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Bershad'
 (09-010.06-F) -  Shelf Number: MDV 602
 IUCAT




No streaming derivative is available.

Date: June 25, 2005 to June 27, 2005

Participants: Gvinter, Sara Yankelevna; Gvinter, Yuzek; Vygodner, Efim; Vaynshteyn, Musya Moiseevna

Location recorded: Nemyriv; Uman'; Bershad', Vinnyts'ka Oblast'; Cherkas'ka Oblast', Ukraine

Language: Yiddish

Culture Group: Jews, Yiddish-speakers, Ukrainians

 Recording Content:   

The first part of the recording is a continuation of a formal interview with Sara Yankelevna Gvinter in Bershad. (Part 3 of 3. See MDV 375 and MDV 376) The team continues to ask a series of dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish questionnaire, as well as about cultural terminology. They then talk about anecdotes. They talk about Nukhem from Chechel’nik, an old Jew who wore sheep skin and bathed in the river during the winter. He lived in the synagogue. They return to dialectological questions, before Gvinter addresses American Jews remembering Jewish history. Then the team visits the wooden synagogue in Bershad with Efim Vygodner and the camera collects footage.

The next segment on the recording includes footage of the grave of Nahman of Bratslav in Uman', as well as Hasidic prayer taking place there.

The next part of the tape shows town footage of Uman' and Nemyriv, on the way to the next formal interview with Musya Moiseevna Vaynshteyn, born in Nemyriv in 1935. (Part 1 of 2. See Accession # 09-010.09-F MDV 394) The camera collects town footage on the way to Nemyriv. When the team arrives at Vaynshteyn's house, they greet her outside, before going into the house to set up the formal interview.

After a general introduction, she talks about Jewish life in Dzhurin before the war and her family. Her father, born in Dzhurin, worked as a tractor driver. Her mother was born in Kryzhopil’. She remembers the synagogue service during Simkhes Toyre (Simchat Torah). She also remembers her observant grandfather Ayzik putting on tefillin (phylacteries). The conversation turns to her earliest childhood memories, before she mentions her two brothers. Vaynshteyn talks about her non-Jewish friends, who did not speak Yiddish, as well as the Sabbath celebrations at home. When she visited her grandparents in Sharhorod, she recalls non-Jews speaking Yiddish.

She describes her prewar life as Jewish with a mezuzah affixed to the door frame. The tape concludes with Vaynshteyn discussing Sabbath celebrations at home, including food customs and not heating during the winter.

00:00:00 Dialectology
00:13:25 Anecdotes and proverbs
00:16:15 Dialectology
00:21:45 Singing "Vinter teg" (Winter Days) and "Afn yidishn beys-oylem" (At the Jewish Cemetery)
00:25:51 Addressing American Jews
00:28:07 Synagogue in Bershad
00:31:27 Footage of the grave of Nahman of Bratslav
00:40:23 Town footage
00:41:43 Greeting and setting up interview
00:43:40 General introduction
00:46:12 Prewar Jewish Dzhurin and family
00:52:49 Early childhood memories and siblings.
01:01:42 End of recording.