Tag #123120 - Interview #83708 (Michal Nadel)

Father used to go to the synagogue on Zolkiewska Street most often – we lived near by. It was a progressive synagogue. Father had a musical talent and on holidays he prayed as a cantor. Apart from the synagogue there were also small prayer houses – they were called shtibls – Father used to go there for seudah shlishit [Hebrew: third meal]. In Hebrew shalosh seudot means three meals. The first meal was on Friday night, the second one was the Saturday dinner and the third feast was that seudah shlishit which took place between the dinner and supper on Saturday. With herring. With vodka. There was darkness there. Only when stars came out, they could turn the lights on.

Everyone knew each other there. They would sit and sing niguns, traditional parts of psalms – I still remember some melodies. For us, kids, it was all fun, because we used to go and chase each other there in the darkness, under the tables, around the tables. We liked to get into trouble. In the evening Father would go to the synagogue or to the seudah shlishit. And I would go somewhere else. We used to go to the Wzgorze Lwowskie [Lwow Hill, a park complex on a hill in the center of Lwow].

There were also beis midrashes, otherwise called kloizes. They were places to pray, but besides praying, you could also sit in there and study the Talmud. My Father didn’t use to sit in beis midrash.