Tag #121006 - Interview #102368 (Solomon Meir)

Purim isn’t a holiday – it is a miracle, but it is celebrated as a holiday. It is a day for making merry, the day on which Jews celebrate their being rescued. Formerly [before World War II], we had a very good time on this occasion. People bake cookies, wear masks, some visit their relatives, their friends, and they make merry together. I didn’t go with the grown-ups, I was only a child back then. Here, in the Diaspora, only older people [grown-ups] called on people’s houses. Here, in Botosani, only men did that. Musicians would come playing a violin or a kobsa, most of them were Gypsies, they knew by then certain songs that people played on Purim. They used to come to Botosani 2 weeks ahead of Purim, for they were Gypsies living in villages, and they offered an audition in the marketplace, so that people could decide if they played well. Jews would gather and listen to the audition. And they would hire them. But they came every year, they already knew one another. And they went to play music from house to house with those who wore masks. Especially the poor wore masks and called on other houses – they earned some money from the people they called on. They smeared their faces, wore some rather mothey clothes, went from house to house and said: ‘Ant iz piram morghen iz uz, gatman a bonicli in vartmah a rus!’ – ‘Today is Purim, tomorrow Purim will be no more, give me some change and throw me out.’ They also came to our house. People prepared sweets: hamantashen is the Jewish name of a cookie shaped like a triangle – for that was the shape of Haman’s hat, his cap had that shape.