Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982
Shabbos
Would you describe for me what a Shabbos was like at your house?
Very beautiful. Oh, I--when I say Sha...and we were not Orthodox. We were more Conservative, my family. But Conservative there, my father could be a super rabbi here. Every Friday night it was a pleasure. It was a quiet little city, very Jewish. Because the non...there were goys, non-Jews, but uh, you couldn't notice them. A few stores were open and every Friday night we had a very uh, we had so much traffic in the store. When it came to Friday night--it was sundown, when you, you know, when the real Shabbos start--my father had to stay and close the door not to let in more customers because he felt the ones they're in can be attended only. And by the time they be attended, Shabbos is going to be--and then he went to the davening and come, you know, it's, you know, to a synagogue. And coming home, that Friday night dinner, you will never, never seen anything nicer in your life. That's the only thing I crave for is for a Friday night like my father--he was not a very Orthodox Jew, a Conservative Jew. But my God, here, Conservative here, it's something else. It was beautiful. It was very--not, and not very rich. And you know on top of this, we're above average. I--we just talked the other day, it came to close--here we didn't sit in the stores all the time buying new clothes. Uh, I was the shortest--the, the fourth. But I--a dress was already remodeled from my older sister for me. And, and it was beautiful. But the schools, we all wear--wore the same clothes. It must have been for some reason because some children, was a... You know, I, when I look back, I see there was uh, uh, it was poor people back in Poland. But at schools we all wore like costumes--the same and it was very good, because there was no, you know, one child didn't feel worse than the other. And I was going most, non-Jewish kids to school...
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