Tag #150046 - Interview #90542 (Israel Gliazer)

Our family lived in a small stone house in the center of the town. There were 3 rooms and a kitchen in the house. There was a tiled stove in each room and in the kitchen. We actually had all we needed. At times we had to mortgage our house and move into a smaller one, but then we managed to pay our debts and move back. Whatever the times we always had a fresh challah bread at Sabbath and our mother made delicious dinner of beef and chicken meat stew and gefilte fish when things were better, or something different when she couldn’t afford fish. On Friday afternoon my mother and older sister were in the midst of preparations to Sabbath: they cleaned and washed floors, covered the table with a starched white tablecloth and cooked food to last two days: Friday and Saturday. On Friday evening my father closed his store and shop. We washed ourselves clean, put on our fancy clothes and sat down to dinner. Our mother prayed over candles and our father said a blessing to Holy Saturday, children and food and we started a meal. On Saturday our parents went to synagogue and one of the children carried their book of prayers. When it was my turn I carried it for them. After the service in the synagogue, our parents invited a poor person who could not afford to observe Sabbath – this was a custom that we always observed. My mother and father observed all Jewish traditions, observed kashrut strictly. My father wore a kippah at home and put on a wide-brimmed hat to go out. My mother always wore a dark wig becoming to her dark eyes. My parents were very strict about their religious life since they were Hasidim. They went to the Hasidic synagogue near our house on weekdays and on holidays they went to the central synagogue and I joined them to go there.

I have the best memories about observing Pesach. We had new clothes bought for us before the holiday and felt good about it. There was a bakery where they baked matzah and we used to spend hours watching them make matzah for our family. We thoroughly cleaned up the house before the holiday removing chametz. Nobody did any work through 8 days of the holiday. My father and older brothers were at home and played with younger children. It was a lot of fun since we didn’t spend this much time together when father had to go to work. We also visited friends and relatives and had guests at home. We didn’t eat any bread through 8 days of the holiday – there was not a piece of bread in the house. There was flour made from matzah used for baking strudels with jam and nuts and very delicious cookies. We kept kosher crockery in the attic and took it out at Pesach. There was a dish with Haggadah food: an egg, potato and bitter greeneries. I also remember this holiday since I posed four traditional questions during the first seder to my father who comfortably sat on pillows at the head of the table. Those were questions about the history of this holiday and our father told us about Exodus of Jews from Egypt.