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My family is Ashkenazi. In Cakovec, there were no Spanish Jews, Sephardim. Neither my grandparents, nor my parents were very religious. At home, we celebrated all the holidays and kept Jewish tradition. Every Friday and Saturday we regularly went to the temple as well as for all the holidays.
We celebrated the holidays according to the tradition respecting the elementary religious laws and customs, especially with regard to dietary customs. For example, for Passover we ate only maces and didn’t consume bread. We celebrated Seder in the Jewish Community building; the rabbi and the cantor were leading the services and ceremonies.
For Yom Kippur, my parents fasted the whole day; my sister and me fasted only until the noon. My father didn’t wear a kippah; he put it on only while in the synagogue and didn’t wear it at home. It is possible that my mother wore a hat or a scarf in the synagogue, but I cannot recall precisely.
Every Friday night we would have Shabbat dinner, but we didn’t sing songs around the table. My father and the whole family went to the synagogue for Friday night and Saturday morning services, and for the holidays of course. Neither my father nor me nor any other members of my family attended the synagogue services during the weekdays.
At home, we lit the candles for Hanukah, and we lit candles and oil-lamps for the deceased. But we didn’t light the candles for Shabbat. I think this was the case for the majority of Jewish families in Cakovec, except for those families that were very religious. But there was only a small number of Orthodox Jewish families in Cakovec. Although the level of socialization was high among the Jews, both older and younger, Cakovec was in general a very liberal town when religious and inter-religious relations were considered.
It was the tradition that for Passover, Purim and Hanukah celebrations were made in the Community. For both Purim and Hanukah, children made a performance. I was involved with a group and we played music; usually those were Jewish traditional songs but we also played Hungarian melodies.
We had rehearsals before public performance and for those performances we were skilled by Duci Stern who was a musician himself. Other children made a theater performance, usually on the theme of a holiday that was celebrated.
For Purim, of course, we put masks on. Most of the girls were masked as Queen Esther, and boys were masked as Mordechai. My family celebrated Hanukah both at home and in the Community. We lit candles at home every evening of Hanukah, and in the Community we had a celebration with the rest of the Community. We sang “Moaz Cur”. I hear the melody of “Moaz Cur” that is being sung in the Zagreb Community today, and I hear that the melody remained the same.
The text, however, is pronounced differently today than we pronounced it once. We learned to read Hebrew text with a different pronunciation and diction than the text is read today. We spoke with Yiddish pronunciation. For example, we would say Gut Shabes or Gut Yontef, the words I don’t hear in our Community today.
Although my father and I were in a very close relationship, we never studied Torah or Talmud together. Neither did he teach me or did we have any discussions about Torah or religious issues. All that I learned about our religion and traditions was during the religious education with our rabbi. I didn’t have Bar Mitzvah because I turned 13 in 1942. It was already very critical and dangerous. Otherwise, Bar Mitzvah celebrations were commonly taking place in Cakovec before the war.
Before the Second World War started, I recall that the children in school would mock the Jews. I remember that they used to call us ‘Zibek’. This word comes from the word ‘Zidov’ [Croatian for Jew], and they would yell at us Zibek. However, I don’t think I could consider these incidents anti-Semitic. I don’t think that there was any serious or acute anti-Semitism present in Cakovec before the war. Or at least I didn’t feel it.
We celebrated the holidays according to the tradition respecting the elementary religious laws and customs, especially with regard to dietary customs. For example, for Passover we ate only maces and didn’t consume bread. We celebrated Seder in the Jewish Community building; the rabbi and the cantor were leading the services and ceremonies.
For Yom Kippur, my parents fasted the whole day; my sister and me fasted only until the noon. My father didn’t wear a kippah; he put it on only while in the synagogue and didn’t wear it at home. It is possible that my mother wore a hat or a scarf in the synagogue, but I cannot recall precisely.
Every Friday night we would have Shabbat dinner, but we didn’t sing songs around the table. My father and the whole family went to the synagogue for Friday night and Saturday morning services, and for the holidays of course. Neither my father nor me nor any other members of my family attended the synagogue services during the weekdays.
At home, we lit the candles for Hanukah, and we lit candles and oil-lamps for the deceased. But we didn’t light the candles for Shabbat. I think this was the case for the majority of Jewish families in Cakovec, except for those families that were very religious. But there was only a small number of Orthodox Jewish families in Cakovec. Although the level of socialization was high among the Jews, both older and younger, Cakovec was in general a very liberal town when religious and inter-religious relations were considered.
It was the tradition that for Passover, Purim and Hanukah celebrations were made in the Community. For both Purim and Hanukah, children made a performance. I was involved with a group and we played music; usually those were Jewish traditional songs but we also played Hungarian melodies.
We had rehearsals before public performance and for those performances we were skilled by Duci Stern who was a musician himself. Other children made a theater performance, usually on the theme of a holiday that was celebrated.
For Purim, of course, we put masks on. Most of the girls were masked as Queen Esther, and boys were masked as Mordechai. My family celebrated Hanukah both at home and in the Community. We lit candles at home every evening of Hanukah, and in the Community we had a celebration with the rest of the Community. We sang “Moaz Cur”. I hear the melody of “Moaz Cur” that is being sung in the Zagreb Community today, and I hear that the melody remained the same.
The text, however, is pronounced differently today than we pronounced it once. We learned to read Hebrew text with a different pronunciation and diction than the text is read today. We spoke with Yiddish pronunciation. For example, we would say Gut Shabes or Gut Yontef, the words I don’t hear in our Community today.
Although my father and I were in a very close relationship, we never studied Torah or Talmud together. Neither did he teach me or did we have any discussions about Torah or religious issues. All that I learned about our religion and traditions was during the religious education with our rabbi. I didn’t have Bar Mitzvah because I turned 13 in 1942. It was already very critical and dangerous. Otherwise, Bar Mitzvah celebrations were commonly taking place in Cakovec before the war.
Before the Second World War started, I recall that the children in school would mock the Jews. I remember that they used to call us ‘Zibek’. This word comes from the word ‘Zidov’ [Croatian for Jew], and they would yell at us Zibek. However, I don’t think I could consider these incidents anti-Semitic. I don’t think that there was any serious or acute anti-Semitism present in Cakovec before the war. Or at least I didn’t feel it.
Location
Čakovec
Croatia
Interview
Oto Konstein
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