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Berdychiv
 (09-010.04-F) -  Shelf Number: MDV 347
 IUCAT




No streaming derivative is available.

Date: May 22, 2003

Participants: Skobilitskii, Efim Grigoryevich. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Dovid Katz, Moisei Lemster.

Location recorded: Berdychiv, Zhytomyrs'ka Oblast', Ukraine

Language: Yiddish

Culture Group: Jews, Yiddish-speakers, Ukrainians

 Recording Content:   

The tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Efim Grigoryevich Skobilitskii. (Part 2 of 3. See MDV 346 and Accession # 09-010.60-F MDV 793) He discusses his education and work, as well as Jewish cultural life before World War II. After he completed his education, he wrote exhibition labels in Yiddish and Russian for museum collections. He also worked in photography before the war. He remembers how anti-Jewish plays were staged at his school. The conversation then turns to contemporary Jewish religious life in Berdychiv. He participated in rebuilding the religious site of the Tzadik (spiritual master) Levi Yitskhak. He remembers a few Christians who converted to Judaism before the war. He then discusses Jewish cultural life after the war, when artists from Kyiv and Moscow came to perform in Berdychiv. Then the interviewing team drives through Berdychiv while Skobilitskii points out buildings of interest to the Jewish community and talks about their history. The team then arrives at a restaurant where they chat informally with Skobilitskii. He talks about his experiences in the Red Army during the war and at the liberation of Berlin in 1945. They discuss recipes of traditional Jewish dishes. After that, the camera moves to the streets of Berdychiv where Skobilitskii talks about the former Jewish neighborhood. The tape concludes with another tour of Berdychiv in the van, where Skobilitskii shows the Jewish Berdychiv of today.

00:00:00 Family
00:03:29 Work and education before the war
00:05:46 Anti-religious activities and Jewish cultural life
00:09:26 Yiddish newspapers
00:10:54 Hasidism in Berdychiv before the war
00:12:07 Religious life today
00:13:19 Jewish secular school and dialectology
00:16:04 Jewish weddings
00:17:12 Dialectology
00:23:31 Jewish religious life in Berdychiv today
00:24:00 Dialectology and prewar Jewish life
00:46:45 Town footage and chat at a restaurant
00:49:22 Jewish wedding in Hungarian town Pápa in 1948. Red Army service
00:51:51 Food customs
00:54:17 Town footage