This recording is a continuation of a formal interview with Iosif Volkovich Torchinsky. (Part 2 of 2. See MDV 503) He continues to discuss the anti-religious play “Der farshterter peysekh” (the spoiled Passover) performed in Yiddish at his school in 1935/36. When the students talked about it at home, their families did not like the anti-religious campaigns. His grandfather wanted to take him out of school. Torchinsky then discusses family celebrations of Passover, including family recipes. They then talk about cultural terminology.

He then reads his poem about Ukraine, written in 1989. The conversation turns to food customs and his work as a teacher. He talks about the founding history of the only postwar Sunday Yiddish school in the Soviet Union, founded in 1989. He was approached by the school president Levitas to teach Yiddish at his school. Torchinsky shows a newspaper photograph of the teachers. This period was Torchinsy’s most productive period in the field of Yiddish studies. He then reads his poem about the Warsaw ghetto, written in 1992. He talks about non-Jews speaking Yiddish, whom he met again in Kyiv; before he reads another of his poems about the Yiddish language, written in 1994.

The conversation returns to food customs and whether people drank alcohol during holidays. He then answers a number of terminology questions and talks about religious life in Skvyra (Yiddish: Skvire). The tape ends with Torchinsky answering a number of dialectological questions from the Yiddish questionnaire, as well as reading more of his poems. The first poem is about Passover, written in 1992. The second poem is devoted to Sholem Aleichem, written in 1991. The third poem is devoted to the Yiddish-learning children, written in 1990.