Tag #143085 - Interview #100229 (Yakov Bunke)

There were several synagogues in town. There was a large and beautiful one, where all Jews came on holidays, and two more large synagogues, and 4 small ones. There was also undertakers’ bureau belonging to Chevr Kadish. Jews also were charitable, and grandpa Mende was the heart of the charity fund. Rich Jews paid money in that committee and then allocated them to poor families for the poor Jews to be able to mark Sabbath, holidays or just have something to eat. Poor brides were also helped to get married. Poor Jews were also buried on charity money. There were ‘official’ paupers in Plunge who asked for alms. For them not to be a disgrace for the Jews, they were distributed among the rich who took care of them. The owner of the rich house let some back with the necessary things in the house and the ‘attached’ poor man came over to get that bag and money to certain house. Nobody stole anything, and besides poor people were exempt from constant humiliation that way. That committee also took care of the collection money for Palestine. Young men and women were getting ready for immigration to Palestine and saved money for that. There was kibutz at school where I studied. They had a real communistic mode of life. They studied, learnt the craft, worked, put all money together and allocated expenditures. When the group was ready to immigrate, the left for Palestine and other wishers came in their place. We also had Beitar [7], and its leader Itsik Tsivia was exiled in Siberia. Nobody knows what happened to him. He most likely died there.