Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Zoltan Rubin - January 12, 1983

Religious Life

Just a little more about the way your household was run. The shul was in your...house.

The shul was in our house, we had minyan every Saturday. As a matter of fact, if we didn't have minyan then uh, there was schnorrers enough to have minyan. But, but we had, we had to...One thing my father insisted, that we have to be there in shul. In spite of we were trying to cheat.

You were always there?

And uh, like Saturday afternoon, the guys were playing football and I had to stay home, so sometime I run away and, and I didn't show up and Shulosh Sidush, I knew there was going to be some problems. And there were problems. But, I had always somebody with me, this was my mother, may she rest in peace, she was always on my side. Maybe because I was the youngest. Maybe I was, I was the little child. But uh, it was very important that we keep the Jewishness. Friday afternoon we closed, the business was closed. And, and there was, there was a Shabbos. It was a Shabbos. It was, it was nice. It was very nice. And maybe because, uh...Besides that we were, maybe because we had financially, we were one of the...We were very well off and maybe this was, this helped. But, and I wouldn't say this is all there was. There was a Jewish life, there was a...You really felt, you felt there was, there was a Saturday, there was a Sunday. It was a pleasure. It was nice. We had...I remember little stories like when, when, when uh, before the high holidays, the, you know, in little villages when there was no shul, there was no chazen and for the High Holidays, we had to have a chazen. So there, we were hiring chazens and they were arriving, coming and there were four or five people people, candidates were coming in and they were in my, in our house. They were testing them out. How it's going to be, how they, were they good, you know. So, the Jewish life was thriving in spite it was a little village, in spite it was only seven families, but we kept together. And we...It was Jewish, it was a Jewish life.


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