Tag #118287 - Interview #78256 (Cilja Laud)

All Jewish holidays were marked in the family. Grandmother cooked festive food not only for her family. It was a busy season in her restaurant. On the eve of the holidays Tallinn Jews did not only come to Bialik club to have meals but they also ordered meat patties, gefilte fish, forshmak and liver pate to go. Those were Grandmother's specialty dishes and she cooked them herself. So, she had a lot to do before the holidays.

During the holidays she took a rest and her restaurant was closed down. She marked holidays at home strictly in line with the traditions. On holidays the whole family went to the synagogue. Seder was traditionally carried out as well as kapores on Yom Kippur. She fasted on that day as well. Not only family members were invited for holidays. If Grandmother found out that some Jew had nowhere to go for celebration - either because of being lonely or a visitor to Tallinn she always invited them to join us for a holiday.

At home Grandmother spoke Yiddish with her sons and Father was fluent in that language. Of course, he was also fluent in Estonian as he lived among Estonians. At that time no Jew would ever think that one could live in the country without knowing the state language.