Learning Physics in Yiddish

Aba Kaviner was born in 1921 in Derazhnya, Ukraine. As a child, he attended both a Soviet Yiddish school and a yeshiva. Kaviner completed his education in the Soviet school in 1939, just before the school closed. At the school, all subjects were taught in Yiddish, including math and physics. In this clip, Kaviner describes how physics was taught in the Yiddish language -- accessibly and clearly.

Kaviner served in the army from age 19 and moved to Khmelnitsky after the war, where AHEYM interviewed him in 2008.

Fun Vigl biz in Keyver -- From the Cradle to the Grave

We return this week to Liudmila Shor from Vinnitsa, Ukraine, who sings a haunting song that she learned from her mother. "Fun Vigl biz in Keyver" was written by Anshel Schorr with music composed by Yosef Rumshinsky. The sheet music was published in New York by the Hebrew Publishing Company in 1911. Although Liudmila is unaware of the song's origins or authorship, "Fun Vigl biz in Keyver" is a theater song, written for Rumshinsky's operetta "Shir Hashirim - Dos Lid der Libe" ("Song of Songs - The Song of Love"). The operetta "has been described as the first [Yiddish] stage musical about love" (Mark Slobin, Tenement Songs, 128.)

Below is Liudmila's version of the lyrics. The words differ slightly from the original, as the song went through a process of folklorization before reaching Vinnitsa. While there are a number of Yiddish songs about growing old and searching for one's youth (see, for example, Mordechai Gebirtig's "Hulyet, hulyet kinderlekh," and the folk song "Avek di yunge yorn"), this piece is perhaps the most somber in tone, coming to the rather hopeless conclusion that "It is but a short stride from the cradle to the grave." The melodramatic nature of the song can be attributed to the fact that it comes from an operetta, a famously melodramatic genre in Yiddish culture.

I have lived just eighty years. How quickly, how quickly it has flown by. White as snow is my blond hair. My back is bent in three places. My childhood years will not be forgotten, How they were formed. How my mother sat by my cradle, And sang me a song. The whole world is a black dream, And everything is vanity of vanities. It's but a short stride from the cradle to the grave, And everything is no more than a dream. I was not a child, Oh how quickly and swiftly, And the grave is already waiting for me.

כ'האָב אָפּגעלעבט ערשט אַכציק יאָר. װי שנעל, װי שנעל איז עס אױספֿאַרפֿלױגן. װײַס װי שנײ זענען די בלאָנדע האָר, דער רוקן אין דרײַען איז אײַנגעבױגן. די קינדעריאָרן, זײ װעלן זיך נישט פֿאַרגעסן, װי אַזױ זײ האָבן זיך אײַנגעבילדעט. װי די מוטער מײַנע איז בײַ דעם װיגעלע געזעסן, און האָט זיך מיר, אױ אױ, אַ לידעלע געזונגען. די גאַנצע װעלט איז אַ פֿינצטערער חלום, און אַלעס איז הבֿל הבֿלים. אַ קורצער שפּאַן איז פֿון דעם װיגעלע צום גרוב, און אַלעס איז נישט מײן װי אַ חלום. איך בין נישט געװעזן אַ קינד, אױ װי גיך און געשװינד, און עס װאַרט שױן אױף מיר דאָך אַ קבֿר...

--Asya Vaisman

"Bris" for a boy, "Brisitse" for a girl

In 2009, AHEYM interviewed a small group of people in Tul'chyn, Ukraine: Pesia Kolodienko, Nisen Kolodienko, Aleksandr Kolodienko, Yenta Tolkovitz, and Khaye Katsman. In this clip, the three women of the group discuss different customs associated with the birth of a child -- the bris (brit milah) for a boy, and the brisitse (bris, with a feminine suffix) for a girl. 

Khaye talks about her son's bris, at which a Rabbi performed the circumcision and refreshments were served. Then Pesia describes a brisitse, where children were given special spice-cakes. In the midst of this discussion, Yenta mentions a krishme-leyenen, a term that literally means "reading the Kriyat-Sh'ma", a prayer that must be recited every evening before bed. Traditionally, krishme-leyenen referred to the custom of boys coming to the parents' house in the days leading up to the bris to recite this prayer as a means of keeping the baby safe. Over time, however, the term came to symbolize any number of customs associated with the bris; in this case, it seems that Yenta uses the term to refer to the "rocking the cradle" custom, which Pesia then describes.

In "rocking the cradle", which Pesia associates with the brisitse ceremony, the baby is temporarily removed from the cradle, and a cat is put in its place. The cradle is then filled with candy and other sweets, and as the cradle is rocked, the sweets fall out, and the invited children must catch them. This custom is also intended to bring good luck to the baby.

--Asya Vaisman

Two Remedies for the Whooping Cough

Etia Shvartzbroit was born in Mohyliv Podilskyi in 1928. She comes from a religious family -- her grandfather was a Rabbi, and her parents kept a kosher household. Her family was quite wealthy -- they kept two servants and donated generously to the poor. Her mother, however, had trouble having children. When Etia was finally born after 13 years of trying, her mother wanted to make sure that she would grow up healthy.

Lutsk, 2003

Etia was, unfortunately, a sickly child -- she had whooping cough and was not responding to treatment. When the cough returned after a treatment with a doctor in Odessa, her parents turned to folk remedies. First, her father attempted to ward off the illness by "giving it away" to various streams in the town. When that did not help, her mother "sold" the child to a widow with many children who was so poor that bad luck (and thus, sickness) would stay away from her.

--Asya Vaisman

Soviet Yiddish Schools

Efim (Chaim) Rubin (born 1922) was interviewed in Uman in 2002, along with his cousin, Matvei (Motl) Rubin (born 1928). Both men grew up in Buki, Ukraine. In this clip, Efim recalls his education: he went to a Soviet Yiddish-language school for four years and completed his education (10 grades in all) at a Ukrainian school. The Yiddish schools were meant to be "national in form and socialist in content", utilizing the Yiddish language to promote sovietization and anti-religious propaganda.

Efim mentions that despite his advanced age, he still remembers how to read and write in Yiddish the way he was taught in the school. Although it is difficult to see in this segment, Efim spells two Yiddish words, "shobes" [Sabbath] and "khover" [friend] using Soviet orthography. Traditionally, words of Hebrew origin are spelled in Yiddish the same way they are in Hebrew, thus ‏שבת and חבֿר. In Soviet orthography, however, which deemphasized the Hebrew element in accordance with anti-religious policies, words of Hebrew origin were "naturalized", or spelled phonetically, as seen here with Efim's שאָבעס and כאָװער.

--Asya Vaisman

The Fur Coat

Sonia (Sure) Litvak was born in Zvil (Novohrad-Volynskyi), Ukraine in 1925. AHEYM interviewed her in Rivne, Ukraine, in 2003. Sonia was discussing the extreme poverty during the Great Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine, 1932-1933. She explained that despite the terrible conditions, no one in her family died from the hunger, because her grandmother had managed to save some money for the family.

Sonia's grandmother was a "bube," a kind of midwife and folk healer in Zvil. It is interesting to note that this profession was sufficiently lucrative for her to be able to save up a significant amount of money, enough to sustain the family in years to come. The story Sonia tells in the clip took place in 1918, during the Russian Civil War. Sonia's grandmother had hidden her savings in a fur coat. A "Denikinovets," a soldier from the army of Anton Denikin, entered the house and tried to take the coat. When the grandmother resisted, she was beaten, and she died two days later.

General Denikin was commander of the Volunteer Army, one of the many factions fighting for control of Ukraine during the Civil War that broke out in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Volunteer Army, commonly known as the Whites, was made up mostly of conservative officers from the tsarist army. They opposed the Red Army's efforts to extend the Revolution and fought for the maintenance of the rights of property owners and priests. During the battles, attacks on the Jews, among other minorities, were quite common. One survey counted 688 cities, towns and villages affected by pogroms. Many of these locales suffered multiple pogroms, as armies and brigands came and went. The pogroms were attributed most often to Ukrainian nationalists, though the White Volunteer Army is said to have been responsible for about twenty percent of the attacks, with Sonia's grandmother being one example of the latter.

Because of the grandmother's bravery, Sonia's family kept the hidden money and used it to survive the Famine.

--Asya Vaisman

A Lemon for Sukkes

Semyon Later was born in 1919 in Smotrych, Ukraine, where he received an extensive Jewish education. He attended both kheyder (religious Jewish school) and a Soviet Yiddish school. When AHEYM interviewed him in Kamianets Podolsk in 2003, he remembered how his family observed Jewish holidays before the war.

Semyon begins by recalling two of the Four Questions traditionally recited by the youngest child in a family during the Passover Seder. He mentions that he would recite these questions at his grandfather's house. He then talks about the rituals involved in the celebration of the Sukkoth holiday, which he mistakenly remembers as Shavuoth. Semyon insists that instead of the traditional esrog (citron), his family would buy a lemon for the holiday. Likely the lemon was the closest approximation of the esrog that was available to the family. Semyon additionally recalls eating his meals in the Sukkah.

--Asya Vaisman