Sabbath Preparations in Ozarow, Poland

Below is a preview of an upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Family History entitled "Shabbat and the Jewish Holidays." The exhibition contains not only basic explanations of ten Jewish holidays, but also photographs of and personal accounts from those who for the most part lived the early parts of their lives in small European towns at some point before World War II.

The following passage was written by Hillel Adler, a native of Ozarow, Poland:

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"Everyone knew that when Shabbos approached, it would not be a day like the others. It was a matter of marking the difference between daily life and the sanctity of that day. Even the poorest people did not depart from the tradition and tried to observe the day in a dignified manner.

We relied on communal solidarity to allow this to happen. On Friday afternoon certain charitable women would knock on the doors to collect egg rolls and bread for distribution to the poorest families. Among these women was Perel Youkef's, whom we named the 'Mother of the Poor.' But the housewives had already been hard at work since Thursday. The kitchens exhaled the pleasant aroma of baking cholents. The meat slowly stewed while the women peeled the potatoes which they would roast in the baking oven for Saturday's mid-day meal. And what a meal it was! Apart from the delicious cholent you could savour the 'dipine kishke' -- a stuffed casing garnished with pearl barley and fine slices of potato.
photo: Perel Youkef's Kestenbaum,The "Mother of the Poor,"and her husband Leibel.

Then came the moment to light the Sabbath candles. The mistress of the house would recite the traditional blessing. Night came, and after the meal interspersed with the 'zemiroth' or traditional Sabbath hymns, the 'Shabbos goy' came to put out the lights. As his name would indicate, this was a Catholic invited to perform tasks forbidden to Jews on the Sabbath. In his fashion, he too played his part i the observance of the holy day. During the winter, for instance, it was he who came around on Saturday morning to light the oven which would heat the entire house, and then he would show up several times more during the day to make sure that the heat was running well. On his last visit, he would receive a large portion of challe, according to custom. He would thank everyone present and wish them, in Yiddish, if you please, 'a gut'n Shabbos,' or good Sabbath. On Monday he would return to pick up his salary. There were a few men who performed this function in Ozarow, and almost all of them expressed themselves very well in Yiddish."

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The exhibition "Shabbat and the Jewish Holidays" is currently composed of thirty-six webpages. These pages provides a simple explanation and significance of each holiday and importantly some stories are told by those who for the most part lived in Europe during the early twentieth century.

Hopefully, just as the Museum's "World Jewish Communities" exhibition does, these stories 'paint a picture' of what traditional Jewish life was like in pre-war Europe--in towns perhaps very much like those our families once lived in--while there still existed many 'vibrant' Jewish communities and where such Jewish traditions flourished.

ERC Map Room of Interwar Poland

Displayed on five web pages within the Museum's Education and Research Center are more than one hundred topographic maps of various regions in Poland, along with some from Belarus and the Ukraine. Most of these maps have been divided into a right half and left half with the Map Room in order to reduce download time. All of the maps were drawn and produced between World Wars I and II.

It is interesting to note the names of the various towns and villages in the surrounding areas as they appeared before World War II, as well as the varying topography within each region. What kind of region did our ancestors live in? Was it hilly or mountainous? Were there rivers near the town? What were the names of the towns surrounding our "ancestral" town?

Each of the maps are arranged first by latitude, then by longitude. Just click on any of the thumbnail images to see the larger version.

www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/maproom-1.htm

The Lost Synagogues of Europe

Imagine that the Museum of Family History was made of "brick and mortar" (as opposed to existing solely in cyberspace, which it does). A "promenade" exists on its upper floor through which you can take a stroll while viewing various artwork exhibitions, both created by Jewish artists and pertaining to Jewish themes.

Now you can visit the Museum's "Art Gallery on the Promenade." Currently on exhibit are gouaches (on watercolor paper) of fourteen former European synagogues. The synagogues represented in this exhibition once stood in the following locations:

Germany: Aachen, Baden-Baden, Bielefeld, Bochum, Breslau (now Wroclaw), Bruchsal, Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), Essen and Konigsberg (now Kalinigrad, Russia).

Netherlands: Amsterdam.

Poland: Katowice.

Slovakia: Bratislava.

Ukraine: Belz, Chernivtski (Czernowitz).

There is a plaque next to each gouache which gives information about the history of the particular synagogue.
The Museum thanks artist Andrea Strongwater for her willingness to display her attractive artwork on the Museum's "Promenade."
You can access this at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/prom-lse.htm. Just click on the "enter" link on this page to see the full exhibition of her works.

Also please visit the Museum's other exhibition entitled "The Synagogues of Europe" where you can see photographs or postcards of dozens of former European synagogues from eighteen different countries. The photographs are organized first by country and then by town. The link for this exhibition is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-syn-europe.htm.

ERC Pronunciation Guide of European Towns

To the non-native speaker, the proper pronunciation of words in a foreign language may be a daunting task. Many of us can remember traveling to a foreign country and trying unsuccessfully to communicate with others in their native tongue. Here, at the Museum's ERC (Education and Research Center), an effort has been made to aid those interested in learning the correct pronunciation of various town and city names, as spoken by those native to that particular country. Currently, pronunciation guides are available for Polish, Magyar (Hungarian), Lithuanian and Romanian. Perhaps a Russian language guide will be available at some time in the future.

Just as in a tape you might buy to practice phrases in a foreign language before taking a trip abroad, you can listen to each audio clip for a particular first letter from the beginning, but you may be able to pause, go forwards or backwards, or play it again, depending on your computer's media player. You can choose to repeat the town name each time after the speaker says the name.The particular towns and cities that appear in each guide have been chosen because their names appear within the museum's website. Left-click onto the head letters to begin each clip, e.g. the letter "A" to hear the pronunciation of the towns beginning with the letter "A."

Here are the links to the four pronunciation guides at the Museum of Family History:
Lithuanian
Magyar (Hungarian)
Polish
Romanian

Good luck!