Tag #123987 - Interview #102267 (Felicia Menzel)

I have heard family stories about my great-grandfather, my maternal grandfather’s father, Idel Schatz. He lived in Iasi as well, and died when he was 110 years old. He studied at a yeshivah [educational institution dedicated to the study of Judaism's traditional central texts], and he was a scholar; he was offered to become a rabbi, but he refused, he said he didn’t want to become a ‘schnorrer,’ as he said in Yiddish, a beggar. So he opened a private school for boys, where he taught them Gemara [rabbinical commentaries and analysis]. He also taught prayers, since boys were required to recite Kaddish at family funerals. He was also a chazzan at a synagogue, because he had a beautiful voice.