Tag #148341 - Interview #95620 (Mera Shulman)

In my childhood there were no more cheders in Riga. And my daddy finished cheder. The schoolboys were guaranteed that after they finished that educational institution they would be able to write ‘Jewish letter with Russian address’. That was their maximum program. By the way, I keep my father’s letter in Russian: ‘My dear children, I am safe and sound, and wish you the same.‘ that is full of characteristically Jewish mistakes. There were a lot of different Jewish schools there: Hebrew, Yiddish, and Hebrew with Ashkenazi bias. Among these schools there were both secular and religious ones. In Riga there were Jewish hospitals. People could choose a hospital according to their income: expensive ones, of average cost or charity hospitals for poor. There were mikves at the city bath-houses.

There was no special place (ghetto) in Riga for compact residing of Jews. Jews lived in apartments they could afford.