Other holidays

Dof says he is now a cantor in a Budapest community in Buda. He describes the big Khust synagogue with its cantor and a strict beit midrash, and his cheder with a fine rabbi. He recalls hearing a Yiddish sermon on Yom Kippur in a 'Polish' synagogue on the street where the family lived before the war; Kerler asks for the year. He lives in Buda now and says the synagogue there has Friday-night services. Few Yiddish speakers are left, since many died in the Holocaust; Hungarian Jews spoke Hungarian, some German.

Kerler asks for the year of the rebbes' return. Pearl says the Mukachevo rebbe came to Hungary in 1942, bearded and tall, and the Belzer and Bilgoray rebbes arrived in Budapest in 1943. He prayed once at the Belzer rebbe's minyan on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur 1943 and has a photograph. He worked in a military factory and later met the rebbe's gabbai David Spira and other Belzer Hasidim in the Bor camp, where they held a Belzer minyan.

Pearl talks about present-day religious singing, mentioning a Sephardic prayer book and the Saturday-afternoon service. He recalls the night-long Simchat Torah celebrations of his youth. He also mentions that he will show the gravestones and a picture of the Belzer rebbe that he distributed. The camera then films his apartment.

Doman tells a story from the Shavuot night before the war, when yeshiva students were attacked by antisemites on their way to the rebbe's house; one had his arm broken. A tall non-Jewish soldier on leave intervened, and he fled when he saw a bearded man in a black beaver hat, taking him for an angel from heaven. Kerler then asks about the beaver hat and the shtreiml, and Doman explains that Hungarian Jews wore the shtreiml only on Sabbath and holidays, borrowing the custom from Poland.

Gotlieb says Yiddish and Hungarian were spoken in her childhood, with Hungarian at school and Yiddish at home and in the courtyard. Her courtyard had many children, and she mentions a family of twelve of whom three remain. She recalls playing with nuts on Sukkot, then talks about lighting the Hanukkah candles on the eighth day and singing Ma'oz Tsur.

Gotlieb answers questions about everyday food at home: cholent on Sabbath, potatoes and baked goods in the week, and meat and fish only on Sabbath. She says she made fish herself but not stuffed fish with sugar, as the Polish Jews did. Kerler also asks whether she remembers Hanukkah songs, and she names Ma'oz Tsur.

Gotlieb and others show photographs and a Hanukkah menorah in Israel, including a cousin (sister's child) in Netanya or Tel Aviv. She says she has also been to Israel. Kerler discusses sound quality and a visit two years earlier, then raises Purim and other holidays.

Herbst gives personal information: he is elderly and his health is poor, and he describes his praying and Torah-reading in synagogue. He recalls travelling to Linz and nearby places for the High Holidays and working in Austria. He mentions his visits to hospital and his gifts to a doctor, along with other acquaintances and current religious life.

Asked about visits before the war, Reti names nearby towns, including Kisvárda, a Hasidic town; he says it now has a minyan only on Friday night and Sabbath and that Yiddish speakers have died. Kerler then asks about baked sweets and other foods: Reti names cheese-filled pastries (delkerlekh) and cheese or cocoa pastries, then Passover and Hanukkah dishes made from potato, and does not know several terms Kerler asks about. Kerler also asks about tomatoes, apples, mushrooms and the word dybbuk, none of which Reti recognises.

Reti says the best time was going home from the yeshiva at the end of a term and for holidays, when the family were all at home. He tries to recall a Hasidic melody, says he cannot remember songs from his parents, and recites or sings a plea to God about Jewish troubles that was sung before the war in times of persecution.

Brief remarks on present-day Jewish life in the town and a Hanukkah event, partly garbled.

Kerler asks Reti about the Purim play, the costumes and the scene in the Joseph play where Joseph passes his mother Rachel's grave. Reti describes the costumes and the scene. They discuss summer performances before Shavuot, played in several villages, with non-Jews also coming to watch and partly understanding.

Kerler asks about a song on the coming of the Messiah, and Galambos answers with remarks about the shofar. They discuss how to send material to him, and Galambos talks about the coming Rosh Hashanah.

Bukshpun says that after the war they worked in the village; his father had fought at the front. He names Jewish presence before the war in Kurzhevits (?) and Belyavintsy (?) and says Jews and Christians lived without problems. His father's shop sold goods on barter, and he says his father had no time for stories. He remembers the uncle's house in Briceni with its minyan and the elderly man Moshe who led prayers. He recalls the father's tallisim, the synagogue's candelabra and the Torah reading; he does not remember dancing on Simchat Torah.

Tkach describes how her family kept the holidays, including Passover with matzo and Purim with sweets. Her mother did not work and had a beautiful soprano voice. Her father worked hard and played several instruments, and was at the front during the war.

Abelsky tells anecdotes about his grandfather, the Hasidic rabbi of Moscow, and a Mitnagdic rabbi who quarrelled with him, including how the grandfather attended his opponent's funeral. He relates the story of the etrog and lulav before Sukkot, and tales heard from his teacher about a miserly Hasid, a rebbe's fundraisers and a Hasid in a short coat.

Answering questions about Purim and Simchat Torah, Kishlyansky recites the opening lines of a Purim play. He recalls Simchat Torah children's flags with an apple and costumed Purim players going door to door. Kerler asks him to repeat the lines on camera. He says people neither prayed nor sang in the camp, only wept.

Roif says they went to the Ştefăneşti rebbe, and that her father-in-law and her mother's grandfather were rich and sent wheat to Ştefăneşti for flour for matzo baking. She stresses good relations with the villagers before the war and contrasts them with camp experiences. Katz asks about the rebbe's standing, and she says he was known across Romania and Bessarabia. She then turns to how she keeps Purim and Hanukkah today.

Gordin speaks about the single synagogue in Florești, which functioned until some time after the war, and about a short course in Yiddish with Itsik Landa that lasted only a couple of weeks. He then answers Katz's questions about holiday customs: Yom Kippur fasting foods, Hanukkah dreidel and money, and cheese bagels on Shavuot. He says he does not remember blessings or Sabbath songs.

Sherman describes his mother's Sabbath and holiday food, especially gefilte fish (not peppery), sweet-and-sour meat, and a yellow cake at Purim; at Hanukkah children played with dreidels. He says there was no Purim play in Telenești, only the custom of noisemakers in the synagogue. When pressed he says amateurs staged Yiddish plays at Purim.

Diner says young people met in houses and sang songs. She says her father read Sholem Aleichem but had little time, and that she herself read Romanian books, including Eminescu and translations of world literature such as Tolstoy. She is asked whether she was taught prayers and which Jewish holidays she remembers.

Diner answers questions about Purim masks and about Passover, saying her father led the seder and was an honest man, which is why he was shot. She describes her grandfather, who prayed daily in a tallit and was her confidant. She tells how a teacher dressed another girl in her national costume for a school holiday, how her grandfather taught her to value learning and to give charity from her Hanukkah money, and which languages were used at home and school.

Kerler and Lemster put questionnaire items to Diner. They ask about a rare word of Polish Yiddish origin, Lithuanian Jews and the word for a Lithuanian Jew, and the meanings of 'dybbuk' and of a simpleton or fool. They also ask about the term 'a good Jew', Hanukkah food such as latkes and doughnuts, and the golem. She often does not know the word or answers in Russian.

Mitlaeva recalls the small synagogue where her father took her before the war and some holiday customs. Asked about postwar Jewish prayer in Chișinău, she says she does not know how those who wanted to pray managed. She also comments on Soviet policy and says antisemitism existed, though the Soviet authorities also made evacuation possible.

At Kerler's request Abelsky tells stories about his grandfather, the rabbi of Moscow, that he heard from others. One concerns a misnagid who argued with the grandfather over blessings on the four species at Sukkot and over jumping with joy. He also mentions the grandfather's earlier origin in Sredina Buda and relates a story he heard from his father about a Hasidic timber merchant at the Rebbe Maharash's court.

Abelsky sings a contemporary Hasidic nigun with a verse text, and another voice joins with wordless refrains. He then says Hasidim have no use for cantors, since their own prayer leaders are better. He mentions an American offer of twenty thousand dollars for him to lead the High Holiday prayers, and recalls cantors and the composer Tkatch, whom Abelsky says was very impressed when he heard Abelsky recite the selichot.

Goldman answers Kerler's Yiddish dialectological questionnaire. The items include words for the rich man and the dead (a blessing for the deceased), man and boy, table, plug/fire extinguishing, vehicle terms (wagon and plural forms), 'on the road' and 'on this road', and everyday phrases and greetings (good day, pleased to meet you). They also cover Hanukkah dreidels, Tisha b'Av and the burrs thrown then, verbs like leave/abandon, ill and sleepy, and 'back'. Further items are room, suddenly, the difference between 'honest' and 'pious', enemy, the cross, plural nouns such as shoykhet and matchmaker, and what to say at different times of day.

Benderskij says that after the war they returned to find the grandfather's house, in which a non-Jewish worker had gathered his bones. In 1946 they gave their murdered relatives a proper burial; the two synagogues are discussed, and Benderskaia's family name and a rebbe from Belarus are mentioned. They return to prewar religious life, with Simchat Torah.

Kerler asks about Nisporeni's bathhouse and mikveh, about the custom of throwing crumbs into water before the New Year (tashlikh), and about the pond or lake there. The couple and Kerler then discuss the Yiddish words for a pond, a river and a stream. The passage ends with Kerler turning to the subject of evacuation.

Rotner describes how her mother made gefilte fish rather than chopped fish, using a knife and later a grinder, with the skin removed. The questionnaire continues with words for animals, colors, building a house, weather, distance, time, illness, piety, the street, the river, potatoes, flowers, and the home. Kerler and Lemster also ask about non-Jews who worked for Jews on the Sabbath, the Jewish New Year versus the Christian one, midwives, kinship terms, the prayer leader's lectern, the afterlife, and a game with dice. She says the session made her recall Yiddish she had not used for many years, and that she speaks Russian with her children.

Rojtman describes the town today as almost vanished and recalls it as a cheerful town, with Simchat Torah processions of lanterns. She says her paternal grandfather left for Buenos Aires in 1913 and her grandmother in 1924, with nine children. She names them as Avrom and Nekhome. She has many relatives there who have no contact, while relatives from Israel visited the family.

Shmid mentions her son-in-law and then answers Kerler's questions about drinking in the village: Jews drank on holidays but were not drunkards, unlike the non-Jews. Her father took a small glass on Sabbath. She calls her parents' home very Jewish, and says the family went to the city for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, staying with relatives and later with the married children in Chișinău.

Boiarskaia describes how her mother prepared cholent: the oven heated on Friday, the dishes sealed in, and the noodle kugel everyone waited for. Lemster asks about Passover dishes such as kezl, malakekh or pletselekh from potatoes, stuffed derma and goose fat, and she names some terms from Bessarabia. She goes on to the braided challah, her mother's chopped fish with matzo meal and onion, and horseradish, beet borscht and its uses on Passover and Shavuot.

Magetman recalls her first year at school and names rabbis in the town, Zukerman among them (the spelling is unclear). She remembers her parents going to synagogue on the High Holidays and a non-Jewish woman who came to light the stove; she cannot name the town's several prayer houses or a tsadik. She attended a Romanian school before the war and a Soviet school after it.

Rolshut answers questions on cultural terminology: dybbuk (which she knows from seeing the play), golem, local place, and wishes for the dead. She then talks about prewar Passover at home, with separate Passover dishes, kept in the attic. As a child she asked the four questions beside her father, found the afikoman, and opened the door for Elijah. She also describes her mother lighting Sabbath candles and the Yom Kippur eve table.

Mirenburg talks about her family before the war: her grandmother left young with two children and learned a trade, and her mother, with four children, had no time to attend storytelling evenings. She recalls her mother singing Yiddish songs and teaching the children Sabbath observance but cannot remember the songs. Kerler then asks about food eaten before the Yom Kippur fast.

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

Luminskaia recalls her grandfather's stories of Esther and Hanukkah. She says Chipovich was a Jewish shtetl with a synagogue and, according to her mother, three prayer houses, one of them for the rich, which she visited once with her grandmother. She mentions hearing a cantor there.

David talks about his work for the Jewish community in Botoșani. He recalls an episode involving his sick mother and a kosher butcher, mentions that he was a professor and coach of basketball who travelled to other countries, and describes the Jewish bath and mikveh. He describes how, as community head, he arranged Passover and Yom Kippur meals, a children's club, and help with the municipality, and speaks of the small number of remaining, elderly Jews in Botoșani and other Romanian towns. Lemster asks why he gives himself so wholly to the Jews.

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

David speaks about singing Hanukkah songs with children at the synagogue today. He says there are no antisemitism problems in Botoșani and that the synagogue has not been vandalised. He also mentions money received through the federation to repair the synagogue roof, and ends by telling how little the community needs. Kerler then asks about the Botoșani rebbe.

David speaks about the prewar great rabbi Burshtein, whose son Motele later lived in Israel, and about a shoykhet. Lemster asks about the Stefanesti rebbe; David knows him only by hearsay from childhood. He mentions Hasidim and tsadikim, the prayer houses and monuments in the cemetery area where people go to pray, and cantors who came for the High Holidays.

Finkel says her father used to travel to the rebbe, whom the transcript renders unclearly, perhaps Ștefănești (?). She says her father was an honest man and she does not know why he went. She does not remember holiday practices such as the Tisha b'Av ones. Kerler urges her to tell what she remembers for the sake of the visitors.

A guide, presumably Rabbi Kofmansky, shows the team the Chernivtsi synagogue and says that Chernivtsi had around eighty synagogues before the war and far fewer afterwards. He points out the painted decoration. It includes the sukkah and the guests (ushpizin) in order, Joseph's dream, Jacob, Abraham, Moses at the Red Sea and David. He explains how worshippers stand facing the elders depicted.

Hershkovich answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish questionnaire. The items include greetings, requests, words for the cat and mouse, war and battle, teeth, minyan and the well, and prepositions meaning 'at the father's'. They also cover plurals, the Hanukkah dreidel and regional names (the Regat). Further items are Jewish and non-Jewish terms, the word for face, house, room, and several sentences to translate.

Answers questions from the dialectological questionnaire on the word for the spinning top (tenderl, drenderl, dreidel, dreiderl) and on the nut game played at Sukkot. Kerler then asks about a comic named Zaldi/Zeldik (?) and the word for 'green'. This leads to a discussion of colour words, red and fair hair, and the surname Grunfeld.

Freundlich says her childhood neighbours were Jewish, with one Christian family on the street, near the Bixad rebbe. She says her father respected but did not follow the Satmar rebbe and refused to kiss the rebbe's hand, and describes the kapores slaughter at home. She also tells of her grandfather's modest death on Sabbath eve in a snowy winter and his instruction to his son-in-law to say Kaddish.

Freundlich speaks about the absence of a circumcision in her family and about rabbis and rebbes known in the region. She names the Shaprana rabbi who came in 1946, the Bixad (Bixad) rebbe who was her neighbor, and his piety and death in Auschwitz. Kerler asks about the Hasidim who came to him and about tsadikim who slept on a couch. She also remembers her father's holiday and Sukkot piety.

Hershkovich recalls what happened when the family came home from synagogue on Friday night, and Kerler asks for songs. They discuss a song or rhyme about the days of the week and a song about how hard it is to be a yeshiva student. Asked about the best time in his life, Hershkovich says life was hard, but the holidays were a joy, when children got new clothes.

Freundlich talks about Shir HaShirim as a folk song, which she says was sung in Yiddish and Hungarian and which she recited in Hungarian. Kerler asks what she remembers of it in Yiddish, and she also recalls a Hungarian song about the messiah's coming. The passage ends in Hungarian talk about a hospital.

Describes Sabbath meals before the war: cholent, kugel and Friday fish, including carp from the river by his birthplace and sweet gefilte fish. Kerler also asks about the tashlikh custom on Rosh Hashanah.

Miller says his poor family never went hungry because his father was a prayer leader and shammes, and distributed Sabbath portions and tutored the children of wealthy families. Kerler asks about a Yiddish song his father sang. Another voice sings a short song about the collection box. Miller mentions songs sung at Simchat Torah and Purim.

Miller explains that his father, a prayer leader, used his earnings to buy firewood, and in good years took the sons to the Vizhnitz rebbe's family in Grosswardein (Oradea, as heard) for the High Holidays. Kerler then asks the interviewee to talk with the research secretary, who speaks Hungarian. Miller begins to chant the Vizhnitz melody.

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

Lipovici says the sheep belonged to the family, who had four brothers working with them. Lemster asks which language he used with the sheep, Yiddish or Romanian. Lipovici says he knows some French, learned at school. He says he did not study at a Jewish school, but remembers a Jewish teacher. He repeats the story of gluing the melamed's beard in cheder and Kerler asks about the burrs thrown at Tisha b'Av. He also says he does not remember his grandparents.

Lipovici answers questions about his prayer and where he learned to pray, the cheder, and the fact that there are no children to send to cheder now. Kerler says when he himself goes to synagogue, on Purim, the High Holidays and Simchat Torah. Lipovici also gives an answer to the question of the best time in his life, which is hard to follow.

Asked about his childhood, Chajim recalls cheder, work with wagons and hauling wood to Tuzac (?), and says he does not remember his grandparents. He talks about his father taking him to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and about prayers he still knows. Kerler asks about customs such as beating Haman during the reading of Esther (Purim) and about the Edineț bath and mikveh. He says he was in Edineț from 1941 and again mentions work in forced labor.

Chajim retells a Sholem Aleichem story about why it is hard to be a Jew and the tale of the arendar who needed a ninth man for a minyan, and a story of a man who could not reach the synagogue for Kol Nidre. He says Sholem Aleichem died poor while Sholem Asch had better luck. Kerler and others then urge him to pray, and a garbled kaddish or kiddush follows, with the Romanian-speaking bystander moving the chair.

Finkelshteyn says that after the pogrom he was taken for forced labor, from May 1942 to 1944, in a quarry loading stones into train wagons. He returned when the Russians entered Romania. After the war he worked on the railway until he retired at sixty. He stresses that he never lost a workday, did not work on Sabbath and arranged time off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Resh talks about Purim in his childhood and the good relations with non-Jewish neighbors before the war, who visited at Purim while Jews visited them at their holidays. He says there was no antisemitism in Chernivtsi, describes masking and singing at neighbors, and Simchat Torah processions with flags in the synagogue. Lemster asks about Purim songs and a purim-shpil, which Resh does not recall, and then about Yiddish theater.

Kerler asks about theatre before the war, and Chirilau says that Yiddish and Romanian troupes came, in a primitive style. She then speaks of the town's synagogues, one for each trade, and the festive days when the whole town would go. She remembers the wooden synagogue burning down when she was five and that the others were built of brick.

Chirilau recalls Jewish holidays, including Simchat Torah dancing and Sabbath attendance at the synagogue. She talks about Purim, when Romanians, Germans and Jews dressed up and ate hamantaschen, and tries to recall a Purim song with Kerler. She then tells about a poor local family, a short husband who drank and a tall wife with many children.

Chirilau recalls attending the synagogue and being asked to light Sabbath candles for a Jewish woman, and that some Jews were not observant. She lists Jewish foods and answers Lemster's and Kerler's questions about how gefilte fish was made, with bread, egg and a little sugar, and meat dumplings of beef. A short exchange about firefighters and the synagogue fire closes the passage.

Leichtner sings a Sabbath blessing and the interviewers praise his singing. He explains the Yiddish word for potato and gives a recipe for potato kugel, baked Friday in the oven and taken out Saturday. He describes gefilte fish, sweet and sour fish, and brandy, and says wine was not made at home. Then he is asked about Sukkot.

Macarie describes working in a laboratory with medicinal plants after the war. She recalls her childhood up to eighteen in a large, happy family where Yiddish was spoken at home and Romanian learned at school. Asked whether the Yiddish of Maramureș differs from that of Moldova, she says no. She recalls holiday preparations and what her mother taught her in the kitchen: cooking, kneading bread, Sabbath cholent and kugel.

Macarie completes the gefilte fish recipe and talks about bread. She describes the family house: three rooms (boys, girls, parents), a separate kitchen and a porch with steps and a threshold. Kerler elicits the porch word. She says on holidays they cooked, baked, ate and went to the temple.

Grinberg talks about present Jewish life in Rădăuți: prayer at the synagogue, a communal seder, Purim and Hanukkah observances, and Jews coming from Bucharest and elsewhere. Before Passover a shochet comes and she arranges kosher meat for Jews in Rădăuți and nearby towns. She says the community is old, with few young people, and mentions a young couple expecting a baby. Lemster asks where she learned her Yiddish.

Cojocaru describes Simchat Torah celebration in the synagogues, with singing and drinking, and what people drank. She answers questions on stuffed goose neck and Passover goose fat. She lists the towns she travelled to, including Botoșani, Bucharest and Ștefănești, and towns with many Jews. She talks about the Yiddish names for Mihăileni. Kerler asks about her husband's Yiddish and about stories.

Kurtsberg recalls Sabbath eve gatherings of his father's brothers and sisters, with a meal and stories. He then describes Purim in Siret after the war, with friends, costumes, going from house to house and Purim food such as hamantaschen and stuffed liver. He mentions the High Holidays that follow.

Kurtsberg lists occupations in the Bershad ghetto (carpentry, a barber, a blacksmith, doctors who made medical cabinets, dentists). Answering Lemster's questions, he describes Sabbath preparations at home, his mother's Friday cooking and the food of Sabbath and Shavuot. He also describes how chickens were slaughtered and salted at the kosher butcher.

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

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.

Weinberger describes the occupational and economic structure of Jewish Stropkov before the war. He mentions shopkeepers, tailors, and the many families who could barely earn a living, with a small rich minority. He then tells of a stigmatised group of families called kitchers (?), said to descend from a Roma man, whom others would not marry, and of how they were killed in the war. Near the end he begins on Simchat Torah memories.

Weinberger recalls Passover, when as a boy he asked the four questions and invented jokes about his father. He tells jokes about Passover customs, including snuff tobacco and a Purim rabbi's ruling. Kerler then raises Hanukkah and a few terms, and mentions a local man from Košice who still speaks good Yiddish and whom Kerler might contact.

Chaimovic describes the Sabbath at home before the war: his mother baked three challahs, kiddush, and zemirot, and he gives details of cholent and other Sabbath dishes. He sings a little of the table songs and talks about his mother's workload and the fourth meal. His mother made fish on Sabbath, including false fish, and he answers Kerler's questions about terms for the dishes. He also mentions the fasts and the nine days without meat.

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