I mostly remember the High Holidays: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The New Year was my favorite holiday because of its festive feeling; it was really a day like no other.
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Displaying 17521 - 17550 of 50826 results
Max Wolf
On Friday evening she would say the Sabbath prayer – Sabbath was a very special day. I didn’t study with my father on Sabbath.
When I was a child my family kept the common Jewish holidays. On such occasions we would observe the rituals, eat kosher, cook traditional Jewish dishes and the like. My mother used different vessels for milk and meat. She was a thorough homemaker.
We had a small home library with ordinary books. Some of them were partly in Yiddish and partly in German, and my parents would read the part they understood better. They also read the press: ‘Dimineata’ [‘The Morning,’ a Romanian-language daily newspaper, published intermittently in Bucharest from 1904 to 1938] and ‘Adevarul’ [‘The Truth,’ a Romanian-language journal of democratic opinions. It was first published in Iasi as a weekly, from 1871 to 1872, then intermittently in Bucharest as a daily, from 1888 to 1951.]. They encouraged me to read too. I gradually got the hang of it and ended up reading a lot. There was a public library in our town, ‘Nordau and Dererea,’ but my parents didn’t frequent it because they were far too busy with their everyday work.
I don’t know what kind of education my parents had, but the language they used was Romanian. My father could also read Yiddish, which he did on holidays. My mother could read Yiddish too, but to a lesser extent.
In order to have poultry slaughtered ritually or buy kosher meat, we went to a hakham’s [a wise person; he is probably referring to someone trained to be a ritual slaughterer] on Tamplari Street.
My mother employed a maid who cooked for us.
Like I said, my family was rather well-off at first. My parents sold the house where I was born and we moved to a rented place. We had ordinary furniture. I mean, it wasn’t antique or custom-made. It was ready-made furniture that my parents had bought. Ours was a clean and well kept place. The town had electricity and plumbing – and so did our house. We used stoves for heating. The fire wood was bought in fall.
We used to have a garden. My mother loved flowers, so she kept a very beautiful garden in our courtyard.
We used to have a garden. My mother loved flowers, so she kept a very beautiful garden in our courtyard.
He moved to Bucharest, where he spent most of his life, working as a journalist and a gym teacher.
Romania
His name was Elias Wolf. He graduated in journalism and changed his name to Mihai Lupescu in 1924 [lup means wolf in Romanian].
Most of the Jews in Braila were small craftsmen: tailors, carpenters, tinsmiths etc. The tailors, for instance, were further divided according to their specialization: some made trousers, some made jackets, and some made vests. No single tailor made the entire suit. Our community also had a few grain merchants who ran import-export businesses. They were doing particularly well.
The former ‘Jewish street’ in Braila is known today as Petru Maior Street. But Jews lived in other neighborhoods too.
The former ‘Jewish street’ in Braila is known today as Petru Maior Street. But Jews lived in other neighborhoods too.
They worked hard and earned good money while I was a child. So we did pretty well from a material point of view.
For many years my father owned a clothing business. He was an elite tailor, if I may say so, because he was an expert in apparel.
Before she got married she owned a millinery store. I don’t know whether she had inherited the business from her parents. After she got married to my father she became a housewife.
They had a good material situation: they were jewelers and watchmakers.
My mother had two brothers who lived in Paris.
They were religious people, but their devoutness didn’t go to the extreme.
My parents didn’t tell me how they met. I don’t know whether their marriage was arranged or not. They got married in Braila. Their marriage was solid and they lived in understanding. I never heard them insult each other or fight over something.
My father had served in the army and was recorded as a veteran and a war invalid of the 1918 campaign. He was seriously injured while fighting on the Bulgarian front. He was very close to losing his left arm, and it was with great risk and difficulty that the doctors managed to save it from amputation. However, he lost two fingers and the limb was affected by ankylosis, so he couldn’t use it anymore. He was still able to do his job because he had got used to working with his right hand very well.
To be more specific, he was a cutter, a craft in which he had specialized in a school in Vienna.
His name was Heinerich Wolf and he made clothes. To be more specific, he was a cutter, a craft in which he had specialized in a school in Vienna. His job was to take the client’s order, cut the fabric for the future garment and pass it to his craftsmen. He didn’t do the sewing; there were others who had been hired specifically for that. This is what he did for as long as he lived. And he was good at it.
The Jewish families in Braila are quite mixed. There are families in which both spouses are Jewish, but there are also mixed families. Numbers are not known exactly, but it’s safe to say that our community is on the brink of extinction: it will disappear when the biological life of the last remaining Jew ends. In my opinion, there are only 25-30 genuine Jews left. The rest are half-Jewish descendants.
The Jewish community in Braila is very active. The members meet regularly, on holidays and other occasions. Some of us meet on a daily basis. Our secretary is an energetic man. I myself served as secretary from 1983 to 1993, for ten years.
When one retires, one goes through a psychological shock and through a material shock as well, since one’s income diminishes. Pensions are quite small and the various illnesses of old age claim extra money. At least we have the Joint [16] and the Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania. They help us, the assisted Jews, with clothing and medicine.
The events of 1989 [15] had a positive effect on me, definitely. I felt the taste of democracy, of free speech once again. Things changed radically. What happened in that period, and not only in Romania, but in the whole Eastern Bloc, was a positive thing altogether. Switching from totalitarianism to democracy can only be a good thing. As an elderly man, I also experienced democracy before World War II. But the communist regime came and changed it all.
The Jews were able to observe their traditions under the communist regime. My personal opinion is that, in this respect, the Old Kingdom [What Mr. Wolf means by ‘Old Kingdom’ here is, in fact, the region of Walachia.] was more liberal than Moldova [14], where the Jewish population was more numerous.
No radical changes occurred in my life; after 1950 the Jews who held key positions were gradually dismissed [13]. I, for one, didn’t have to hide the fact that I was Jewish. But I know others were under a lot of pressure and were forced to change their name.
I was never involved in politics and I wasn’t a member of the Communist Party. They never made me join the Party, but they did ‘court’ me, so to speak.
The communist regime didn’t give me a hard time because I’m Jewish. I never did patriotic labor [12] or farming labor.
I have never been to Israel and I never considered emigration. Being in a mixed marriage, I drifted away from the ideal of moving to Israel. But yes, I would have liked to go there and see how things are.