In 2003, AHEYM interviewed Avrom Gelman in Kamenets-Podolsk. When asked about how his family observed the Sabbath before the war, he recalled that Shabes was particularly special, because it was the only time the children got to eat meat. Sadly, abject poverty is a theme that runs through many AHEYM interviews, particularly when the interviewees retell their memories of the 1930s. Gelman's family was so poor, in fact, that his mother could not afford to provide both meat and challah for the family on Shabes. Instead, she baked malay, cornbread, for the meal. In the middle of the interview, you can hear Dov-Ber Kerler and Avrom discuss the various Yiddish words for "corn" -- one of Romanian origin, and the other, that Avrom uses, of Slavic origin.
Towards the end of the interview, Gelman mentions the various professions that Jews in his town practiced. He tells AHEYM that to be a craftsman alone was insufficient to make a living. To make enough money, one had to both practice one's trade and be able to sell the items one made.
