Zionism and youth movements

Reti discusses the largest synagogue, which burned after the war, and S2 asks whether women also knew Yiddish. Reti mentions a Yiddish-speaking woman who lives near him and the town of Munkatsh, where even non-Jews knew Yiddish. They talk about the Munkatsher rebbe and the rebbe Chaim Elazar Shapira, whose film S2 mentions finding online. Reti also speaks about a rabbi who came to town and a kosher supervisor.

Goldberg talks about prewar life in Călărași: left-wing and Zionist movements, the police, and a communist who was not jailed. She says Romanians smashed windows and property when they left. She confirms that non-Jews who lived with the Jews spoke Yiddish.

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.

Roif cannot say anything about Zionists or Bundists. She says her husband was a gifted son whom his father wanted to send to study, but the war destroyed that. She says some non-Jews who worked for or traded with Jews spoke good Yiddish, and she adds that mixed marriages are common now but were not before the war.

Sherman says he reads and writes Yiddish well and loved literature. He recalls the Yiddish library in Telenești, with works by Sholem Asch, Sholem Aleichem and translations of world literature. Young people read and met to discuss Zionism and communism; there were no formal debate evenings. The library was open to everyone.

Mitlaeva talks about her Karaite friends from Crimea, the Aivaz family, who kept Jewish holidays but not Christian ones. Lemster then asks about Yiddish books she read before the war. She recalls an alphabet primer, names Sheynberg (?) as an author, and mentions Poale Zion as a Zionist organization she attended.

Leibelman answers questions about youth organizations in Rezina, such as Zionists and Communists who were arrested, and about the Yiddish library there, where she borrowed books. She recalls reading Romanian books and Turgenev. She recites the words of a Romanian soldiers' song and a Russian ghetto song about buying cigarettes, saying she remembers no Yiddish songs.

Leibelman says she spoke Yiddish with her husband, whom she married after the war; he had learned Russian only after the war. She and the interviewers discuss Jews in Soroca (?) and Rascov, then she tells a story about a Jew sending greetings to a wealthy man. They also discuss the Ribnitzer rebbe (Chaim Zanvl) and his immersion in the mikveh, and Jews in Saldinesht (?). Asked about youth activities in Rezina, she mentions the Tarbut meetings, with hidden communist booklets. She says she read Sholem Aleichem and Mendele in Yiddish before the war.

Kigel recalls a Jewish couple who converted to Christianity. She says she did not learn to read or write Yiddish, because she avoided her tutor's lessons. She mentions a Jewish bank and Zionists and communists in town, and recalls going to the theater and the cinema, where the films were in Romanian rather than Yiddish.

Boiarskaia says she met her husband, who was from Bucharest, during the war in Rezina. She says the few Jewish families in her village worked fields and gardens, and that their cow, named Rozhane, saved the family from hunger in 1933 while her brother who led the kolkhoz went hungry. She talks about wine-growing, selling wine to Jewish travelers, singing Yiddish songs and Zionist visitors, two widows who kept a goat and sewed, and peaceful relations with Christian neighbors who helped on Sabbath.

Answering Lemster, Butorski recalls a Russian baker friend who married a Jewish woman, converted, and spoke Yiddish. He says he knows of no Jewish organizations or parties before the war, only the Maccabi sport club, and he recalls no Jewish theater or libraries.

Kraus describes the postwar years: most young people left for kibbutz or Israel, he spent a year in a kibbutz, and he stayed in Romania. His sister lives in Israel. He married in 1955 and has two daughters, an engineer and a doctor. He says his wife speaks Yiddish only weakly. He then discusses what is Yiddish and what is German, calling Yiddish a jargon, and Hebrew.

Karuel recalls prewar Jewish schools, Zionist organizations and Sabbath foods. He describes Purim masking and music, koshering for Passover, Shavuot dairy dishes, Simchat Torah, and Hanukkah gelt. He also mentions how his mother salted meat to make it kosher.

Karuel talks about his postwar studies and his service in the Romanian army, where he met both antisemitism and decent people. He recalls Sukkot at his grandfather's, and speaks about Yiddish-speaking non-Jews. He lists Jewish organizations, including Maccabi sports clubs, and discusses libraries and books. He also recalls Yiddish theater before and after the war.

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.

Chirilau answers questions about Jewish books and says the library belonged to the Yiddish school. She knows nothing of Zionists before the war but remembers two boys leaving as pioneers. She talks about Passover matzo and potato dishes, a tutor who came to teach the boys, and the shofar blown at the High Holy Days. A stretch about language and the phone is garbled.

Freundlich says that he read Yiddish authors only in Hungarian translation and recalls no Yiddish newspaper or library before the war; after the war the world was different. He comments on his own Yiddish and on his difficulty expressing himself, and mentions learning Hebrew in the Zionist organization before becoming a Communist.

Freundlich describes the poor Maramureș Jews who traveled as guests from town to town and were hosted for the Sabbath, and the way Maramureș Jews were seen. He then answers further questionnaire items, including words for grandmother, potato, flowers, bridge, telephone, and prayer, as well as 'or' and 'but'. At the end, he says he knows Zionist songs and a Yiddish mother's song but is not a singer.

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.

Chaimovic recalls the Russians' arrival at Terezín, his escape over a wall and journey home with horses. Only his mother and some brothers returned; others stayed lost. The family had lost everything and began working again. Kerler asks for the best time he remembers; he names the time before 1938, with the Mizrachi.

Berman recalls his Rivne youth. His father was a well-known leather merchant, and his mother led the Jewish women's organization and took him as a child to banquets where he met Ben-Gurion and others. He mentions Yiddish as spoken by Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky and Sholem Asch, and an incident at Asch's play. He also speaks of his articles on Rivne's football team and its match against a Viennese club, and on Jewish partisan doctors, which brought letters from abroad.

Bublitskaia says old Romanians in Chisinau could speak Yiddish and that there was no antisemitism in her street, where many Jews lived. She recalls reading in Romanian at school. Her brother was interested in Zionism, and a rebbe's son from Calarasi lived with the family and studied with him. Her friends, both Jewish and Romanian girls, spoke Romanian with her.

Bublitskaia recalls a few lines of the song Afn pripetchik and 'Mayn shtetele Belts', and says she has not spoken Yiddish for 65 years since leaving Beltsy because her husband knew none. She speaks about her brother in Kyiv, who died years ago and who was a Zionist before the war, and about her maternal uncle who left Romania for Israel in 1970 and whose family she writes to. She says her mother could not travel in Soviet times.

Lifshitz recites or sings fragments of a song about being drawn to Palestine and Zionism versus staying in Russia, and a second song about the landlord and America. He then speaks of his brother, who was shot at some point in Birobidzhan by non-Jews or police, and says he had to work hard for years.

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.

Kleiman introduces the Hesed Shushana of Chernivtsi, a local philanthropic organization that serves some thousand Jews with material aid, food, medical help and repairs. He describes its kindergarten, clubs, the Mazl-tov programme for mothers with small children, and a Sunday club for three generations, financed by the Joint. He also tells of Chernivtsi as a formerly Jewish city with Jewish-built buildings, Jewish parties and visits by Zionist leaders.

Shternberg sings a parody of "Vu bistu geven" about a kibbutz hakhshara. In it a mother questions her daughter about food and sleeping arrangements. The interviewers explain who they are. She says she read little because of school and preferred dancing and singing. She is asked about a poet named Shternberg, about visiting troupes in Khotyn, about Purim plays, and about the Jewish library, which her mother and siblings used. She also speaks of an old man in Chernivtsi who was shown on television.

Weiss names his brother Edmund, who died in Plaszow, and says his parents lie in the Broniza woods ten kilometres from Drohobych. He describes the mass grave and the memorial erected with funds from a wealthy Tel Aviv man. He then recounts serving in anti-aircraft artillery, retreating, and being sent to the Urals. There he was ill and starving in a forest labour unit with bread rations tied to work norms. After being released he worked at an evacuated factory under a Jewish director until 1946, and recalls a Zionist youth leadership role in Drohobych before the war.

Katz confirms that his parents and siblings were killed, and Kerler lists their names. He then describes life in Soviet Stanislav (later Ivano-Frankivs'k) after the war: no synagogues, private prayer in homes, a closed city. He says he has no relatives abroad but had friends in Israel from the Hashomer movement. Kerler ends by announcing a set of words to translate.

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.

Braverman describes holiday food: buckwheat latkes with goose cracklings and fat for Hanukkah, and potato latkes for Passover. She then recounts how her father's younger brother, a Zionist who founded a Jewish gymnasium in Solkhov, fled during the civil-war period, went through Poland and settled in France, and how the relatives there lived. She talks about her cousins in France, a cousin's birthday, and her own parents' fates: her mother was killed in Kalinovka. A discussion of where Kalinovka is follows.

Katz asks in English how far Jewish religious life really survived in the early Soviet period, and Melamed answers in English and then Russian. He discusses the breakdown of the Jewish community after the revolution, early Soviet support for Yiddish culture, the 1926 rabbis' conference in Korosten and persecution of Hebrew, Zionists and underground cheders and yeshivas. He then explains that sources are mostly external, from NKVD and party files, and that he is gathering material for a book on old Zhytomyr. He mentions about 50 synagogues and prayer houses there around 1900, the rabbinical school and Haskalah figures.

Asked by Kerler about songs he sang earlier, Vider talks about the song about Jacob lying on the stone, which he heard from a young cantor and yeshiva student at an evening concert in Iași. He says he cannot sing it well now. He recalls his father's Torah reading and cantillation and how he himself prayed and read Torah. He mentions Romanian songs learned at school and a circle of young people dancing in Gordonia.

Krotsh recalls a Soviet song with a toast about the Revolution and the Constitution, and answers questions about the Birobidzhan press. He then discusses non-Jewish Romanians in Ştefăneşti who spoke Yiddish. Jewish and non-Jewish children played football and kept holidays together. He also explains the meaning of the name Maccabi.

Gershtein describes Holoby's big synagogue and the ritual bath he visited with his father each Friday, and names two ritual slaughterers, Chaim Wolf Goldberg and Abba Sima. He says the nearby villages had only small prayer houses, and that the dead of Holoby were taken to Mel'nytsia for burial. He mentions a rebbe in Lutsk, childhood games, bathing in the river and a Polish ball game. His siblings were pioneers (khalutsim). He also recalls the Zionist youth club, where children danced and sang Yiddish songs.

The informants recall prewar cultural life in the town: a mixed Jewish and Polish football team, political movements (Bund, communists, Betar and Hechalutz), and visits by a Yiddish actor and singer named Shuster-Meyr (?) who performed songs. They discuss Jewish periodicals, books read (Sholem Aleichem, Peretz), and a Yiddish film given to a museum in Kyiv. The informant tries to retell the film's plot, and Kerler asks about a library and the cinema, which the informant says showed no Yiddish films.

Dorfman discusses the theater at a place called Ridel (?) in Chişinău and the town's Jewish working-class population: porters, craftsmen and butchers. He lists Zionist and sports organizations such as Betar, Maccabi and Hashomer Hatzair. He recalls the Gordonia study circle reading Marx, with a Siguranța informer present, and debates and literary evenings.

Leibel recalls going to Jewish gymnasium Purim and Hanukkah evenings even though he attended a Polish gymnasium, and mentions a doctor's family whose daughter died in the war. He describes his cheder years from about age three or four to seven, the Friday blessing and kiddush, the Polish primary school of seven classes and then the gymnasium, and a private Yiddish teacher named Mandelboym who came in the evening. He also recalls Polish-language religion lessons, and teachers including Balaban (?).

Leibel talks about children's games, above all football with a homemade ball, and about the Maccabi and Hasmonean flags. He recalls an organ installed in the Great Synagogue in the last years, where children came on national holidays and Hatikvah was played. A voice in the room then sings Hatikvah.

Leibel gives his birth year (not clear in the transcript) and recalls prewar Rivne as a Jewish town with many small synagogues, and the street where he lived. His grandfather Moshe was a tinsmith and his father kept a cellar shop dealing in old things. He describes the state gymnasium, where he sat at the last bench next to a prince's son, a religion lesson and a discussion on Zionism. He finished in 1939, expected to go to Warsaw, and after the Soviet entry studied for two years before being drafted.

Asked about her early years, she describes Trokhinbrod as a Jewish town of tailors, shoemakers and other craftsmen. She compares Polish Jews with Bessarabian Jews and their Yiddish. She says she was taught Yiddish reading and writing by a private teacher at home, not in cheder, and read Sholem Aleichem. Youth organizations (halutzim, Communists, Betar) had a library, and Betar members spoke Hebrew. She later visited Israel and met people from Trokhinbrod.

She briefly recalls Jabotinsky and dancing, then describes quiet prewar family life, poor but close. Her grandmother had two daughters and a son in America who sent money and clothes for holidays. Her grandmother prepared Sabbath dishes such as calves' feet jelly and kugel. She also discusses a second grandmother's family and the practice of having two Jewish names, her own and Kerler's included.

She speaks about Jewish names and a visiting rabbi, and says the whole town spoke Yiddish, while the youth spoke Polish and, in Betar, Hebrew learned from lectures. Meetings on Sabbath and outings to the forest are mentioned. Kerler asks about the distance of the town from Luts'k and the Yiddish word for 'other people'. She then recites Polish verse (Mickiewicz) with another voice and says she has forgotten much.

Kerler asks about her Hebrew teacher and joining Betar at ten or twelve; she recalls a shopkeeper teacher named Fishl (?). She mentions that girls learned sewing, and that young people put on their own theatre. Kerler then asks for Yiddish terms for ice cream and for breathing, and she answers.

She describes prewar Jewish weddings in Trokhinbrod with the chuppah, the custom of binding groom and bride and klezmer with bass and fiddle. Lemster asks about romance. She speaks of youth in Betar, dances and a young man named Eynshl Shpilman and a friend named Meir Drezner, later killed. She meets some in Israel.

Vider shows Kerler books and papers from his collection: a Hungarian chronicle of the Holocaust, a Hungarian Jewish newspaper he had for years, old photographs and postcards, and an old map of the town. He mentions the Safed museum director and a historian, and names the Hebrew gymnasium and a Mukacheve rabbi's wedding, and photos of Hakhshara and of his father. The talk touches on the Czech-era name of the town and the wedding photos of the Munkács rebbe, his daughter and her groom Rabinovitsh. It also includes a mention of the Spinka rebbe.

The group looks at family photographs, then walks through the former Jewish quarter. They reach the building of the former Hebrew gymnasium and look inside; Vider recalls playing football there and the Jewish team Makabi, and the other local and Jewish teams from nearby towns. A tune of Hatikvah is mentioned. The passage ends with a remark that the Hasidim, and the Munkács rebbe in his sermons, opposed the Zionists.

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.

Lemster asks about her parents and about her Yiddish. She says they spoke it, and describes the courtyard as full of Jews with a few Christian neighbours. Her father came from Voznesensk and her mother from Lyakhova (?). They were orphans who married in the early 1920s and settled in the city, and an older sister served in the war. She was born in 1932 and says she was in evacuation. She says few people still speak Yiddish and offers to introduce two or three Jewish acquaintances. Walking through the quarter, she shows a tuberculosis institute and children's sanatorium, streets and an artists' building. She describes a school with mostly Jewish teachers, where her sister studied, and a Yiddish school that existed until the 1930s. She also tells how a sister called her a Zionist. Her uncles Misha and Rafe, tailors, met Dzerzhinsky in 1920 and were later arrested; she mentions Yezhov and Beria in this connection.

Brodsky recalls sports as a boy, football and basketball, and the clubs he went to, where Russian was spoken. He knows of Zionists and Communists in Odesa, and says chess and cards were not played for money. After the war he worked for fifty years as a driver, in a taxi. Kerler and Lemster ask about synagogue-going in postwar Odesa; the passage ends in a recogniser loop.

Dorfman lists the Jewish trades of Slovechno (shoemakers, tailors, smiths, masons, painters), says Jews were not in the fire brigade there although an Ovruch fire chief was Jewish, and says football and volleyball were played informally. He was not in any Jewish youth movement.

Khiterman says there was no antisemitism after the war. Kerler asks about Zionists in Berezhov (Berezov?), which she does not remember. She recounts being arrested in the early 1950s (?) and taken to Kyiv, apparently over a mix-up with a woman connected to a committee. She says her small child died in evacuation at Katta-Kurgan at the age of two and was named after her mother. Her relative, mostly in Russian, describes her poor health and how isolated she is.

Answering Katz, Gliazer describes the Soviet entry in September 1939. Poor Jewish workers welcomed it, wealthy Jews and non-Jews were later deported to Siberia, and Jewish theater, schools and cultural groups were closed, with only one rabbi left open. He also discusses the Yiddish newspaper Eynikayt, which was read, and the earlier German propaganda. Much of the stretch is garbled.

Lebvol describes the Polish fire brigade in the courtyard, and the bathhouse and mikveh in Zhovka. She recalls a Hasidic neighbor, Frenkel, whose wife wore a wig, and the names of their three children and parents. Asked about a Jewish library or youth movement, she says she did not go.

Geller sings a Yiddish song about love as a passion that burns the world. He says such songs were sung in Poland. Kerler then asks him about Zionist songs about a Jewish land that he had sung earlier, and Geller sings a song urging Jews to be patient until they all go to the Land of Israel.

Geller finishes the Zionist song and says it was sung for months just before the war. He then sings other songs from before the war, among them a homesick song, a prisoner's song and a love song. He ends with a street song of the 'Katarinke' kind about poor orphans. Kerler asks whether he knows another song, which Geller does not recognise, and comments on the kind of songs the performers sang.

Burshtein describes Jewish political life in Gorovo, with Zionists, Bundists and Betar members who marched in uniform with a Star of David. He sings a song of longing for Eretz Israel, and says German Jewish refugees came to Gorovo and walked the streets with it. He describes Gorovo as a small town of several hundred or a few thousand Jews, with tailors, shoemakers and other trades, and mentions Yiddish newspapers. He begins a refugee song.