Tag #116582 - Interview #87373 (Berta Finkel)

On Purim, people baked all sorts of cookies. My mother’s baked cookies were very good. She didn’t send cookies to wealthy people, she gave them to women whom she knew were poor and couldn’t send her cookies of their own in return. [Editor’s note: It is about the custom of mishloach manot, "sending of gifts", on Purim, which is sending ready-to-eat foods like cakes, fruits.] For she didn’t like to exchange cakes, she didn’t want to receive cookies in return. She gave them away so that the people to whom she sent the cakes didn’t have to send her others in return. People wore masks on Purim and called on households, and they made merry. Everyone made merry as they saw fit, songs were sung as well. People came to our parents’ house as well, back in the days when I was a young lady. And those whom they visited had to guess who they were. For you couldn’t recognize everybody, given the fact that they wore all sorts of masks. I never wore a mask on Purim. I remember that when I lived in my parents’ home in Sulita many people came to Sulita from Botosani in order to celebrate Purim there. They came to visit their relatives – for there were 300 Jewish families in Sulita, and not just one or two persons –, and they made merry. They called on people wearing masks, they also called on our home. We sometimes recognized some of them, and then we invited them in and offered them something to eat and drink.