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There were synagogues in the town: a small one and a big one. Maybe there were more, but my parents never attended them and I wasn’t taken there either. I think that brit [milah] was performed on the eighth day after my brother was born. I think my grandparents insisted on that the way they did with the Jewish wedding. The bar mitzvah wasn’t performed on my brother, which upset both my grandfathers.
Мy parents didn’t observe Jewish traditions. I don’t remember my mother lighting candles on Fridays, and my father usually worked on Saturdays. The kashrut wasn’t observed either: we ate pork, tasty sausages and ham. There were a lot of Jewish dishes though: gefilte fish, chicken stew and broth, and tsimes [6]. My mother mostly tried to stick to European cuisine. I tasted Jewish desserts at Grandmother Yena’s place, when we went to Pilviskiai, or when she came to our town with my grandfather. My grandmother baked scrumptious cookies with poppy and nuts, strudels with jam and raisins, made tsimes from matzah with honey. I enjoyed all that food. If they were in Vilkaviskis on Chanukkah, my brother and I got Chanukkah gelt.
Мy parents didn’t observe Jewish traditions. I don’t remember my mother lighting candles on Fridays, and my father usually worked on Saturdays. The kashrut wasn’t observed either: we ate pork, tasty sausages and ham. There were a lot of Jewish dishes though: gefilte fish, chicken stew and broth, and tsimes [6]. My mother mostly tried to stick to European cuisine. I tasted Jewish desserts at Grandmother Yena’s place, when we went to Pilviskiai, or when she came to our town with my grandfather. My grandmother baked scrumptious cookies with poppy and nuts, strudels with jam and raisins, made tsimes from matzah with honey. I enjoyed all that food. If they were in Vilkaviskis on Chanukkah, my brother and I got Chanukkah gelt.
Period
Location
Lithuania
Interview
Ranana Malkhanova