Tag #155337 - Interview #103735 (Nikolay Schwartz Biography)

Before Yom Kippur we conducted Kapores at home. My mother didn’t keep chicks, we bought them at the market. There were white hens bought for my mother and sisters and white rosters – for my father, my brother and me. We tied their legs to turn them above our heads holding them by their legs saying: ‘May you be my atonement’. Kapores was conducted in the morning, and before the first star appeared in the sky we were to have a sufficient meal. The adults were to fast till next evening. Children fasted half a day reaching the age of 8, and when they turned 13, they were to fast like adults. On the morning of Yom Kippur everybody, including children, went to the synagogue to pray until the star appeared in the sky. There was stuffy at the synagogue from burning candles and sometimes people fainted. When the first star appeared in the sky, everybody could go home to have dinner. Next day every Jewish family began to make a sukkah from wood and planks. Building a sukkah after Yom Kippur was a tradition. Some families started building a sukkah in their yards after dinner on Yom Kippur. Wealthier people had a folding roof in the hallway in their houses. On Sukkoth they used it for a sukkah. Sukkahs were decorated with ribbons and flowers. Branches with leaves or reed stems were put on the roof. Children made paper decorations for the sukkah. There was a table in the sukkah and we had meals and prayed there each day of the Sukkoth. Sukkoth is in autumn when it often rains, but even when water was pouring into our plates we stayed in the sukkah. My father explained that we had to do it to remember how Jews stayed in tents after they left Egypt.