Tag #121716 - Interview #78207 (roza kamhi)

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I remember the fularis we sent for Purim. They were special pastries with a hard-boiled egg inside, they weren't especially sweet. I would take them to my aunt's on a plate and they would bring the same to us. We children got dressed up. We had those noisemakers but I don't remember what they were called.

On Chanukkah we lit the oil chanukkiyah which hung on the wall.

We didn't make a sukkah because we didn't have a yard. But we went to neighbors for this special holiday.

We celebrated Yom Kippur when we were little kids. But once we were older and the progressive youth started to gather we stopped. On Yom Kippur we would go on picnics and eat. My mother and father fasted but the kids didn't. My parents didn't know that we weren't celebrating or what we were doing. We hid this from them.

My parents kept kosher but I don't know if it was that strict.

For Sabbath my father didn't go to kal a lot. He went more for the holidays or when someone died, or for some special event. At home, I remember, for some time he put on a tallit and read something for Sabbath but that was just for a short time. We didn't have any special rituals for Sabbath. My mother cooked beans for Friday night in a special pot in the oven and around them she put dough. We ate eggs. Every Friday my mom made salty pies, cake - although there weren't so many cakes back then - and bread for the whole week. My father didn't work on Sabbath. And since my mother cooked the day before, she also didn't work on Sabbath. They relaxed, they took walks.

In the beginning, for a short time, when I was really young, we had someone who came to light the fire on Sabbath. But then we got electricity. My parents weren't so strict with respect to this.

It was a practice among Jews that every Friday poor people went from house to house with a bag. Some people gave them flour, someone something else, some gave money. They did this so that the poor could also celebrate Sabbath.
Location

Bitola
North Macedonia

Interview
roza kamhi