Vainshelboim then gives long opinions on America, wars, peace and terrorism, and mentions a man named Isaak (?) whose mother was Jewish and father Tatar, who speaks Yiddish and could be visited at the synagogue. The transcript is partly garbled.

Burmenko says that people who came to write a book about her thought she was Russian. She does not want to be written about, although she says the world knows of her.

Vainshelboim recalls the street he lived on near the market, the courtyard with benches where young people sat, and a Yiddish- and Hebrew-speaking acquaintance named Vasilevsky (?). He says the prewar world was beautiful and the war took his best years. He then reflects on living long, the world's good and bad people, and mentions his son in the Zhytomyr region.

Informal conversation among Burmenko and the research team. They discuss the Americans' Yiddish and their need for interpreters. They talk about Burmenko's own Berdychiv Yiddish, her family going back generations in Berdychiv, and Kerler's own family name. Burmenko blesses the visitors with long life.

Snook talks about the 'good Jews' and rebbes whom people consulted in Khust and nearby places. She says what was said to them was secret. She explains remedies against the evil eye: extinguishing coals and using challah blessed by the rebbe. She says that Jews did not play cards, that spirits were hardly drunk, and that wine was for kiddush and celebrations.

A woman, Bershadskaya, joins the talk. They discuss where the team has been traveling from (Uman and another town), how the place names are said in Yiddish, and the fact that she speaks Yiddish and Ukrainian. She speaks of religion, the synagogue and how older people go there. There is talk of terror attacks in Tel Aviv, and the surname Bershadskaya. Kerler mentions an actress called Bershadskaya who left for Israel and a family named Kazakov who emigrated.

Kerler invites the informant to tell something or sing a song, but she says she has forgotten. He asks which languages Jews spoke and whether some wanted to speak only Hebrew; she says everyone spoke Yiddish. The interview is concluded with thanks, and other people mention a scholar and an archive. Vygodner (?) says he will show the apartment.

Gvinter talks with Kerler and Lemster about the song of going to Palestine, which was sung in secret in the ghetto and more openly after the war, and comments on politics and the Israel–Palestinian conflict today. He mentions his own illness and a daughter's family. He answers terminology questions about Bila Tserkva, about words for non-Jews and for a foolish or wicked person, and about a convert. He recalls the Bershad' ghetto, people from Chernivtsi held and shot at the stadium, and non-Jews who learned a few Yiddish words. He then speaks about his own life: neighbours and the shoe workshop, the sale of a building he was asked to sell, his marriage in 1958, his children, and his siblings. Finally he explains why one synagogue in Bershad' stayed open after the war while others were closed, and mentions the building turned into a cinema.

Kerler and Lemster ask about singing in the Bershad' ghetto and about a song, and Feldman recalls fragments of it. Other people in the room then ask what it means to be a Jew in Ukraine today. Feldman answers with her relations with a non-Jewish neighbor who brought her food when her arm was broken, and says that she herself eats matzo because she is Jewish.

Feldman speaks of her health and her daughter's treatment, then tells a story from her mother about her grandfather, who asked for a small window in his grave. She describes prewar burial customs: carrying the dead by hand, washing hands, and the dressing of the dead. She says she speaks Ukrainian and Yiddish and is proud to be Jewish.

Sklyarskiy and Kerler finish the formal interview and he speaks of today's life, the market and the neighbours. He recalls a Jewish couple, and a pious man who prayed, and says that few Jews and some non-Jews still speak Yiddish in Bershad'. They discuss the cost of dental care and the polyclinic. He returns to the story of the two hiding places and to the geography of Ivanky and Lipovets. Kerler thanks him and offers blessings.

Teitel talks about a distant relative of her mother-in-law and about her own family, her husband's death and her grief, and holidays kept only while the older generation lived. She tells of antisemitism in Sarata and why the family did not speak Yiddish, and says her husband praised Soviet power and asked for a Russian burial. She talks about Israel and the Jewish wife's role, and about her own long work life. Near the end Kerler and Milevskaya discuss matzo, the unwillingness of older people to pass Yiddish on, and the postwar atmosphere.

Loyf says there is little to tell and that no Jews live any more in a place whose name is unclear in the transcript. She says she does not travel to the graves of ancestors. She mentions that her grandmother Blime and a sister are buried here, and that she prays to God in Yiddish for health and peace in the world and for Israel. She says few Jews remain here or in the villages. Lemster thanks her at the close.

Lemster asks about Hershl Ostropoler, and she says he was a merry man who made fun of people, adding that one should not mock anyone. She then speaks of a good Jew and of her shtetl as a Jewish town, and Lemster asks what her father sang.

Kerler asks what she wants future generations to remember; she wants people to help each other and live in peace without war. She recalls what helped during the war (giving away belongings for bread, a woman who gave bread) and her mother's work, and her brothers' later careers.

She speaks about life today: her son and daughter, a grandson working abroad, and grandchildren. Katz asks about the future of Jews in Dzhurin and Nemyriv; she says only a few remain and expects nothing, and describes being the only Jewish pupil in school and technical school.

Concluding exchange: Katz encourages her to think of good things, and she speaks of her health and children. She laments that there are few Jews left and that a Jewish match for a widowed relative would be hard to find.

Sofia says the family returned to Bratslav in August 1944. She finds life just after the war better than today, because people then got on with each other. She describes prewar Bratslav as a Jewish town in which Jews married only Jews, and says that over two thousand Jews lived there after the war. She recalls Jewish weddings with Yiddish songs, dancing and music, and laments that today's young people marry out, including her granddaughters.

The Gellers speak about the Bratslav Hasidim who now visit the town from America and Israel and who are not descended from local people. Katz asks who they are. Kerler mentions an Israeli youth of Moroccan parentage who speaks fine Yiddish. A story follows about visitors the husband guided towards Nemirov, one of them on a motorcycle. Katz then moves on to prewar food.

Kerler and Yatskova discuss the Yiddish term for a cemetery. In Russian she says she visits the cemetery often and lays flowers or stones, and that Hasidim who come from Israel know her. She gives directions to the Polish and Jewish cemeteries on the road to Vinnytsia.

Kelmenson talks about her father, who was in Vorkuta for sixteen years and questioned God though he was a pious man, and about her grandfathers, one of whom lost his plantation and died in the Crimea. Kerler then asks dialect questions about words such as magazine, bucket, sick, come, pious and honest. Kerler explains his own origins, and they discuss relatives in Israel, Bratslav surnames and a woman who gave a short interview, before thanks.

Katz and Kerler ask a few words from the dialectological questionnaire, among them a word for belly, and Khavin answers; they say they need the Chernihiv Yiddish and not that of Mohyliv. Khavin then reflects on his Yiddish, his grandfather the melamed and his commitment to Jewishness, and says he has survived the war years and goes to the synagogue.

Khavin tells of Maksim (surname not recalled), who wanted to become a Jew. He studied Torah, kept kosher and prayed with the minyan. The community sent him to learn in Moscow, but he was refused conversion by the rabbi. A neighbour called the militia, and a policeman shot him, about three years ago. The community buried him and put up a gravestone. Khavin says Krichevsky knew him well and that Krichevsky's grandson studies in a yeshiva in Bucharest (?). He then proposes to show the Jewish street and the Great Synagogue.

Khavin reflects on why six million Jews died, saying he can accept his own guilt but not that of children and pious women, and mentions a relative who came to Moscow to his sister. He begins a longer story about relatives in Moscow and a trip toward Oster (?), with a question about the Yiddish form of that name. The recording is interrupted by a Russian request not to disturb the filming.

Khavin and Kerler talk about religious life in Chernihiv today and about the minyan after the synagogue closed, which gradually became hard to gather. Khavin tells the story of Maksim, who lived in a village in Byelorussia, kept Jewish observance at home, and was killed after an incident with a militiaman. He ends with remarks on his own limited observance and on payments and parcels from Israel.

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.

Burg discusses assimilated Jewish intelligentsia in prewar Chernivtsi and the progressive Temple, now a cinema-theater. He describes a visit to a liberal (Reform) congregation in Zurich, where he was invited to give a lecture. He describes the service there, with prayer in German, a young cantor and mixed seating, and his disagreement with the rabbi, who is the son of a poet (the name is unclear in the transcript). He then turns to Moses Mendelssohn and the German Haskalah, and to his grave, memorial and sculpture.

Burg recalls how he began to write, going back to Steinberg's summer colony, and the discouraging response to his first poem. He printed his first story in the Czernowitzer Bleter at age twenty-two, in 1934, and he names the years of his published books. He also talks about reviews and recognition, including a German newspaper article and a Yiddish paper in New York, disagreements with a journalist, and an Austrian medal.

Burg answers dialectological questions from Kerler, about words for 'back' and 'ten people at the table' and the use of terms for Hebrew and the holy tongue. He answers that Bund and Zionists in Chernivtsi were not hostile and that much of the Jewish youth was communist; his brother fell in Spain. They look at a photograph of his daughter and discuss his granddaughter, who writes in Russian. Kerler then asks him to read another short story.

Hesed staff speak with Kerler about his Yiddish project of interviewing elderly speakers and about Kerler's background, partly in Russian. They discuss Yiddish in Chernivtsi after the war, including the writer Moyshe Altman, the Soviet-era pressure on him to sign a statement, and the fading of Yiddish. They talk about the hesed's newspaper and Joint support, and about attitudes toward Yiddish, Chabad and Israel, and the project's aim of studying prewar Yiddish speech, not the Holocaust.

Shternberg sings and talks about wedding songs and songs she loved from childhood, recalling a cantor from Moldova named Fushman who gave concerts at the Khotyn synagogue. She sings several songs she says she learned from him, about a pillow, a drunkard and Eretz Israel, as well as a song lamenting the decline of synagogue life. Kerler asks about his occupation and about cassettes of songs.

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.

Asked by Kerler what he would say to students of Yiddish, Burg says he wants Yiddish to spread, with more readers and new Yiddish writers. He calls himself the last Yiddish writer in Chernivtsi and Ukraine. The talk turns to the verbs for 'trying' and to farewells, and the team takes photographs with him.

Kerler praises her Yiddish. Shames says she is the only Jew left in her village or street and a Christian neighbour helps her. She describes her pension and her 20-odd years of service in a textile factory, where she worked in the laboratory and as accountant until it closed. She tells how she and her mother bought a house that was later taken and replaced by an apartment.

Shames cannot name a town near Yanoshpol. Kerler asks about Jewish weddings, which she does not recall, since Soviet times had come. She says that at the synagogue she went with her mother. Yiddish was spoken before the war, but at work after the war Ukrainian. She says nobody is left to speak Yiddish, as few Jews remain.

A long dialectological questionnaire in which Kerler and Lemster give Russian and Ukrainian words and Gammer supplies Yiddish ones, with her daughter commenting. Items include greetings and times of day, mouse, house and building, window pane, deaf, near and far, early and late, cold, honest, pious and ordinary words for family and body. Gammer also talks about how she learned Yiddish, why it matters, and a Khmil'nyk inn. She then identifies men in a photograph (a partisan among them) and a doctor, and Kerler asks about visiting the killing site.

Kerler asks Shames what being a Jew means and whether God exists. She answers briefly that there is nothing to think about and that it is a Jewish God. She married after the war and had no children. Kerler thanks her and praises her Yiddish.

Shekhovich attended a Polish school for ten years and, besides it, cheder; she remembers little about the rabbi or the lessons. Polish was spoken at home as well as Yiddish, and she took part in a Jewish youth organization with singing and dancing. She says she felt no antisemitism before the war, since she moved among Polish children. She talks about an assimilated Drohobych acquaintance (Shreyer, whom she names) who knows no Yiddish, about Bruno Schulz, and again about the 'Russian Jews' who came in 1939 and were seen as a different people, with Kerler and a second voice asking questions about Poles, Lithuanian and Vilna Jews.

Kerler asks about Shavuot, Hanukkah, Yom Kippur and Passover food and customs; Shekhovich remembers little, saying that her parents spoke Yiddish but the children Polish, that her family was not so religious, though Yom Kippur was fasted and Passover had a seder without bread. She says her daughter makes gefilte fish very well, but declines to give a recipe, calling it women's business. Later there is talk of Polish and Ukrainian language, her birth year (probably 1919), and her views on Israel and troubles there.

Kerler puts questionnaire items on words such as 'quick', 'blood', 'house', 'to crawl', 'mouse', 'window pane', 'attic', 'ceiling', 'candle' and 'face'. Shekhovich often gives Slavic words and says some are not Yiddish. She says she mostly lived in a Polish and then a Ukrainian environment and now speaks mainly Ukrainian, speaking Yiddish rarely. They compare Polish and Ukrainian and discuss language and culture. Between questions they cover religious customs: kissing the mezuzah, morning prayer, her own prayers in Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, and the religious leader of the local community. Kerler thanks her at the end.

Shekhter talks about Jewish books and his regret at not studying, his pension and work in a clothing combine, where there were few Jewish cobblers but many tailors. He answers questions about words for a cemetery and for a pious or honest man, and about Kaddish, the Shema and morning prayers. He names his best years (Sverdlovsk and Zolotonosha) and says he believes in God, who saved him from the war.

Murovanaia speaks about her life today in Haysyn, her pension and her children's help. She mentions the few remaining Jewish friends and says she has relatives in Israel and does not wish to leave. She describes her roughly 45-day visit to Israel, her impressions of it and the climate, and children who live in Germany.

Beigel talks about Romanian words and the Romanian presence in her war memory. Kerler asks the Yiddish word for cemetery, which she calls a field. She says her parents went to a cemetery in Vinnytsya on anniversaries, and that she prays there in her own words. She says her father and mother prayed but she attended a Ukrainian school, and she describes herself as half Jewish. The passage ends with a question about the importance of Yiddish.

Informal conversation in Russian and Yiddish with congregants. A Dagestani (Mountain Jewish, Tat) congregant talks about the Tat language and Jewish life in Makhachkala and Israel. There is also talk about a Yiddish theater coming to town, an Israeli relative, and comparative forms in Yiddish and Russian. Kerler mentions a book by the poet Avrom Gontar (?) and says the team is going on to Chernivtsi to record living people. Parts are in poorly recognised Russian.

In Zhytomyr, Geller speaks Yiddish with the interviewers. They discuss the religious community today and whether children speak Yiddish, and the lack of Yiddish and Hebrew teaching. They also discuss the Yiddish press, newspapers and journals that still appear, and the Soviet-era publication Sovetish Heymland (?).

Lemster and Kerler discuss with the informants the Jewish community and religious life today, including progressive (Reform) rabbis and a woman rabbi in America. Lemster tells a joke about a man who buys a Porsche and wants a 'progressive' mezuzah. Geller mentions people in Zhytomyr who visit a holy man, and then begins to speak about the changes after 1991.

Geller speculates on the history of the Jews and the origin of Yiddish from German. He mentions Jews fleeing Spain to France and Germany, and debates which came first, Yiddish or German. Kerler raises the Yiddish songbook and asks whether it can be bought.

Lys speaks of his granddaughter, who studies Hebrew, lights Sabbath candles and visited Israel, and his hope that she will marry a Jewish man. Kerler then asks about prewar holidays. Lys recalls his mother's strict Passover kashrut and Sabbath, and his grandfather, a kohen. He also recalls his father, who read Yiddish and Russian books and Sovetish Heymland, the seder with the four questions in Yiddish, and that he holds a seder himself now.

Geller tells how, on a trip to a village with a Russian investigator and a police chief, he told a joke in Yiddish, and says he picked up Yiddish on his own. He says that throughout the war he never concealed being a Jew. He then tells how in 1940 his father was away visiting his mother's relatives in Moldova.

Geller says each person observes as he wishes, and recounts the visit the day before with his wife to the village of Klymbovka, where her parents and a sister are buried. He tells, mostly in Russian, of a church caretaker and a priest, and of his own challenge to belief in God. He recalls a local female healer. Kerler asks about spells against the evil eye, wishes for the dead, the custom of visiting graves and leaving food, and the words for 'field' and a holy place. They discuss visiting graves before the New Year and saying Kaddish.

Kerler asks about non-Jews who converted to Judaism. Gelman recalls two brothers, shoemakers from the Pozamke (?) area, one of whom became a Jew and kept Jewish observance more strictly than born Jews. He then mentions villages in Russia of converts. Kerler asks about prewar Jewish sports clubs, the Kamianets yeshiva, Zionists and Hasidim, and Gelman remembers little beyond what his mother told him about Zionist meetings. He speaks about keeping yortsayt for his parents at home or in synagogue after the war, his one year in cheder, and his inability to read Yiddish letters. From about 12 minutes Kerler turns to dialectological questions. These cover the meaning of idioms, the Litvak (Lithuanian) Yiddish versus local speech, regional names for Jews, greetings and farewells, and many individual words (body, household, food, colors, adverbs, kinship, time words). The questionnaire also has sentences to translate. At the end a second person speaks Russian about a certificate, a prize and a son who is a sugar-factory director.

Lemster asks whether they heard the first Ostrapol performance; Gaiviker says he has forgotten many stories and that he is the only person of his generation left. He recalls the war in aviation, the route through Stalingrad and Kaunas, and thanks his wife. Sonya notes his father died of hunger under occupation and comments on unrest in Ukraine today.

Kaviner asks whether the interviewers are religious; Kerler says not very. Kaviner says his father taught him to keep Jewish tradition, that he prays but is neither a saint nor a fanatic, and that he owns very old prayer books. He says he is old and sick and would devour Yiddish books if he had them, and Lemster and Kerler promise to send some.

Kaviner tells of an old Jew who brought goods to his workplace and wept that his gentile wife and children had thrown him out in old age. Kerler and Kaviner then discuss sending publications, Kaviner's address, and the name of the town Khmel'nyts'kyy in Yiddish and Russian. Lemster asks about the places the team has visited.

Kaviner tells a folktale about a Jewish shepherd boy in the Diaspora, beaten by his Arab master, who composed Hatikva on his pipe, and how it became the Jewish anthem. He and Kerler talk about Jewish pride and striving toward Zion. He then mentions Mark Varshavski as another composer.

Lemster and Kerler ask whether Kaviner, serving in the Soviet army, felt his Jewishness. He says he did, and he met antisemitism there, with soldiers openly voicing it. They discuss Jewish officers and generals, including Moshe Zilyankin (?), who served with him, and Soviet Jewish heroes. Kerler promises him an almanac article. Kerler then asks him to sing a song he remembers, and he starts on a ghetto hymn.

Kerler returns to the rabbi's words. Vaisblai says the rabbi, Dudye, told the Jews of Chemerivtsi that they must go to the slaughter for their sins, and that he heard it himself. They discuss people's faith in the rabbi, who was consulted in quarrels. Vaisblai ends with the cell in the Kam''yanets'-Podil's'kyy ghetto, where one man refused to go.

Kaviner talks about old age: failing eyes, body and legs, and no longer being able to read Yiddish. He says he once wrote and burned two novels and thinks of trying poetry, but doubts anyone would print or read it. Kerler says it could be printed abroad and mentions cantorial recordings; Kaviner says he has no player, though his son has one. He also names Dudl Fishman, whom he saw in Moscow, and mentions mezuzahs and a Hesed director.

Asked to recite Yiddish poems, Kaviner says he remembers a few lines of Fefer and others. He talks about the poets Shmuel Halkin, Markish, Hershl Polyanker, Fefer and others. He discusses their arrests and sentences, their camp poetry and postwar release, and Polyanker's speech about the murder of six million Jews. He also discusses faith and God after the Holocaust, and ends with a story on Jews' residence rights, mentioning Berdychiv.

The passage opens with unclear side talk, partly in Russian, about a book in the room. Katz then describes baking matzo and the seder at home, including the four questions and a Chad Gadya song. He talks about his father's exhausting coachman work. He answers questions about Purim: the reading of the megillah, children going from house to house, and why he himself did not go (he was busy helping at home). He also touches on the decline of Jewish life today and the difference between a town and a shtetl. At the end he turns to the deportation of his family, the camps and the burning of what was left.

Zinger describes his father's work as a stonecutter of simple tombstones at the cemetery of his hometown. He says some of the stones still stand, as he saw three years ago, and speaks of black marble stones made in Uzhhorod, including his wife's. Katz and Kerler close the interview with good wishes and thanks. Zinger says his daughter tells him not to tire himself and that the questions reminded him of Yiddishkayt and Yiddish words.

Snook tries to recall a song that Kerler and Katz request, and sings a Ukrainian or Russian folk song. Kerler and Katz then ask whether she has a siddur with large print; she says she knows some prayers, mentions the Rosh Chodesh blessing, and a short prayer is recited. She reflects on how things changed in religious life and life after the war, then begins to tell how Jews were taken from the village.

Snook sings a Yiddish song about a lover's letter to America, then a song partly in Hungarian and Yiddish about a wife's refusal to work. She also sings a Zionist song about breaking down the wall of exile and building a Jewish land. Kerler asks about Zionists in her village, and she recalls the pre-war party and the many Jews who left for Israel. She says the community is now small and elderly and that Sunday classes in Yiddish exist, and she talks about her grandchildren's Yiddish and wishes Kerler well.

Snook talks about Jews in Israel and America, saying they are decent and speak Yiddish, and she also mentions less observant Jews. Kerler asks what she makes of a word for such people (the transcript is unclear). She expresses thanks and good wishes to the team and speaks of her own health, her late husband and the hard years after the war. Katz and Kerler ask for another song, and the formal interview ends with talk of Yiddish books and her husband's prayer book.

Smelanskii addresses Jews in America with wishes for peace in the world and help for the Jews of Israel. Katz and Kerler then ask where Smila lies and what kind of Jews lived there. He says they were Ukrainian Jews, that he was born there, and that the town held ten to twelve thousand people, about thirty percent Jewish. He adds that few Jews remain and that many emigrated to Israel, and mentions his father's wish to see the Jewish land.

Smelanskii talks about his visit to Israel. He was there for some years (the exact period is unclear in the transcript) and mentions Jerusalem, Haifa and a place called Kiryat Malakhi. He also met invalids there and compares farming and irrigation in Israel with his own surroundings.

Braverman talks about her Yiddish articles. She wrote a column and a piece about Shapiro's booklet, and mentions an article for a Kyiv newspaper on the state of Yiddish after the Soviet period and its anniversaries. She also speaks about a Yiddish periodical and a Yiddish lecture course, and about a writer from Odessa (Tishchenko?) who emigrated.

The couple speak about the return of Yiddish, which was dormant for years and came alive again. Braverman then turns to her memoirs.

Melamed outlines his plans: a book on the Jewish world of old Zhytomyr, a recent article on the early history of the Zhytomyr Jewish community, and a series of archival guides for Ukraine under Project Judaica. He explains why Jewish genealogy is difficult: lost memory under the Soviets, name and registration problems, falsified revision lists and missing records. He says his subjects are mostly the dead, known from gravestones and archives. He says the search interests him more than the results and mentions Natan Eidelman's influence. Kerler asks what drew him to genealogy.

Kipnis talks about her father Itsik Kipnis after his return from imprisonment: his weak health, his arrest and interrogation, and the newspapers people came to read at his home. She describes his three libraries, his love of art albums and of Chagall, his friendships with Ukrainian, Russian and Yiddish writers, and his years in the camps, including a fellow prisoner and a small Jewish group marking holidays. She also mentions his diaries, now mostly archived in Israel, and his heart attacks.

Torchinsky explains what the expression 'a gutter yid' (a good Jew) means: an honest person who shares his bread, as opposed to a bad Jew. He then reads his poem about Ukraine as his homeland, written in 1989 (as heard; possibly 1988), after which Kerler praises it and returns to the question of the taste of his mother's gefilte fish.

Torchinsky recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, whom he met later in Kyiv: a Christian woman who worked for Jews, and her sister. Kerler notes there were no non-Jews at his Yiddish school in Skvyra. Torchinsky mentions Ukrainian students now learning Yiddish and recites his 1994 poem on the Yiddish language, the mother tongue, and the decline of Yiddish schools. He appeals to the American visitors for advice, and Kerler encourages him and moves to a question about the difference between babke and kugel.

Torchinsky reads three of his poems. The first is on Passover (dated 1992), retelling the Exodus from the baby Moses to the crossing of the sea and the seder. The second is devoted to Sholem Aleichem and his museum in Pereyaslav (the transcript does not give the year). The third, to Yiddish-learning children, is dated 1990. Kerler brings him back after the first poem to the seder at his grandfather's, and S2 and the Russian asides note the recording and technical details.

Khandros talks about a poem he read in Rote Fahne, a Moscow newspaper for children in German, which became a key to his later life. He mentions Heine. He talks about his decade of work on a Soviet council for aesthetic education and his teaching in an evening school. He speaks about Yiddish writers' descendants who cannot read Yiddish, including a grandchild of Sholem Aleichem whom he visited in New York. Kerler asks about Yiddish terms and then redirects the interview toward Khandros's memories.

Khandros says the Yiddish school opened his eyes to the world. He describes meeting Bratslav Hasidic pilgrims in Uman (?), who understand Yiddish. One of them sat with him for hours and wrote down the songs his father sang. These Hasidim read no Sholem Aleichem or other Yiddish literature. Kerler comments on the writing-down of the songs and asks which kind of Hasid he was, and the answer is Bratslav. The Hasid gave Khandros his address and invited him to Jerusalem.

Derbaremdiker continues about his teachers: a gravestone of the mathematics teacher Lemberg, which he found in Kyiv, and the director of the fifth school, a Jew from Poland named Yarman who taught Yiddish language and literature. Yarman once read the class Peretz's "Three Gifts". He says he now teaches at a Sunday school, where he recently recited this story from memory to students. He then begins to retell it.

Derbaremdiker explains why he speaks Berdychiv Yiddish yet tried to speak literary Yiddish after reading a lot. He says the Berdychiv dialect differed from Zhytomyr's. He mentions articles on dialects and conferences in Weinberg's collections, his work on a history of the Berdychiv Jewish community, and an article of his on Yiddish after the revolution. He and Kerler also discuss the fate of Yiddish and Hebrew in Soviet times and the Spanish forced converts.

Rusakovskaia shows Kerler her Yiddish books and her father's prayer book. Her father copied out by hand the pages that had gone missing from it. She says she sometimes feels like reading in Yiddish, and describes her father as an honest man who valued his Jewishness. Kerler offers to send her a Yiddish book and thanks her.

Katz and Kerler chat with a man, probably Yokhanan Reyzn (?), about Jewish life in Ukraine today. Katz mentions working with Jewish food products and that his young son spoke Yiddish. They say they are building an archive of interviews and will soon travel to Podolia. Russian and Ukrainian exchanges with a photograph seller follow, and the Yiddish there is mostly garbled.

Krotsh says he is unwell and talks about having been in the hospital. He mentions a friend who urged him to rest, and a woman he spoke to who could not talk Yiddish, and says few people speak Yiddish today. He laments the destruction of Yiddish and Yiddish books in Poland and elsewhere, and says he teaches himself to read Yiddish. He mentions three years in Israel, his marriage and three sons, only one of whom is still alive, and a son who was a doctor and was killed. Kerler asks when he came to Kolomyya, and Krotsh says 1949.

Krotsh recalls being demobilised in 1947 and that he returned to work in Baku. He tells of a theft at his workshop and how he declined an offer from the owner. He speaks of making a coat for a woman whose husband turned out to be a Romanian-born acquaintance, who tried to persuade him to stay. He decided to travel to Chernivtsi rather than Odesa. Kerler comments on Chernivtsi as a Jewish centre; they close with his belief in fate.

Biter says he gets German compensation as a Jewish survivor, paid since 2004 at a modest monthly rate. He describes today's economic difficulties in Ukraine, his son in L'viv, a docent on a small salary, and his daughter in Israel. He mentions his illness and expresses views on American help and Ukraine's prospects.

Krotsh and Kerler discuss a young Russian man who has become religious and wants to convert, and who travels to the rebbe. Krotsh recalls the Ştefăneşti rebbe's descendant and a visit years earlier. He mentions saying psalms while waiting for visitors who did not come at the expected time.

Krotsh says that no one is left with whom to speak Yiddish. He tells of an acquaintance who has died and others who emigrated to Israel, and says he now talks to himself at home. Kerler jokes about this and asks whether he read Yiddish booklets in Ştefăneşti.

Belous gives his birth year (1962) and says he is not Jewish. He explains why he began studying Yiddish in 1981 and learned it from a journal and from older Jews. He talks about Yiddish schools before the war, which his father-in-law (Reichman) attended for two grades. He recalls the last two Jews in Polesskoye, mentions his subscription to Sovetish Heymland, and says he taught Yiddish at the yeshiva.

Katsman tells of a Simchat Torah evening after the war, when he was a doctor at a sanatorium in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus. A Jew from Leningrad arranged the rental of a restaurant for the Jews of the sanatorium, where they ate together and heard Yiddish songs. He recalls a Jewish artist from Odessa who performed. Kerler asks whether they danced hakafot; Katsman says no.

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 says she was not taught prayers and that in the 1920s–30s the Yiddish school taught Yiddish and Soviet subjects, with no Jewish history. As a child she wrote letters in Yiddish to her mother's brothers in America and they answered. She recalls reciting poetry with a friend. She talks about Yiddish today: her daughter understands but does not speak it, and she can only speak it with the few Jews she meets.

Groysman talks about his war service. He was drafted into the army about a month after the war began and was twice wounded, near Rostov and elsewhere. After being wounded he crawled many kilometers back to the Soviet side. He says that as a pioneer and Komsomol member he did not believe in God, but began to believe after the injury and a tank attack. He then comments on his Yiddish and his Russian, and says he spent over a year in hospital.

Groysman begins by mentioning his son's circumcision after the war, then returns to the war. He describes a tank chasing him in battle, and says he survived and began to believe in God. Kerler then asks where he studied.

Obodovskii talks about life today: his pension, a job with cement, and his opinions about Ukrainian politicians and about Hitler and the Jewish question.

Obodovskii says that most of the old Jews of Kotovs'k have died and the young have left, so there is no one to talk to in Yiddish. He is asked about the word dibbuk (?) and other Yiddish terms he does not know, and says he knows colloquial Russian rather than literary language. He recalls speaking Yiddish with an acquaintance, and mentions his many books and journals left in a half of the house. They then discuss the Yiddish film about Jewish kolkhozes in Birobidzhan, which was shown at the stadium, and a visit by the singer Iosif Kobzon. He remembers the war starting as he finished third grade, with the rest of the answer running on into the next passage.

Dorfman talks about Yiddish writers, journalists and editors he corresponds with, and about a film and a Lviv acquaintance who wrote to the Black Book. He discusses Yiddish periodicals in Poland and Birobidzhan and antisemitism. He then describes Jewish life in Dnipropetrovsk — its rabbi, synagogue, wealthy patron, Jewish gymnasium and press. Kerler and Dorfman also talk about exchanging Yiddish publications and about meeting Lviv scholars.

Khonigsman speaks mostly in Russian about the later stages of his career: Drohobych until 1973, the Academy of Sciences in L'viv, two years in Ternopil, and the Polytechnic Institute in L'viv from 1976. He shows his publications and explains that he was an economic historian relying on archives and avoided attacking Zionism. After the Soviet collapse he turned to Jewish history, and Kerler asks about this work.

Khonigsman talks about his friend, the Soviet writer Alexander Lizen. Lizen was a bookkeeper in the army, learned Yiddish from a dictionary and mixed Russian into his speech. He had a Ukrainian wife, and in 1949 he urged Khonigsman to write a letter offering help to Israel, which Khonigsman declined. He then recalls a later Israeli publication and compares his own Yiddish with Lizen's. He ends with remarks on Lizen's character.

Brandler says nearly all communists in the town were Jews, and that they were taken to the police on Polish holidays. He lists other interwar parties and organizations, including left and right Poale Zion and a Zionist society, and says there was no Bund in the town. He then talks about reading an Israeli Bundist Yiddish journal and objects to its view of Israel as occupying territory. Kerler turns to youth movements at the end.

Leibel addresses his observance in Soviet times, when he fasted on Yom Kippur and took off as much time from work as possible. He worked at one institution for 43 years and was kept on after reaching seventy; after retirement he went to synagogue daily. A Ukrainian friend warned him he was being watched, but Leibel regards the synagogue as a piece of the Land of Israel.

Shvartzbroit talks about relatives abroad and about her son's career and finances. She describes losing savings in the 1946 currency reform and her earlier trade in salt. She says a Jewish girl should marry a Jew. A second voice chimes in about luck and a spouse. At the end Kerler asks her about her childhood in her parents' home.

She describes Purim before the war, with baked goods and children dressing up, and says Jewish life was full and no one expected to be shot. Lemster asks about rich Jews, who were tanners or leather workers. She also tells of meeting by chance on a bus a man from Trokhinbrod, apparently Meir Shvarts (Schwartz) (?), with his non-Jewish wife who had adopted Judaism.

Kaplan talks about his army service, including a Party document shown to the interviewers and a visit by an Israeli guest (Buchbinder) whom he guided around the area, followed by an Israeli television programme whose commentary angered him. He says he never met antisemitism in the army, attributes this to his dutifulness, and mentions Jewish commanders. He says antisemitism has existed and will exist everywhere, including Germany and Israel, and distinguishes good, bad and neutral people. Kerler then asks about expressions and terms (a good place for a cemetery, a good Jew, a good eye and envy, Lithuanian Jews and their speech). Kaplan describes his mother's gefilte fish, home-made horseradish, Passover and Hanukkah foods, mamaliga and malay, and home-made liquor, and says his father was a soap-maker and his mother a teacher. He recalls the ghetto in Mohyliv, the camp at Pechera and flight to Zhurin and Chernivtsi, and reports the recent murder of two Jews there by neighbours who robbed them. Kerler ends with further questions on words such as dybbuk, golem, a blessing for the dead, luck, house, group, skin, mouse and window glass.

Vider recalls growing up in Mukacheve on a largely Jewish street opposite the largest cheder, where he studied. He says his mother was Hungarian-speaking and his father came from Sighet and had served in the Austro-Hungarian army. At home Yiddish was spoken, and his grandmother Toybe and great-grandmother Zisl spoke only Yiddish. Today, he says, Jews pray in Russian and Jewish organizations do too little to preserve Yiddishkayt.

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 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.

Asked what was sung in the family, Tzentziper sings a mekhutonim wedding song, in which the bride's mother addresses her new in-laws, and then a variant of a wedding song about Itsik who has already married. Lemster and Kerler discuss variants with him. He then sings a song of his own composition about the Jewish fate, in which he climbs a ladder to ask God why Jews have no place. Kerler asks him to repeat it later.

Listengurt talks about the microbiologist Vladimir Khavkin, who studied in Odesa and fought plague and cholera. She mentions his work in India (?) and the Volga cholera epidemic, and that he was refused entry to Russia because he was a Jew and a social democrat. She then mentions Mechnikov, whose mother was Jewish, and says she cannot speak of contemporary Jews. Kerler then steers her back to his question about neighbors in her courtyard.

Listengurt talks about the founding of the United Nations and the vote on Israel, arguing that America, Britain and France stayed silent while Stalin's Soviet Union and satellite states voted in favor. She describes the Jews' suffering and the statehood declaration of Ben-Gurion, criticizes the refusal of countries to admit Jewish refugees, and mentions a film (Kerler names its Hebrew title). Kerler then asks about the time of the doctors' plot.

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.

A woman says the Sabbath candle blessing, and Bondarchuk then lists famous Jews born in May, among them Herzl, Fradkin, Dolmatovsky, Mechnikov, Gnesina, Moshe Dayan and Roman Kartsev. He continues with the Torah laws on the sabbatical and jubilee years and on slaves, comments on the Sabbath, and leads the audience to wash their hands.

Cherner says he moved to Odesa in 1961 and married in 1962 without a wedding. His wife, who comes from Kherson, does not speak Yiddish. He answers a question about Jewish colonies and kolkhozes: there were many rich ones and non-Jewish neighbors praised the Jews' farm work. He says Jews in America mostly do not know Yiddish, that many Jews were in the Party before the war and were shot by Stalin, and that Yiddish writers were shot. Afterward people were afraid and no longer taught or painted their children in Jewish ways.

Cherner says he moved to Odesa in 1961 and married in 1962 without a wedding. His wife, who comes from Kherson, does not speak Yiddish. He answers a question about Jewish colonies and kolkhozes: there were many rich ones and non-Jewish neighbors praised the Jews' farm work. He says Jews in America mostly do not know Yiddish, that many Jews were in the Party before the war and were shot by Stalin, and that Yiddish writers were shot. Afterward people were afraid and no longer taught or painted their children in Jewish ways.

Tokar talks about the Yiddish press he receives or wants from America: he describes a misunderstanding in which a request for a sponsored subscription to a newspaper was taken as begging. Kerler explains the American practice of finding sponsors. Tokar says he cannot use the Algemeyner Zhurnal because it is mostly in Hebrew and religious, and asks for the Forverts instead. The passage ends with Lemster and Kerler beginning the interview proper and asking where he was born.

Tokar gives his opinions on politics and Jewish life today. He thinks American Jews are divided between parties and are assimilating; he is hostile towards black Americans, whom he describes as often Muslim and antisemitic; and he says Jews are split into many parties. Kerler mentions Barack Obama. Lemster then asks him for a poem, and he says he remembers many Yiddish songs but cannot sing, naming a few titles.

At the yeshiva premises the rabbi describes in Russian his Sunday class of adult beginners, aged from about 38 to about 70 and funded from his own money. They study Torah with commentary and the laws of Jewish life. He tells how he grew up in Kherson after his parents' evacuation, and his father's war wound. He recalls that he went to Avram Katsev with his poems at 37, which led him to learn about Jewishness and to study in a Jerusalem yeshiva and kollel. He and Kerler discuss Katsev's life as a Yiddish poet and teacher, and then the group moves toward the school.

Leaving the school, the rabbi says that tens of thousands of Jews live in Odesa, about a thousand of them in the Tairov district. He recalls meeting the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 2001 and a large Hanukkah event in Kherson with latkes served by yeshiva students. He tells how he moved from Soviet activist to religious worker, and he recounts a conversation with a host family in America. As they approach the building he explains that he found the housebound elderly man they are visiting through a charity fund's list, and that he keeps a mezuzah and siddur.

Vainbrand describes how, in the month of Elul, pilgrims with children stayed at his family's house near the rebbe's grave in Valedniki, and how a man wrote notes (kvitlekh) that were taken to the grave. He then says how old he is and why he did not remarry, that his wife died after the war, and that he says Kaddish and lights yahrzeit candles. Kerler and Lemster then ask about the non-Jewish boy who learned Yiddish and became a policeman or translator for the Germans, who he says needed someone to tell them about the Jews.

Stotland says he taught his son Yiddish so he would not forget Jewish culture. He describes Jewish life in Ovruch after the war: returning evacuees found their houses occupied and lived in hardship, with no housing or work. Jews were then still found everywhere and Jewish children and teachers were numerous. Today almost no Jewish children remain in the district, the old have died, young people left, and only a small number of Jews are left, many of them in mixed marriages.

Informal talk about the decline of Yiddish and the lack of people to speak it with. The women say they are now learning Hebrew. Katz suggests sending Yiddish newspapers from America and asks who might receive one.

Turovskaia speaks about her present life and her health. The interviewers say where they come from, Kerler near Chicago and Katz born in New York and living in Vilnius. She says she knows little about Vilna beyond that tzaddikim lived there. Katz tells a story of meeting the Lubavitcher Rebbe and receiving two dollars for charity from him.

Turovskaia says where her children live: one in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, one near Leningrad, and a daughter in Brooklyn. She says she is almost the only Jew left on her street. She expresses hopes for her children and criticises Bin Laden and terrorism. Kerler then asks about Sukkot.

Vainsheinboim gives his view of how Hebrew words, such as shabes and the Bible, have been changed in modern Israeli Hebrew. Kerler adds his own remark about the Zionists' word for an orphan and then asks about synagogues.

Fish briefly comments on the state of Jewishness in the Soviet years and says his children do not know Yiddish because it was spoken less at home. He then mentions finishing the seven classes.

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 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 can count and remember only in Yiddish. She recalls that after her son's birth she was ill with a high fever and could speak only Yiddish, though her husband, who knew no Yiddish, did not understand her.

Litvak describes how her father opposed her relationship with her future non-Jewish husband and locked her in a room, from which he freed her. A sister also objected. She believes the marriage was destined and has no regrets. Her husband was a good man and his parents treated her well. Kerler refers to a story by Abramovitsh, mentioning the Petka and Golovan connection.

Litvak recalls that she loved singing and dancing, and took part as a child in a Ukrainian-language play. She now sings in the Jewish choir of the Hesed, and complains that the other singers are non-Jewish women who do not know Yiddish. Kerler asks why they come and she says they have to.

Shteingart sings a fragment of the song Papirosn. Kerler asks about other songs from his childhood and invites a greeting to Jews abroad. Shteingart gives a brief greeting from Rivne, says Jewish life there is hard to maintain, and notes that tefillin and a mezuzah can be found at the synagogue.

Kerler asks Khiterman about Jewish life in her town and what a 'good Jew' (a holy man or rebbe) meant. She answers that such men helped many poor people and that food was sent for Sabbath. A Russian exchange with a relative, probably her son, follows about whether she and others still speak Yiddish and about the language of the film. She says she once spoke Hebrew and had a teacher, but cannot remember his name.

Shvartzbroit names her sister Rivke and describes the deportation to the camp in cattle wagons, the Romanians and then the Germans, and the gold teeth pulled from prisoners. She tells of a Bessarabian Jew killed by a policeman, of Tulchin Jews like skeletons and of her mother. Her escape is told in detail: she walked about two hundred kilometres on foot as a child, hid in the forest and was helped by a non-Jewish woman, and some of it is hard to follow. She reflects that Jews are only guests in this world, and mentions a son in Israel and a daughter in Germany with two grandchildren, promising photographs.

Fish shows the interviewers old issues of the Forverts and Hebrew papers, passed to him by relatives of a Rivne man who has since died. He says he can read Yiddish with difficulty but little Hebrew. Lemster and Kerler ask whether Jews born in Rivne remain, then about the evil-eye custom and a word for ritual blessing (?); Fish answers vaguely. Kerler then asks what should be remembered about Jewish Rivne, and Fish begins to answer that Jewish schools matter most.

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.

Katz asks Krasner for more songs, and she recalls Hanukkah songs and sings a song about a merchant, which she says she learned in a camp. She mentions a Romanian Jewish girl called Tutsa from whom she learned a Romanian song, and the Romanian word for dog. Katz and the others then discuss Brooklyn and Canada.

Informal chat in Russian and Yiddish about visiting the cemetery by minibus, cats, and gifts; Katz asks Krasner repeatedly to speak Yiddish because the team is studying how it is spoken. They discuss the meaning of a mitzvah and the microphone and batteries.

While making vareniki, Murovanaia talks about people she knows in America and Cleveland, and about the Kerler family, who were neighbors in Haysyn. Kerler says he lives in Bloomington, Indiana. She mentions a daughter in Nuremberg and a grandson in Moscow. They discuss the similarity of Yiddish and German and its place in the world as an international language.

Shvartsburg explains that about 1,200 Jews were shot in Skvyra in three massacres within six days in September 1941. In 1947 their bones were gathered and buried in the new cemetery under three stones, and he says no marker stands at the killing sites. He also says that few Jews were left, many having been evacuated. Then he talks about Jews and their children today, including intermarried families and two grandchildren studying in Zhytomyr.

Kaviner discusses how Jews entered higher education under the Tsarist regime. Admission was highly competitive, and some Jews, he says, converted to qualify. He names several well-known figures, among them Rubinstein and others, mentioning that one died abroad. He begins a story about Jewish converts who became priests in Khmel'nyts'kyy.

Kaviner talks about a priest of Jewish origin who comes to the Hesed and visits him, and about another convert whose father had hidden among non-Jews during the occupation and married a non-Jewish woman. Before death, the father told his sons they were Jews. Kerler and Lemster ask about the church and about the priest's languages. Kaviner says the priest knows Polish, English and Hebrew prayers and reads Scripture with him.

Continuation of the dialectological questionnaire. Kerler asks Klein for forms of sentences and words such as river, street, stove, potatoes, 'to put in order', rich man, dreidel, wagon, face, 'many people', 'room' and 'enemy'. Klein, partly in Russian, answers; towards the end Kerler asks how important it is to learn Yiddish, and she hopes Yiddish will not be lost, though she is pessimistic about its future in Ukraine.

Klein reflects on the purpose of the recording, which will go into an archive as history, and on books and a Yiddish journal she reads, noting that few Jews remain to read them. Kerler asks what a term for wedding bread (?) means.

Burshtein speaks about life today and the couple's pension, and Kerler thanks him and wishes him well. Burshtein says in Russian that he regrets losing Yiddish and never learned to read it; he read Sholem Aleichem and others in Russian. He recalls amateur Yiddish theater in Sobolivka and a visiting actress after the war, and Kerler mentions the visiting singer Horovits (?).

The team talks with Veliye, born in Sharhorod, who lives in Israel and is visiting her son in Teplyk. She talks about her pension, her husband, her children and grandchildren, and the Jewish relatives and acquaintances she knows in Israel. She tells of visiting the grave of a revered figure at Uman and of the climate and the sea in Israel. She also describes Hasidic families who travel there, and recent news of killings. Kerler says that he is recording how Yiddish speakers talk.

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.

After opening chat among those present, Shusterman gives her father Toyva's name and says he was born in Tomashpol' in 1901 and died in 1995 aged 94. He worked in several jobs, including at a bank, and wrote well in Yiddish and Russian. She describes him as an honest and pious man who prayed daily and led the Passover seder. After the war he acted as a kind of rebbe, saying kaddish for the dead, and the militia broke up prayer gatherings. She says she cannot tell about Jewish life before the war and then talks about his singing and her own love of music. She talks about her own accounting career, leaving work at 53 to care for her blind father, and then knitting and selling at the market. She also covers her own illness and depression. The few Jews left in Tomashpol' (eight) gather for holidays and yortsaytn, and she explains why she will not emigrate and a relative in Germany. She says antisemitism was present earlier, and she describes her wartime evacuation to Mordovia and the postwar housing and compensation. She also talks about her husband, a non-Jew, and a lost love from Odesa. The passage ends with Kerler's thanks, a promise to send Yiddish songs, and fragmentary talk.

Shveibish describes how the Joint and the Vinnytsya Hesed support the poor and camp survivors with parcels, medicine, firewood and coal, and pay people to clean and cook for the elderly. They repair the homes of the lonely, and children from a large family are sent to a summer camp near Pechera. She tells of Sabbath and holiday gatherings in the community's office, with children singing and tea and a simple table. She says the office is in the Potocki house and offers to show it. Kerler asks where the office is.

Kogan performs 'Dos lagerl' about the Bershad' camp and ghetto and the cemetery, and explains that Gedalye was a shoykhet and Dvoyre his wife. Asked when he wrote it, he says he composed it while the Germans were there. He then recites his song 'Aheym, briderlekh, aheym', which expresses hope that all Jews will be freed.

Kogan performs his song of the ghetto, 'Tsezeyt un tseshpreyt', then sings 'Aheym, briderlekh, aheym' at Kerler's request. He says he wrote the songs in Yiddish while the Germans were there, and that he had attended seven classes of school before the war.

At Kerler's request Kogan performs his three Yiddish songs again, in order: 'Dos lagerl' (the Bershad' camp and cemetery), the song about the Jews driven over the bridge, and 'Aheym, briderlekh, aheym'. He ends by saying he thought about the songs in Bershad'.

Kogan sings a song about Jews driven in the ghetto, including refugees from Bukovina, Bessarabia and Hungary, then "Aheym, briderlekh, aheym", a song of Jewish homecoming. He says he wrote the songs himself in the ghetto and kept them hidden. He recalls the reaction of listeners, a suit brought to him by refugees from Bukovina, and a request to send his songs to Israel. Kerler then asks how he came to be called into the army after liberation.

Lev tells how he rebuilt his house after the war with the help of a Ukrainian specialist, and they chat about life today. Kerler asks Yenta and Aleksandr their ages, and her maiden name is given as Tolkovitz; the passage ends with Kerler asking what it means to be a Jew.

Kerler asks about Palestine and Israel; Pecherskaia talks about violence there and about her daughter's life in Israel. She recalls a visit to a small town, probably Bat Yam or Beit Shean (the name is unclear in the transcript), where she saw a river and the countryside, and says it was the only place she visited. She describes the ultra-Orthodox neighbours, their large families, and how the state pays them.

Pecherskaia says she remembers no Yiddish or Gentile songs and thinks only of her children. She reflects on how hard it is to be a Jew and recounts a recent incident at an office in which she was insulted as a Jew; she says she no longer goes out and her son buys what she needs. She mentions that many Jews have left the building where she lives. She and Kerler then wish each other health and talk about Kerler's children, and Kerler starts to look for a photograph.

Family: a sister who went to the front and an uncle in America who wanted to take her out. The father died in the 1930s, perhaps during the famine, leaving the mother with two children. The informant says her grandparents are no longer alive and recalls that the family lived in the synagogue building where her mother prayed. Her mother was a cook; Kerler wishes her health to enjoy her grandchildren, and the talk touches on Israel.

Gvinter's husband (Yuzl, per the catalogue) joins in. She says she has two daughters and four grandchildren in Israel. She speaks of living among mixed nationalities there, with Arabs and others, and of an Israeli's remark about preserving Jewish identity.

Teplitskaia says her children have non-Jewish spouses, including the daughter-in-law of her son in Germany. She says the son has a tallit and tefillin and attended synagogue in Germany. Kerler asks whether the children know Yiddish and ends by beginning a question about a synagogue in the town.

Teplitskaia recommends a poor Yiddish-speaking woman in Uman' as a possible interviewee. Her name is given as Manya, but the family name and address are unclear. Kerler and others ask about her family, saying they will go to her the next day. She also reflects on honouring parents and old people.

Teplitskaia talks about the character of people and about Jews who came to Uman' from abroad, including from Israel. She criticizes some of them and talks of freedom and of speaking the truth. She also speaks of Jews who fled during the war. The talk drifts to the present.

Teplitskaia says she has lost hope in the present, and prays to God for peace and for the good of her children and grandchildren. She describes loneliness alone at home, her depression and tears. Her daughter and son visit and bring medicines and food. Kerler urges her to be optimistic. At the end he asks whether she has a message for the Jews in America.

Teplitskaia blesses the interviewers with health and the help of God for them and their families. She invites them to visit her, and Kerler responds. This closes the interview.

A gathering at the grave of Nahman of Bratslav. The community members discuss Rebbe Nahman and his disciple Rabbi Nosn, the Bratslav teachings, the ten psalms and the idea that every Jew has some good point, and they sing Bratslav melodies together, including one about a joyful year. They talk about Sabbath songs and the differences between Bratslav and other Hasidic groups. The talk turns to Yiddish and Hebrew vocabulary, with some word discussion and a few parables. Katz and Kerler are asked about themselves (Katz born in New York and now living in Vilnius, a professor of Yiddish language, literature and history), and the group talks about yeshivas and rabbis of Lithuania, Poland and Brooklyn, and about praying together.

Krasheny talks about his mother Zisl, his younger brother, and how the whole family was murdered, leaving only him. He describes being old and hard of hearing, and says visitors from America and Israel come to see him. He then reflects on few Jews being left in Ukraine, young people emigrating to Israel and America, and intermarriage. Using the example of his own grandchildren and their children, he speaks of Jewish identity being lost through marriage to non-Jews. Kerler thanks him and wishes him health as the team leaves.

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 talks about her family, including a grandchild named after her brother, and complains about neighbours and her treatment. She mentions the deaths of her parents and grandparents, a relative in America and her own operations. Kerler asks whether the team can come to her home.

Chirkova speaks of her grandfather, who was tormented and killed during the war, and of Jews of the ghetto who were forced to dig their own graves and thrown in alive. She says she returned with her son and was helped through the ordeal, and she speaks of God keeping her alive. She also mentions an album of pictures about the Jews and the people who came to take things.

Chirkova describes applying to a technical institute and meeting Stalin (?) or an official about it, and how gifts were given to a duty person to get things done. She says God records everything a person does, speaks of a trial of her factory director over goods sent to the front, and mentions Uzbekistan and her parents' death there. The account is difficult to follow.

Chirkova speaks about Jews during the war, how they gave up valuables to survive, and what she kept or gave away. Katz asks for the Yiddish word for a silver or gold object, and she settles on a ring and a watch. She says she has passed these things on to a Jewish person since she has no children. Kerler asks about her having no children.

Chirkova talks about her family, including a son and a grandson in another town, and a brother who came back from the front and died. She expresses her faith that God fixes each person's span of life and that no one can change it. She says she thanks God at every moment and gives away her pension, and she mentions attending both Jewish and non-Jewish gatherings.

Chirkova says non-Jews attend Jewish events and that she lectures to people, including in a monastery, where audiences are pleased. Kerler asks whether she tells them about Jewishness, and she says she teaches them about Yiddish and Jewish matters.

Katz asks for another Yiddish song. Chirkova says she has forgotten it, but she insists she sings only in Yiddish and says she was not allowed to speak. She says one must tell the truth about being Jewish. Katz then asks what one does for someone sick with a fever.

A woman speaks about Jewish observance before the war, saying each person kept it as he wished. She recalls the Passover seder, the four questions asked by the boys, and her father's teaching of religious duties. She closes with an exhortation to remain faithful Jews.

Vainer-Shpak tells of praying at the cemetery for her husband, father and mother and says God helped her. Kerler then asks the AHEYM dialectological questionnaire in Russian and Yiddish. The items include greetings and times of day, house, book, window and glass, colors, building, adjectives and adverbs of space and time, health words, the bed, midwife and thousand, the street, potato and flowers, shop, kinship words and family, and 'a different story'. Many of her answers show uncertainty or ask Kerler to repeat. The two also talk briefly about the project's other interviews.

Barshteyn says she spoke Yiddish with her parents, that elderly Jewish women in Vinnytsya often do not understand Yiddish, and that her son (about 52) finished school locally and went to Vinnytsya. She says Hebrew was known only to those who went to a yeshiva, and that Hebrew is now taught. She names her father's seven siblings and their trades, including trading, tailoring and shoemaking, and her mother's early orphaned family. Lemster asks whether the cousins met.

Asked how she kept her Yiddish so well, Katz says she spoke it with her uncle and aunt and had few chances afterwards. She recalls hardly speaking it in postwar years, since a Yiddish word could cause trouble. She then returns to her husband's death, her two children and her grandchildren, and Kerler wishes her good health.

Kerler asks why Vinnytsya needs a Jewish mayor or official. Tsodikovich answers that people chose him, that he is doing a great deal of good, and that people are ungrateful. In part he speaks Russian. They also discuss earlier Jewish figures in Vinnytsya, a former deputy, and whether the present official is Jewish. Tsodikovich and Kerler disagree about whether there is antisemitism in Vinnytsya. Tsodikovich says people feel it, while Kerler says they do not.

Kerler and Lemster thank Tsodikovich and close the interview. Tsodikovich says Yiddish was spoken at home with his grandparents and mother, and recounts a long-lived woman. Kerler explains that the recordings will go into an archive for future generations and online. Tsodikovich is pessimistic about the future of Yiddish, and Kerler says he is optimistic. Tsodikovich also mentions children in Israel, and both wish each other good health.

Khazin says his 38-year-old son married a Ukrainian woman; they lived together five years without children and divorced. After his wife's death the two of them went to synagogue where the son said Kaddish for his mother. The son then decided to be circumcised. A remark about a course the son was sent to is unclear.

Khazin talks about the periodicals he subscribes to, including a Jewish newspaper in Russian published in Kyiv and a Kharkiv paper. Lemster asks about his politics. He says he voted for the Communists this time, having voted for Yanukovych before. He says he joined the Party at the war's end, and discusses Yushchenko and Timoshenko.

Khazin shows a Russian-Yiddish dictionary and says he bought it but never worked on it. He describes himself as a Russian-Ukrainian Jew. Kerler and Lemster ask some questionnaire items on words such as 'dybbuk', 'goylem' and 'beter'. He then gives opinions about drinking, smoking and modern medicine, and recalls a joke from a stage play and a Yiddish theater and institute in Vinnytsya in the 1930s.

Yatskova explains that she understood Yiddish but spoke Russian and Ukrainian, because she had no one to talk to, although Kopayhorod Jews spoke Yiddish. Lemster asks why she did not speak it, and she insists she loves Yiddish and cannot renounce her Jewishness. She says she survived the hungry years and the occupation and that the school had seven classes. A stretch of the Yiddish line is a recogniser loop.

Yatskova says the prewar years in the shtetl were good, with people living in harmony, unlike now. She says no one needs her, that she is ill with heart and blood-pressure trouble and cannot travel anywhere, and that three years of occupation were a nightmare. Lemster then asks about the Jewish cemetery.

Yatskova talks about her grandfather the pharmacist in Murafa, later a dock porter in Odessa, whom local non-Jews remembered, and about a non-Jewish woman who spoke Yiddish better than she did. She explains that she read Sholem Aleichem in Russian and that her family spoke Russian with the children. Asked about Kopayhorod, she says she knows nothing of its history or of Malkele at the cemetery, and she complains that visitors from Israel throw away her flowers. She says neighbours treat her well, that her father was respected and taught many locals, and that she regrets not leaving after the war. She recalls friends the Grinmans, Misha playing the accordion while she directed stage shows, and her visits to the Odessa Jewish theater and its actors. She finishes by thanking the visitors, and Lemster offers her Yiddish books. The transcript ends before the catalogued passage ends.

Lebvol answers questions about prewar cinema and the Polish films in Zhovkva, and recalls an evening at a theatre where Yiddish songs were sung. She says the show turned out to be a Christian missionary group that brought in an image of Jesus, and that the audience walked out. She adds that such groups perform in Yiddish and Hebrew today.

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

At the start, Katz states the date and place, and Kerler gives a brief report on the expedition's progress. He mentions the many elderly Jews who have told of childhood, biography and way of life, and the new findings on dialect. Katz then questions two small boys about their cheder: their ages and names, the teacher, the weekly Torah portion and the story of Adam and Eve in Eden.

Antsis answers Kerler's questions from the Yiddish questionnaire, with some contributions from Katz. Items include the words for Jew, table, bed, mouse, cat, dog, sun, dove, numbers such as ten, and a deaf person, along with phrases such as 'my son', 'all together', 'everything' and 'one and a half'. She remarks that she forgets words, speaks Yiddish with others on Sundays, finds reading Yiddish hard, and has a view on Lithuanian Yiddish. She also comments on being the only Jew in her neighborhood or building.

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.

Geller speaks about family names, including how a relative received the nickname Tatele. He remembers writing home from the front and hospital in Russian with Yiddish letters to get past the military censor. Today he and Leyzer speak Yiddish every morning, which he says keeps Yiddishkayt alive as it dies out.

Geller discusses Yiddish today. He says a Kyiv paper has little Yiddish, and that new Jewish schools teach Hebrew rather than Yiddish or Ukrainian. He notes that the Lubavitcher rebbe on television speaks Yiddish and equates Yiddishkayt with Torah study.

Shraibman describes his army career: ten grades, the army college, a lieutenant's rank in 1952 and discharge as a major after 26 years. He spoke Yiddish with non-Jews and met few Jews in the army. He describes the value of mame-loshn and recalls an Argentine girl who spoke Yiddish. He also served at a site where an atomic bomb was tested on living people, and he mentions being behind the German lines for about a week and a half.

Shpitz says he loves Yiddish but is one of two Jews in the village where he lives. One child lives in Berdyansk (?) and one with him, and he has three grandchildren, one relative in Israel. Lemster asks about words for 'sick' or 'asleep'. He says his wife was born in Zhytomyr, her father was a carpenter and her mother a bookkeeper. Lemster then asks his name, closing the interview.

The speaker explains administrative geography: Pyotke belonged to the Vinnytsia region before 1937 and then to the Zhytomyr region, lying some kilometres from Chudniv (?) and from Berdychiv. Kerler mentions a man named Fishman. The speaker then reflects on faith, God and how the world has become confused, and says that people who broke away from their roots could be manipulated.

Shraibman finishes the story of a friend (Lyova Lerman (?)) and his wife, who objected to Yiddish being spoken on the street in his officer's uniform. He describes how rare it was to speak Yiddish in the army. He tells of hearing Yiddish on a ship from Yakutsk and meeting Moldovan Jews who shipped wine barrels there. Kerler asks how he and Rabbi Shlomo understand each other across Yiddish dialects, and Shraibman says Jews understand one another through the soul rather than the language.

Kerler asks whether Shraibman met antisemitism in the army or the Soviet period. He says he never hid being a Jew and refused to tolerate antisemitic jokes. He tells of a confrontation with drunken antisemites at the Kyiv station and with a major ranting about Jews in a taxi queue. A passing exchange partly in Russian shows the man knew a relative of his, and Shraibman insists he will not allow such things while alive.

Shraibman recalls a custom of seating the bride at a Jewish wedding and the badkhn who sang to the guests and to the bride. He then reflects on the better and worse times he and his wife lived through, and on which period was best.

A speaker, partly in Russian, recalls acquaintances and a friend who worked beside him selling goods at the Zhytny market in Zhytomyr and later left for America. He says he worked in trade, selling ice cream, beer and vodka, and mentions a letter he would have to find. Kerler explains the word zhytnie and then asks what it means to be a Jew.

Nibulskaia says that pupils of the Yiddish school were all brought up as nonbelievers. At Passover they marched in the street singing anti-religious songs and shouting against religion, and children's rhymes mocked it. She says she no longer goes to synagogue but believes in God, and Kerler asks how it all looks to her today.