Tag #150048 - Interview #90542 (Israel Gliazer)

I was a spoiled boy being the youngest in the family. I had my whims: one time I wanted to have better clothes than we could afford or toys that children from wealthier families had. I didn’t understand that one had to work hard to earn one’s living. I went to cheder at the age of 5 and I studied two years. Then I went to a state lower secondary school. There was no Jewish school in Pogdaytsy. There were Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish children in our school. There wasn’t any national segregation in those years. The word ‘zhyd’ was definition of nationality in the dialect of our area while in the USSR it was an abusive term. We studied Polish and Ukrainian literature and language. We studied Ukrainian classics Taras Shevchenko[4] and Lesia Ukrainka[5] and Polish classics Adam Mickiewicz[6] and others. Children attended religious classes according to their faith. Jewish children were in class of rabbi Levental. He was a very intelligent man known in the area. I remember his friend visiting him, who was the head of Catholic diocese. He spent few days with his friend rabbi Levental in Pogdaytsy. This was a blessed period of time when representatives of all nations lived in peaceful consensus. During the Great Patriotic War rabbi Levental perished in the ghetto in Pogdaytsy.

I enjoy recalling the years of my youth. When I turned 13 I had a bar mitzvah ritual. Long time before my coming of age my parents bought me a tefillin and taught me to wind it on my right hand and head, but of course, I did it after I had bar mitzvah ritual. During bar mitzvah I recited prayers in Hebrew. There was a party at home. My mother and sisters cooked delicious food and we invited friends and relatives. They gave me presents, greeted me and wished happiness. After I came of age [13 years old] I began to attend the synagogue with my parents regularly. I went there every Saturday, put on my tallit and tefillin and prayed with other men. Of course, I wasn’t a deep believer like my parents, but I tried to be loyal to hem and attended the synagogue as required. I finished school in 1933 went to work at the printing house where Velvel was working.