Tag #121052 - Interview #102138 (Sura Milstein )

On Passover, my mother was more scrupulous, more serious, and more severe. We used special dishes on Passover, which we kept in the attic, wrapped in paper – we took them down on the eve of Passover and only used them during the 8 days, at the end of which they were placed back in the attic and weren’t used until the following Passover. And the house had to be cleansed of chametz. They placed a few crumbs [of bread] in the corners of the rooms and then my father would take a feather and sweep the crumbs, place them in a wooden spoon and burn them, that’s what I remember. They also recited a prayer. Both my father and my grandfather did it. And the shammash from the synagogue would visit each household on the eve of the Passover holidays and make a list of all chametz food to be found in each house. And this chametz was kept somewhere hidden and nobody touched it, and it wasn’t used at all during Passover.

For 8 days you weren’t allowed to eat anything leavened. You were allowed to eat pasca [matzah], and cornmeal – mamaliga [polenta]. We bought the matzah at the Community Center, it was the Community that supplied the matzah. For a while, it was also baked locally – before World War II people baked it in Dorohoi –, but afterwards they stopped baking it locally and it was received from Israel. We ate the same dishes on Passover as we did on all other holidays: noodle soup, the meat that was boiled in the soup, and pudding – for the third course. People made noodles from crushed matzah mixed with eggs and then left to dry; these were added to the soup as a substitute for regular noodles. On Passover, people made cakes from matzah and walnut – we called them macaroni.

On Passover, my parents observed the seder evening. They prepared it as tradition requires – with matzah and prayer rituals. We had a table that we pulled next to a divan and then placed a few chairs on the sides. We, the children, sat on the divan; I used to read a novel in the meantime – I wasn’t religious. My father and my mother would recite what needed to be recited and they would make that traditional gesture of opening the door for the prophet Elijah to enter. And when I was in Bucecea my grandfather would trick me, for I was little and I believed him. ‘But – I used to say – I see the glass hasn’t been drunk from.’ For there was a glass set aside especially for the prophet Elijah, but it didn’t show at all [that he might have drunk from it]. And I wasn’t too gullible. ‘But – my grandfather would say – what do you expect, he can’t possibly drink a full glass at each and single household!’ My grandfather used to send me to open the door. I would ask my grandfather in advance the 4 questions that you have to ask. He asked me, he taught me how to ask them. We rehearsed this in advance, he would instruct me. And on the seder evening my grandfather would lie on the bed on one side. And the custom was to place the afikoman under the pillow – my grandfather would hide it there every time, and I found it, of course I did! I wouldn’t get anything as a reward. I wouldn’t find it at home, in my family, my father didn’t observe this tradition. In the families where there were boys, these customs were respected more closely…