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German was spoken at home and I started speaking that language, too. Of course, Estonian became my second language. My parents knew Yiddish and Russian. Father also knew English. Mother knew Latvian very well as she was born in Latvia. Both of them spoke Estonia like all Jews, Russians and Letts who lived in Estonia. No matter what language was spoken at home in Jewish families, all of them were fluent in Estonian.
Nobody forced anyone to study the language. It was natural to know the language of the country where you lived, the country that had become your motherland. One has to respect the rites of Estonian people, and the nation. It should be like that as it stands to reason. Nobody paid money to people for them to study the state language, the way it is done now. Besides, Valga was on the border with Latvia and almost all inhabitants of Valga spoke Latvian and the denizens of Latvian Valka, a frontier town, knew Estonian. It was very natural.
There were quite a lot of Jews in Valga. I cannot tell you exactly what the population was. The town was small, but the Jewish community was considerably large. There was no synagogue in Valga, only a prayer house. All Jews of the town got together there on holidays. My parents also went there.
Jewish traditions were strictly observed in our house – kashrut, Sabbath, celebration of Jewish holidays. Mother cooked the food herself, though we had a maid almost all the time. Mother was a very good cook. She cooked traditional Jewish dishes. In general she knew how to cook, sew and knit.
Nobody forced anyone to study the language. It was natural to know the language of the country where you lived, the country that had become your motherland. One has to respect the rites of Estonian people, and the nation. It should be like that as it stands to reason. Nobody paid money to people for them to study the state language, the way it is done now. Besides, Valga was on the border with Latvia and almost all inhabitants of Valga spoke Latvian and the denizens of Latvian Valka, a frontier town, knew Estonian. It was very natural.
There were quite a lot of Jews in Valga. I cannot tell you exactly what the population was. The town was small, but the Jewish community was considerably large. There was no synagogue in Valga, only a prayer house. All Jews of the town got together there on holidays. My parents also went there.
Jewish traditions were strictly observed in our house – kashrut, Sabbath, celebration of Jewish holidays. Mother cooked the food herself, though we had a maid almost all the time. Mother was a very good cook. She cooked traditional Jewish dishes. In general she knew how to cook, sew and knit.
Period
Location
Valga
Estonia
Interview
Ronny Sheyn-Kuznetsova