Tag #153564 - Interview #78531 (Ida Limonova)

I also attended a Jewish wedding party. It was the wedding of my Aunt Hava, my father’s younger sister. The bridegroom was Abram Levenberg. I was wearing a dark gown with a white collar. The bride and bridegroom had a chuppah set up at the synagogue. The most distinctive feature of any Jewish wedding is the chuppah. This term is taken from the Talmudic stipulation that a marriage doesn’t take legal effect until the bride has entered the chuppah. It’s a canopy-like structure consisting of a piece of cloth, that is held aloft on four posts, and beneath which the couple stand during the religious wedding ceremony. The rabbi said a prayer and the bride and bridegroom exchanged wedding rings. The bride was wearing a silk dress and had a shawl on her head. The bridegroom was wearing a shirt – there were no suits with jackets at that time – they only came into fashion in the early 1930s.