Selected text
There was no synagogue or shochet in our village. On Jewish holidays Jews went to the synagogue in Rashkov, seven kilometers from Poyana.
There was a shochet in Ochedar, some three kilometers from our village. I used to take chicken to have them slaughtered when I was a young boy. I took the living chickens to the shochet. I took a path across the forest. Sometimes I joined a group of people from Poyana going to the shochet. The shochet slaughtered our chickens and afterwards we returned home.
We spoke Yiddish at home. We knew Moldovan and Romanian to communicate with our neighbors. The other villagers respected the Jewish traditions and religion. There was no anti-Semitism or pogroms in our village or in the neighboring villages.
There was a sufficient number of men in the village for a minyan. On Jewish holidays, such as Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Pesach, Jews went to the synagogue in Rashkov, but not all of them could walk that far. So these people always, and on less important holidays all the Jews, got together to pray either in our house or in the house of my father’s older brother Ide-Leib.
Ide-Leib was a cantor. When I turned six years old my uncle taught me how to blow the shofar. I blew the shofar at Yom Kippur and my uncle expressed his appreciation. Every combination of tunes has its own meaning and there are many such combinations.
There was a shochet in Ochedar, some three kilometers from our village. I used to take chicken to have them slaughtered when I was a young boy. I took the living chickens to the shochet. I took a path across the forest. Sometimes I joined a group of people from Poyana going to the shochet. The shochet slaughtered our chickens and afterwards we returned home.
We spoke Yiddish at home. We knew Moldovan and Romanian to communicate with our neighbors. The other villagers respected the Jewish traditions and religion. There was no anti-Semitism or pogroms in our village or in the neighboring villages.
There was a sufficient number of men in the village for a minyan. On Jewish holidays, such as Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Pesach, Jews went to the synagogue in Rashkov, but not all of them could walk that far. So these people always, and on less important holidays all the Jews, got together to pray either in our house or in the house of my father’s older brother Ide-Leib.
Ide-Leib was a cantor. When I turned six years old my uncle taught me how to blow the shofar. I blew the shofar at Yom Kippur and my uncle expressed his appreciation. Every combination of tunes has its own meaning and there are many such combinations.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Boris Slobodianskiy