All our neighbors were Jewish. We all knew everybody else’s woes and joys. Whether a child was born or if a bar mitzvah or a wedding was performed. There were entire weeks when you didn’t even go out almost at all, people worked from morning till evening, radio or television didn’t exist.
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Leizer Finchelstein
The market Piata Halei existed in Iasi ever since I can remember. There were many Jewish traders who sold wholesale products, but peasants came there as well.
There were no automobiles in Iasi before the war. There were carriages and carts that handled the heavy-duty transports. Everything that was required in constructions or moving was done by horse carts. There were no taxi cabs at the train station in those days, there were carriages instead. Even the dead were carried by cart. There were special hearses, for the rich and for the poor.
I can’t say very much about the Community as an institution before the war. In fact, the Community was organized after the war. Back then, there were many charity institutions run by well-to-do Jews living in Iasi, such as the Israeli Hospital. There were also those who took care of funerals. For the poor, there was the “Ghelter” canteen.
I don’t remember many things about the bar mitzvah ceremony, but I do know that most of my relatives attended it. Family relations were very strong when I was a child. Of course, the entire religious ceremony was performed at the synagogue, then our parents organized a small family table. There was no Jewish boy who hadn’t been circumcised 8 days after being born or who hadn’t had a bar mitzvah at 13. You had to study very hard for the bar mitzvah, even if at times you didn’t know exactly what you were saying. The boys were tutored by a rabbi or by a melamed on most occasions, a sort of a teacher. You had to prepare yourself so that you wouldn’t shame your father. The ceremony marked the fact that you were becoming a man, you made a commitment of going to the synagogue and wearing a tefillin, of becoming a good Jew.
There was a mikveh over at Zisu Herman’s. Brides had to go to the mikveh before getting married; also, rabbis and the very religious people always went there in order to wash.
The children, especially the boys, used to go to the cheder. There was the small cheder for beginners and the large cheder. There was no Jewish child who didn’t go to the cheder.
There were almost 100 synagogues and prayer houses in Iasi. There was a street called Synagogues’ St. where the Great Synagogue still stands to this day. Each guild had its synagogue. These were according to trade: the shoemakers’ synagogue, the tailors’ synagogue, the butchers’ synagogue, even the musicians’ synagogue. Everybody had a synagogue of their own, which was almost not roomy enough on holidays, that’s how many people attended these synagogues. But people didn’t really attend the synagogues outside holidays. I couldn’t say that the Jews in Iasi were extremely religious, the men had to work in order to provide for their families, but not going to the synagogue on Friday night and on Saturdays was out of the question. There were a few rabbis in Iasi, and each synagogue had a cantor of its own.
A large part of the population of Iasi was of Jewish origin, approximately 50% before the pogrom. I reckon 90% of them were craftsmen, 5-6% were traders, and there were also a few bankers. Most of the trades before the war were practiced by Jews, starting with carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, cooperage, joinery. There were only Jews living on Cuza Voda St., Targu Cucului St., Costache Negri St., Aron Voda St.
The financial situation of the family was rather difficult and insecure, for you could never tell what tomorrow would bring. Our parents always strived to ensure the livelihood of our numerous family. Father worked hard, the income that carpentry brought wasn’t that good, and people also paid taxes in those days. It was hard to pay taxes, if you didn’t pay them, the tax collectors used to come and levy a distraint upon certain goods in the house. And it was rather hard. Father was the only one who earned money in the family. That was until we grew up and managed to earn some money ourselves. And carpentry was season-bound. It wasn’t a system based on the certainty that the month would pass and the wages would roll in. All money earned was spent mostly on food and less on clothing. We were so many children that had to be bought some clothing, the youngest used to wear the clothes of the elder brothers, but you had to buy clothes for the eldest as their existing clothes wouldn’t fit them anymore.
I lived for several years on Conductelor St. in Targu Cucului, a predominantly Jewish quarter.
With the exception of Elisa and Iosel who died an untimely death, all other brothers emigrated to Israel. Only I stayed here.
Romania
The youngest brother, Hari, was born in 1925. People also called him Haim. He was a leather dresser, he made shoe uppers, formerly there were no shoe factories. Then the shoemakers came, took the shoe uppers and pulled them over shoe-lasts, thus making footwear.
Romania
I remember that Iosel often worked with my father for the Yiddish Theatre in Iasi, “Pomul Verde,” and, on many occasions, played as an extra or was given very small parts in the plays that were performed there. [Ed. note: The first professional theatre in Yiddish was founded in Gradina “Pomul Verde” (The “Green Tree” Garden), today the Park in front of the National Theatre in Iasi, as it was intended for a Jewish audience, the vast majority of Jews living in the Podul Ros suburb. The theatre was founded by Avram Goldfaden in 1876.] Most often, he played the part of a “iusam” [Yiddish], an orphan child, he was very convincing in that part. On other occasions, he used to help change the sets and props.
Iosel Finchelstein was born around 1919. He worked as a carpenter in a workshop together with my father and was killed during the Iasi pogrom in the summer of 1941. He was only 22 at the time. I don’t know where he is buried, probably in one of the common burial grounds.
Shortly afterwards, they left to Israel illegally through Hungary. In Austria they were welcome by and received the support of Zionist organizations which helped them to continue their journey. They made it to Cyprus and they waited there for almost 2 years until they could enter Israel.
Israel
Chanukkah was another joyous occasion, when we received Chanukkah gelt [Yiddish: Chanukkah money], and mother prepared varnishkes [Yiddish: triangular dumplings with potato or cheese filling]. We went to the shil on Simchat Torah and people were given apples and small flags.
Purim was a special holiday as well. Mother began grinding walnuts about 2 weeks in advance, more than 1,000 walnuts. Back then you didn’t go to the store in order to buy the pastry for the strudel, the thin pastry layers were prepared at home. Strudel was one of my mother’s specialties, followed by hamantashen. Apart from that, every housewife prepared yet another 4, 5 kinds of baked dishes. On Purim, there was the custom of sending one another shelakhmones. Mother sent us, children, with trays of various baked pastries, after which we returned with the trays full of baked pastries we received from our relatives. It was an occasion of great joy for us as we also received Purim gelt [Yiddish: Purim money]. We wore masks on Purim, especially the children and the young. Gypsies knew that we were celebrating Purim and they came to play music. Music filled the air in the entire neighborhood. There were many Gypsy bands that came with trombones and drums in our neighborhood. For us, the children, Purim was one of the merriest holidays. It was when we used to break walnuts, then eat hamantashen.
We, the children, played in front of the synagogue, and the boys threw thistle balls in the girls’ hair. We had fun in whatever way we could. We didn’t have toys as I see nowadays in the homes with children. We had toys made from patches and balls made from rags. We were very wretched as children. Our great joy was on Pesach and the autumn holidays when we were bought new clothes. And if father earned well before the holidays, he used to buy new things for all the children and come home in a hackney coach, that’s how laden with luggage he was, from shoes to socks, shirts, clothes for all ages. When I put on new shoes, I used to polish them with shoe polish for weeks on end, even on the soles.
On Rosh Hashanah there was the custom of shaking your pockets clean in the proximity of a watercourse or a pool of water and of symbolically getting rid of your sins. It was called di tasleh [Yiddish: the pockets].
Romania
The seder evening was very beautiful in our family. As there were very many of us, we had a 2-3 meter long table and we all sat around the table. Mother and father were seated at the head of the table, where the afikoman was usually hidden. A couple of other families lived in the courtyard where we lived, and they didn’t have any children, so that we invited them over at our place during the seder evening and it was a joy for them to sit at such a table. Mother prepared a cast-iron kettle of potatoes and eating bread was out of the question. Father would conduct the ceremony, he read the prayers in Yiddish. Most of the times, the youngest children recited the MaNishtana, the 4 questions that are asked at the beginning of the seder ceremony. Then we, the children, rejoiced when the Pesach songs were sung, and the atmosphere became more loose and cheerful.
For instance, an entire ceremony was performed on Pesach. It began with cleaning of the house some 2 weeks in advance, walls were whitewashed, beds were aired. Everything was washed. We had a trunk in the attic with special dishes for Pesach, which was lowered, washed and tidied up. The chametz was gathered and burned and people bought matzot. On Pesach, my parents bought unleavened bread baked right there in Iasi. Back then, the unleavened bread wasn’t delivered from Israel. There were a few places in Iasi where they baked unleavened bread. The unleavened bread was wrapped in a mat made from bulrush wickerwork, and every family bought as much as they could afford and depending on the number of family members. Every family prepared the flour for the unleavened bread themselves, the slices of unleavened bread were mashed in a steisl [Yiddish: fulling mill, mortar]. Then, the resulting flour was sieved and used to make latkes [Yiddish: a variety of apple fritters made from unleavened bread flour to which eggs and condiments are added, and which are fried in oil afterwards] or farfelakh [Yiddish: small pieces of unleavened bread dipped in egg and dried in the oven] for soup.
The fact that we were a family with 9 children, out of which 6 were boys and 3 were girls, plus father and mother, we were 11 in total. Yet one of my mother’s sisters lived with us in the house, aunt Sura. As I have previously said, she had been married to a Bulgarian Jew who left her or disappeared, and she was left to raise 2 children. So we were a team to be reckoned with. Father had to work, he was the only one who earned money in the family, mother was a housewife. I will never forget our parents’ effort to raise us. Back then, conditions were very hard, there was no hot water, no electricity. We all studied by the light of the gas lamp. Water was brought from the water pump and heated on the stove. Our only good fortune was that we lived near the Zisu Herman bathhouse, which was a public bathhouse and, as a carpenter, father sometimes worked at this bathhouse. Thus, we had free entrance to the bathhouse. Father would take the boys to the bathhouse on Friday, the schedule was for men on Friday morning, and for women towards the afternoon. Mother would take the girls then and go with them to the bathhouse as well. We washed in a wooden bathtub at home. My mother heated a large cauldron of water and we, the little ones, would enter the bathtub 2 or 3 at a time, and gambol there. There were no luxury soaps back then. You bought some sort of homemade soap which was sold by the pound, cut a slice out of it and that’s how you washed. Mother prepared changes of clothes for us at the end of the week, we didn’t change our clothes 3-4 times a week like nowadays.
My father and the boys went to the synagogue every Friday and Saturday. We observed the kashrut and all Jewish holidays.
There was no holiday when we didn’t have soup, made either from poultry or beef, or fish dishes. As a rule, on Saturday we ate fried fish, soup, sometimes meat, then we had something sweet, stewed fruit or kigl [Yiddish: pudding made from pasta] or sweet beans. Of course, Jewish food was our favorite, especially the one prepared on holidays. If you called on somebody on Saturday and they had some special pudding, you knew that the material situation of the family was somewhat good. My mother had to cook something for Saturday from anything she could find.
We never had any sausages or pork meat in the house that weren’t kosher. There was a sausage factory that belonged to one of my father’s customers. It was called Leibovici and it produced kosher sausages. Sometimes we ate some frankfurters with mashed potatoes during the week.
Zoltan Blum
Nevertheless, I didn’t find the thought of spending my entire life alone appealing at all. So I found me a Christian girl. Her name was Rozalia, nee Hideg. She was born on 16 September 1933 in Fizesul Gherlei. Hungarian was her native tongue. One of her uncles was a neighbor of ours and that’s how I met her. After courting her properly, I asked her if she wanted to marry me. She said yes.
She had no income. As for me, thanks to my trade, I did have nice clothes, but that was it – I had no fortune. So I told her: ‘Take a good look at me and think it over. I have nothing except the house where I grew up.’ She was poor too, but that didn’t matter. We went to the mayor’s office and got married. We didn’t have a religious ceremony because it’s not allowed for a Jew [in case of a mixed marriage]. We got married in 1952. We’ve been together for 53 years now.
She had no income. As for me, thanks to my trade, I did have nice clothes, but that was it – I had no fortune. So I told her: ‘Take a good look at me and think it over. I have nothing except the house where I grew up.’ She was poor too, but that didn’t matter. We went to the mayor’s office and got married. We didn’t have a religious ceremony because it’s not allowed for a Jew [in case of a mixed marriage]. We got married in 1952. We’ve been together for 53 years now.
We didn’t wish to leave for Israel, unlike many Jews who emigrated.
I owned horses and a cart until 1962. I worked as a wagoner. I was also a bit of a butcher, but I was soon forbidden to work on my own – the State became the owner of everything 8. So I relied on my cart. Peasants would need to have a lamb slaughtered from time to time.
My friends found me a position at the sausage factory [in Gherla]. Two of their employees had been drafted, so there was an opening. They hired me as an untrained worker in 1959.
That was only fair, since I had no education except my 7 grades. When I came back [after World War II], I made no attempt to continue my education. When I moved to Gherla, I had already been working in the factory for some time. From 1959 to 1962 I commuted by bike from Fizesul Gherlei to Gherla.
That was only fair, since I had no education except my 7 grades. When I came back [after World War II], I made no attempt to continue my education. When I moved to Gherla, I had already been working in the factory for some time. From 1959 to 1962 I commuted by bike from Fizesul Gherlei to Gherla.