Songs and music

Rezmovits describes his Orthodox community in Debrecen. In the morning he studied secular subjects at a school in the Real School Street, and in the afternoon he went to the talmud torah in the same building. He and Kerler discuss the synagogue on Post Street, a cantor whose son became an opera singer in Switzerland, and the Paul Robeson records he collected. They also talk about the surviving remnant of the old school with its Star of David on a window grating, the mikveh, and the Orthodox and status quo communities in the same street.

Gross is asked about singing and chants a prayer; he is then asked for Purim songs and recalls the Purim play, performed by yeshiva students in the home of his godfather. He gives the number of Jewish families in Vaja, but the transcript is inconsistent (forty or fifty families among about 160).

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.

Dof says he worked here after the war and stayed beside his ill mother for years; he is called a devoted son. He and Kerler exchange names, and Kerler gives his card and says he lives in America. Dof explains that his name is Yitshak Dof, not Imre (the Hungarian form), and mentions his mother's brother Bernstein in America, a confectioner. He then recalls the Purim play only dimly and says his wife also speaks some Yiddish.

Gotlieb says her brother David studied at a yeshiva away from home and was clever, but he and all her brothers were unmarried and perished, as did her parents and relatives. She recalls fragments of a song her mother sang. Then she talks about the tsadik Yismach Moshe (Teitelbaum), whom people visit for blessings from around the world, and about her own visits to his grave.

Gotlieb recalls prewar Jewish weddings as beautiful, with singing but no instruments among the Orthodox and men and women separate; she says the rebbe danced a mitzvah dance with his followers. She describes sermons in the synagogue given in Yiddish or Hungarian and Hasidic life of study and singing. The passage ends with a discussion of the difference between rov and rebbe and their plurals, with Neolog and Orthodox rabbis.

Herbst says he worked at the sawmill with Russians, Ukrainians and Romanians and heard no Yiddish there, and that after the war he met few Yiddish speakers outside the hospital. He and Kerler talk about his Yiddish, which resembles that of Hungarian-Jewish Debrecen, and about the words 'Litvak' and 'pani' (thief) as Yiddish usage. Kerler asks about photographs, and Herbst describes postwar friends, including musicians, a pianist he met in hospital, and professors. He mentions a painter friend (name unclear, perhaps Anton Revis) who painted his parents.

Kerler asks what languages were heard among the Jews in the camps. Herbst says most of his fellow prisoners were Hungarian speakers and that the Germans forbade Yiddish. After a short remark on the Haggadah, Herbst offers to sing table songs (zemirot) next time. Kerler asks for a Hasidic tune or a Yiddish song. Herbst starts a song about a butcher at the end.

Talk around Herbst's pictures (paintings) and the people who looked at them, with talk of a woman who studied Russian in a Hungarian school. Herbst begins a song about a burning town, and there are mentions of Drohobych and Zhytomyr. Kerler reads out the date of the recording as 20 June 2007.

Kerler asks Deutsch whether he remembers more of a Purim play. Deutsch answers that it was in Hungarian and that nothing of it was written down. Kerler then asks for prayer, and Deutsch chants Hebrew liturgical texts from memory, among them what appear to be Hallel verses (?). Kerler praises the chanting and asks for a little more.

Pearl speaks about Purim before the war, when families exchanged gifts of food and children performed a Purim play lasting about half an hour. He then recites a postwar Purim song sung in Romania, in which Stalin is praised and Germany's fall is celebrated. Kerler has him repeat it so he can record the words, and they discuss the Romanian words in it.

Doman describes the yeshiva day, from rising early through prayer, breakfast and Talmud study until the midday meal, plus afternoon and evening sessions and a Friday examination. He compares the cheder system, in which children began Humash at about six. He explains the system of eating "days" with different families, and Kerler asks about the term and the word for beans. They discuss the one Sephardic (Hasidic) yeshiva and how it differed. They also cover prayer-text differences, student helpers who repeated the rabbi's lecture to younger students, and the prohibition on Hungarian books. Doman recalls a song learned from a Lithuanian-born student.

Gotlieb says her pious mother taught her to pray and to read and write the holy tongue, though she herself was unwilling to learn. She attended a Hungarian school, where some Yiddish was also taught. Her father worked in leather, her mother was named Chaya Sara, and a long stretch about a professor and other people is garbled; Kerler and Gotlieb end by discussing songs she learned.

Gotlieb recites and sings a Purim rhyme and says her grandmother taught it to her. She went from house to house at home, received money and baked goods, and recites another Purim rhyme about falling. She says she has no one to speak with now and so does not speak Yiddish well.

Blobshteyn explains wedding customs: rich families held the wedding on Sunday, with a separate table for the poor and a jester (badkhn, 'gramer'). Two Roma musicians played at the chuppah. He then describes preparing for Passover: sewing and cleaning, making beet borscht in a large barrel, the matzo baking and cooking, and eggs. He mentions egg dishes, pickles and the Yiddish word for them.

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

Herbst recalls friends and acquaintances after the war, including a pianist whose name is given as Becker (?) and whose concerts he attended. He also recalls receiving clothing sent by the JDC and having trouble with influence and connections. He complains that the Carpathian Jews were sent in the first transport to Auschwitz.

Herbst describes a visit to the Bronx in America, where he was pressed to lead the morning service in a synagogue. Kerler then asks about Yiddish words and expressions, such as the Russian-derived word for 'right away', the meaning of 'apakn' and related words, and the word for 'now'. Herbst then answers questions about his family in America and Israel, and about a friend who became a rabbi. Kerler asks about a song on the coming of the Messiah.

Reti recites a hasidic prayer text and chants a Purim Kiddush. Kerler asks him to repeat parts slowly, and he recalls Purim rhymes and a comic wedding verse with a joke about a tall bride. Kerler and Reti also discuss words in these texts.

The formal interview begins with Kerler giving the date and place and Samadi giving his name, that he was born Shifman, and his Jewish name. He gives the year of his birth and says he was born in Bököny. He then recalls prewar Jewish life there, naming the rabbi, shoykhet and shames and the rabbi's four sons, who sang with Samadi in the choir. Kerler asks him to sing.

Samadi speaks of his mother, who read the Tsene-rene on Sabbath. A second speaker recalls in Hungarian Friday-evening customs at home, including the father singing at the table before the family could leave. The group then chants Shir haMa'alot with the singing around the table. The recording is badly garbled here.

Reti says he studied in a yeshiva in a town named Berkan(?) with a rabbi whose family of many children is mentioned. He describes the village Purim figure who made a straw belt and announced the festivities. He recites parts of the Joseph play, in which the brothers sell Joseph, and Kerler asks about the troupe: over twenty young men who performed whole plays around Purim in ten to fifteen villages.

Reti and S2 describe a play about Rachel's tomb staged in the synagogue before the war, with praying and singing. Kerler asks what a Purim shpiel means and Reti says it was a big play about Joseph. They also discuss songs the children sang. Kerler thanks Reti at the end.

The formal part of the interview ends with wishes for health and a long life. S3 and S2 comment in Hungarian on Reti's health and his taking things to heart. Reti sings or chants a snatch of text. Kerler then asks about rabbis of Hungary and Lithuania, a book about Hungarian rabbis, and whether a badkhn or grammer performed at Jewish weddings, especially Hasidic ones.

Galambos describes Jewish weddings in Vaja. There was a canopy and a meal, with no dancing, a toast, and singing at the meal. A wedding jester from a nearby place rhymed there. He says there were no klezmer musicians in the village.

Altman answers questions about the meaning of 'a good place' and 'a good Jew', and about the Yiddish of Baltic, Polish and Ukrainian Jews. She describes a Jewish wedding before the war: the canopy, music, dancing, and uninvited guests. She tells of a violent local man nicknamed Feyse Laber (?) who disrupted weddings and singing.

Bukshpun answers dialect questions on words for ill and weak, flee, converts, rose, people and 'the four of us'. He reflects that life was good before the war, with bread and milk, and that after losing his parents at fourteen he suffered hardship. He talks about butter, cheese and goose fat, stuffed ducks and onions, no mamaliga, a Romanian school director, bees and sheep, songs, and his brother's bar mitzvah at the uncle's house, not his own.

Reizman says she attended Romanian school, not a Soviet one, and started work afterwards, as did all her siblings. She says she lights Sabbath candles only sometimes now and cannot recall Yiddish songs. She says women did not go to the synagogue regularly, then names Jewish dishes such as borscht, varenikes and krepelekh, and describes a meat dish. Lemster asks about kapores before Yom Kippur, the shoykhet, and cheder. She says the family could not afford religious schooling for the younger girls. She also covers Hanukkah money and latkes, and Passover customs including burning the chametz and the dishes kept in the attic, then Purim dishes.

Lemster explains the aims of the dialect project and asks what 'pure Yiddish' means to her. She says many non-Jews spoke Yiddish and that many Jews lived among Christians. He then asks about words, among them 'meshumed', Lithuanian and Bessarabian Jew, and a 'good place' for a cemetery, 'Jewish field' being the answer she gives. Other topics are the town's trades, Yiddish papers and books, theatre, concerts and cinema, which she says were expensive, klezmer, a wedding with a rabbi, hasidim and a 'good Jew'. She says she knows few of the terms.

Reizman discusses the evil eye and how Jewish women cured it, including a healer who treated her after a dog scare, with a knife and spoken charms. Lemster asks about dybbuk, golem, a Jewish funeral with a washing hut, a lullaby and a cradle, and she answers a few terminology items. She says she does not remember songs from her youth.

Asked about Yiddish sayings and curses, Reizman says she remembers none, and recalls her father kissing the mezuzah, praying in a tallis and being buried in his tallis. She says her mother did not sing and that she herself remembers no Yiddish songs, jokes or wise sayings. Lemster repeatedly prompts for anything she heard from her parents.

Furman describes prewar Sabbath observance: no work was done, and the family went to the synagogue. He talks about the food, kugel and the mother's candle-lighting, and mentions a non-Jewish neighbor who lit the stove. He says he read Yiddish, mainly the Pentateuch, and remembers no Sabbath songs.

Furman answers questions about terms and expressions, including a good place for burial and the use of the word Litvak. He explains that Bessarabian Jews were called Romanian Jews. He then talks about attending prewar Jewish weddings, with the groom's procession and klezmer musicians.

Kerler and Lemster put questionnaire items to the Katerbergs: the words for 'earlier' and 'once', how to say them in Yiddish, and a song for Passover. They also ask about serenades before the wedding canopy.

Kalussky talks about Soviet times when prayer houses were hard to attend, and about prewar Jewish theater and songs. He says Christians also attended Yiddish performances, and some knew some Yiddish. He sings a Simchat Torah song.

Faiershtein says she has written 1,017 poems, mostly in Russian, with her own music. Kerler asks about the earlier interview for the Americans, which was in Russian. She says it is hard for her to tell war episodes in Yiddish, and begins a story about a nine-year-old child and a coat.

Faiershtein tells how as a nine-year-old child in the camp she was given a dead woman's coat and beaten by a Romanian guard; she hid in a pit in the sandy ground. She recited the poem about this in Briceni two years ago and met people who had carried her. Her mother got a pot with brown sugar from a Ukrainian woman. Her family of thirteen left Moldova and only three returned. Lemster asks about songs from Soroca; she says she sings Russian songs.

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 says her wedding was traditional, with a chuppah and klezmer musicians playing Yiddish and other songs, although the family had very little after the war. Kerler then asks about a family of comb or kimel makers, and Lemster mentions someone named Kilimann (?) from Israel.

Roif answers Kerler's questions about prewar weddings in Bessarabia. He stresses that Bessarabian Jews were strictly observant and ate only kosher food at weddings. He talks about wedding music, the master of ceremonies (a kind of guide), matchmakers and their fees, the engagement contract, and the difficulty poor girls had in marrying.

Farber, who says he will show his shtetl and what remains of it, takes the interviewers to the Jewish cemetery. He recalls his part in clearing it in the 1990s (the year is unclear). He then discusses with Lemster the Yiddish and Russian songs he knows.

Farber describes his mother as a Jewish housewife who baked, cooked, sewed and sang, with a cheerful home. He says his brother has lived in Israel for about fifteen years (the transcript is unclear whether a nephew is meant) and that he lacks people to speak Yiddish with. He sings Yiddish songs at non-Jewish weddings. His father worked as a clerk until 1940 and then went to the mines.

Shpitalnik names the libraries of Chișinău before the war and says she read novels in Russian, later in French and Romanian. Asked about Yiddish theater, she recalls her parents attending the Vilna Troupe and performances by Sidi Tal, Gina Zlotaya (?) and Adolf Tefner (?). She also remembers an evening with Itsik Fefer in 1940.

Shpitalnik says Chișinău was a Yiddish-speaking city with street vendors calling out in Yiddish, though she saw no street singers or klezmorim playing for money. She describes prewar Jewish weddings with canopies, glass-breaking, an entertainer and klezmer, and says she married in 1951 without a canopy, considering it old-fashioned, although her husband's parents wanted one.

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

Mester describes a Jewish wedding held in winter 1937, with the canopy outdoors in the snow. Neighbours from the whole village, Christians included, came to watch. She recalls the groom being met on the road, a klezmer or orchestra and the officiant brought from Edineț, and the glass being broken. She names the dishes: stuffed fish, soup with almond noodles, meat cooked in the ground, and portions of pie with leeks sent home with the guests. Christian neighbours were also guests.

Tkach recalls the wartime evacuation to Namangan in Uzbekistan, where her father taught at a college of music from Moscow. He was urged to move to Moscow but chose to return to Moldova, and the family went back in 1945. She cannot remember the Yiddish songs her mother sang, and she remembers the war years as very hard.

Tkach names Jewish dishes she makes, such as gefilte fish and kugel, learned from her mother. She describes hunger and hardship in Chișinău after the war until about 1950, queuing at night for bread. The family found their house destroyed and lived in a shed; she was given a flat only in 1970. Her father played classical music, and she does not remember Jewish music at home.

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.

Abramovich talks about what remains of Mendele's legacy: autographs, the library, the museum, and his translations and interest in natural science. She says the family fled in 1941 when she was seven. She mentions a Polish song and a poem by Maksim Rylsky dedicated to Mendele, stories her grandmother told, an album made in Vilnius and now in Israel's National Museum, and her father's pseudonym. The visit then turns informal: cake, Israeli press clippings about her, a tennis-champion article, and book sales and names.

Gordin recalls Jewish life in prewar Florești, including a synagogue and a shoykhet, and a wedding he remembers where food was served and klezmer played. He describes his parents attending the synagogue on holidays, with men downstairs and women upstairs. He also speaks about cheder and an uncle who was a melamed, and says Jews were religious.

Gordin recites a short Yiddish poem he knows from childhood, about a grandmother and her grandchildren with apples and berries, and repeats it at Katz's request. He then recites a Hebrew poem built on repeated word pairs. He offers a school piece in Romanian or French but says he did not study Yiddish formally.

Sherman talks about his father's prayer and observance: he knew the Jewish melodies well, prayed at home, and knew the prayers sung after the Torah reading. Kerler checks which prayers he means, and Sherman says the cantor chanted them to a melody.

Diner talks about her mother's cooking, including gefilte fish on Sabbath, kugel, tarts and bagels, and says she moved to Chișinău in 1965. She recalls her sister and brother coming home in the summers from the conservatory in Bucharest with their friends to play and sing operetta and opera. Her father wanted her to become a doctor, which is why she later could not study in Siberia.

Asked about Yiddish theater in Fălești, Diner says visiting artists came, including Sidi Tal. She says that in Novosibirsk someone told her to look up Sidi Tal in Chernivtsi, and that she did meet her there after escaping. She also mentions concerts and operettas, some in Romanian and some in Yiddish, which came to the town.

Diner describes being arrested and held in a prison in Mykolaiv after the war, in cell 39. She says she met a German woman, Marta, who told the story of the operetta Silva, which Diner copied down in the camp. She recounts Marta's story of a Russian officer who fell in love with her in Germany and how she was arrested.

The formal part of the interview ends and the interviewers ask whether Diner remembers any songs her mother sang, but she has forgotten the Yiddish ones; Kerler recalls lines of a song about in-laws (makhetunim). She says her sister taught her to read in Romanian from the age of four so that she would not have to learn from religious texts. Lemster tells of a very old acquaintance who remembers everything. Kerler thanks her warmly.

Muchnik says that after the war she studied at a financial technical school and worked as a finance specialist for her whole career, with her seniority counted as thirty years. Asked about songs sung by her mother, she says her aunt Beyle, whom she calls her second mother, spent more time with her and sang to her. She begins to recall a children's rhyme.

Muchnik says she attended a wedding in a village before the war but remembers little, and neither klezmer nor Yiddish songs. She recalls Yiddish songs at weddings only after the war in Bender. Asked about Shavuot, she says green branches and dairy foods marked the holiday, and that her mother baked dairy pastries and bagels. Kerler and Lemster ask for names of the baked goods.

Answering Kerler's question about old Chabad traditions, Abelsky tells how the Alter Rebbe supported Russia in the Napoleonic war while other Polish tsadikim favored Napoleon. He tells of the contest between the Alter Rebbe and Israel of Kozienice over who would blow the shofar first. He recounts how a rabbi, Moshe Meizlish (?), spied for the Russians inside Napoleon's headquarters. He then answers Kerler's question about the origin of the Chabad melodies sung with words.

Abelsky tells a Hasidic story about a Hasid of a rebbe who visited him in a short jacket, and names the man from whom he heard the stories (name uncertain). Lemster asks about Hasidic songs on Moldovan and Romanian motifs, and Kerler and Abelsky discuss Hasidic adoption of melodies. Abelsky says he was in Romania in 1948, just after the war, where many refugee Jews lived and few remain now. They also talk about a Chabad emissary in Iași or Bucharest.

Goldman recalls subjects at the Yiddish professional school: arithmetic, history, geography and Yiddish language and literature, taught by a teacher whose name is unclear. She mentions Sholem Aleichem and a work on an orphan, which Kerler identifies as Motl Peyse the cantor's son. She says she cannot recall Yiddish poets or school songs.

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.