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Recording Content:
This recording begins with a continuation of shabes (Sabbath) services in the Kolomyya synagogue (Part 2 of 2. See MDV 520) and then moves to a formal interview with Seymon Semyonovich Krotsh. (Part 1 of 4. See MDV 522, MDV 523, and MDV 524)
Cities and towns mentioned on this tape: Stefanesti, Soroca, Kyiv, Iași, Kolomyya, Nahariyya.
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00:00:00
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This tape begins with a continuation of shabes (Sabbath) services in the Kolomyya synagogue. |
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00:15:06
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The AHEYM team speaks informally with Semyon Semyonovich Krotsh (b. 1922 in Stefanesti), who speaks about the Rebbe of Stefanesti. David Abramovich Vider (b. 1922 in Sighetu Marmatiei) explains that the synagogue has no one who can “leyn toyre” (read/chant the Torah portion) and therefore it is not read on shabes. |
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00:18:53
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The AHEYM team has a “kidish” (Kiddush) lunch with the congregation and speaks in Yiddish with everyone. The congregation collectively makes the “shehakoyl” blessing (a generic blessing said over foods and drinks without a specific blessing associated with them). The congregants also sing many Yiddish and Russian songs. |
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00:29:06
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The research team begins a formal interview with Krotsh, speaking first about the interviewers and the AHEYM project in general. Krotsh shares his basic biographical information and speaks about his family life in his childhood. He also speaks about the Stefanester Rebbe, recalling how overcrowded his shtetl (town) became when people came from all over the world to attend his funeral. Krotsh discusses his many siblings and the poverty that characterized their youth. Krotsh was educated in a “kheyder” (traditional religious boys’ school), a Romanian-Modern Hebrew Jewish school, and a yeshiva, where he studied Talmud and other traditional texts. Although Krotsh was an excellent student and remembers everything he once learned in yeshiva, he also studied to be a tailor in order to make a living. |
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00:43:54
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Krotsh speaks of the curriculum at his various schools and his successes as a student. |
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00:51:01
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Krotsh shares a fragment of “taytsh” (rote translation) accompanied by its traditional nign (melody) from kheyder, as well as a Lag B’oymer rhyme and song in Modern Hebrew that he learned in his secular school. Sitting next to Krotsh, Vider sings HaTivka. Vider then sings another Hebrew song and Krotsh recites a Hebrew poem. |
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00:57:28
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Krotsh then describes a typical day in his secular school, noting that Yiddish was never a formal subject there, but that he spoke this language at home. Like many others, Krotsh states that he could not speak Romanian until he started attending government schools. |
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