Maria Kaspina

Folk Judaism: Variations of Religious Practices among the Jews of Ukraine and Moldova (Findings of 2004 - 2011)

Maria Kaspina - Museum of Jewish History in Russia; Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies, Russian State University for Humanities (Moscow, Russia). kaspina@mail.ru

The article draws on the analysis of interviews with the Jews of Ukraine and Moldova, who had lived the first part of their lives following traditional Jewish ways, while the other part fell on the period of strong anti-religious pressure in the Soviet Union. As a result, several variations of what we can call "folk Judaism" emerged. One form is a forced refusal to follow the laws of Judaism and elaboration of various ways for breaking taboos. The second option is a conscious rejection of ancestral religious traditions, parcial observing as a "camouflage", and minimal interaction with modern Orthodox Judaism. The third option is creating their own individual rules for observing selected religious commandments. Several key mechanisms of the formation of new Jewish "folk" religious practices can be identified. They are the transformation of the existing halakhic regulations with the help of a) ritual fraud; b) changes in the status of the ritual object; c) application of the laws of ritual purity to an object known to be unclean.

Keywords: religion, folk religion, folk Judaism and Jewish customs, modern fieldwork.

Kaspina M. Narodnyi judaizm: variantsii religioznykh praktik (po materialam expekitsii k evreyam Ukrainy i Moldavii, 2004 - 2011) [Folk Judaism: Variants of Religious practices (based on the materials of expeditions to the Jews of Ukraine and Moldova, 2004-2011)]. 2015. N 3 (33). pp. 11-30.

Kaspina, Maria (2015) "Folk Judaism: Variations of Religious Practices among the Jews of Ukraine and Moldova (Findings of 2004 - 2011)", Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkou' v Rossii i za rubezhom 33(3): 11 - 30.

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This publication is based on field materials that were recorded during expeditions to Podolia (Tulchin, Balta, Mogilev-Podilsky), Bukovina (Chernivtsi) and Bessarabia (Chisinau, Soroki, Balti, Brichany, Khotin, Novoselitsa)1. The choice of Podolia, Bessarabia and the city of Chernivtsi as the location of the expeditions is explained by the fact that in these regions a part of the old-time Jewish population, carriers of an authentic ethno-cultural and linguistic tradition, has been preserved to this day. During World War II, Jews from these regions came under Romanian occupation (the so - called Governorate of Transnistria, 1941-1944) or were deported there. Despite the fact that the Romanian occupation authorities exterminated Jews in several cities, and the population of the rest was driven into ghettos and concentration camps, a significant part of the Jewish population survived the occupation. Thus, after the war, the south-west of the Vinnytsia, north-west of the Odessa regions of Ukraine, the Chernivtsi region, and Moldova were among the few regions where "ethnographic" Jewish communities were preserved. At the same time, the Jews of Bessarabia lived in the territories that were part of Romania until 1940. Talking to such informants, who were born in the 1920s and 1930s, we can record unique memories of the pre-Soviet Jewish traditional culture, where the system of traditional Jewish education was not yet destroyed, religious precepts and customs were observed, synagogues and heders operated. Before the outbreak of the war, our interlocutors were 10 or 15 years old, and they managed to catch the Eastern European Jewish tradition, which their peers living in the territory of the Soviet Union had already heard only from older relatives. Interviews with Jews who have lived part of their lives in the conditions of the traditional Jewish way of life, and part of their lives in the conditions of active state rejection of any manifestations of religious traditions, are a unique material for studying folk religiosity in the everyday life of Jews.

1. The expeditions were conducted in 2004-2011 by the RSUH Center for Biblical Studies and Judaism and the Interfacult Center "Petersburg Judaica" of the European University in St. Petersburg together with the Sefer Center for Researchers and Teachers of Judaica in Higher Education Institutions.

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The specifics of folk religiosity as a whole have been considered by many researchers.2 Complex definitions of official, normative, standard religion and its popular distortions or transformations are the basis of theoretical works devoted to this multifaceted phenomenon. Following many researchers, we will consider the sum of religious practices adopted in a particular community, which are in dynamic interaction with official religious institutions, as the main definition of folk religiosity.

The concept of "folk religion", developed on the basis of Jewish traditional culture, was first seriously put forward by Joshua Trachtenberg and Dov Noy3. They emphasized mainly local variants of Jewish religious practices in various ethnic groups, highlighting the specifics of rituals and customs among the Jews of Morocco, medieval Germany, modern Israel, etc. In addition, the clash between the religious norms of Judaism and folklore forms of observance or even non-observance of these norms has also become the subject of many studies on Jewish customs. 4 It is known that one of the essential principles of Jewish religious legislation is the existence of strict regulation of all spheres of human life, including the smallest details of everyday life and everyday life-

2. См., например: Durkheim, E. (1964) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London; Crummey, R. (1993) "Old Belief as Popular Religion: New Approaches", Slavic Review 52(4): 74 - 92; Levin, E. (1993) "Dvoeverie and Popular Religion", in S. K. Batalden (ed.) Seeking God. The Recovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia, pp. 89 - 97. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press; Primiano, L. N. (1995) "Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Folklife", Western Folklore 54(1: Special issue "Reflexivity and the Study of Belief", ed. by D. J. Hufford): 37 - 56; Панченко А. А. Религиозные практики: to the study of "folk religion" // Mythology and everyday life (Issue 2): Materials of the scientific conference on February 26-26, 1999. SPb., 1999. pp. 198-218.

3. Trachtenberg, J. (1961) Jewish Magic and Superstitions: a Study in Folk Religion, pp. 39 - 103. Philadelphia; Noy, D. (1986) "Is There a Jewish Folk Religion?", in Turniansky, Ch. (ed.) Studies in Yiddish Literature and Folklore. Research Projects of the Institute of Jewish Studies, Monograph Series 7, pp. 251 - 272. Jerusalem: Hebrew University.

4. Ansky S. Jewish folk art // The experience. St. Petersburg, 1908. Vol. 1. pp. 276-314; Kaspina M. Collision of law and custom in the traditional culture of the Jews of Eastern Europe: folk Judaism // Anthropological Forum. 2010. N 13 Online. P. 39_54 [http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/0130nline/13_ online_kaspina.pdf, доступ от 25.08.15]; Weissler, Ch. (1987) "The Religion of Traditional Ashkenazic Women: Some Methodological Issues", AJS Review 12: 73 - 94; Sperber, D. (1999). Why Jews Do What They Do. New York: Ktav Pub. House; Sperber, D. (2008) The Jewish Life Cycle: Custom, Lore and Iconography. Oxford University Press and Bar-Ilan University Press.

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tina. Nevertheless, even at the time of the establishment and formation of Jewish religious law - halakha, the rabbis insisted that a person should not violate either the customs of his ancestors or the customs accepted in this place (Jerusalem Talmud, Ps. 4: 1, 30g, Sofrim 14: 18). This means that even for the founders of Jewish law teaching, it was obvious that in real life the law often comes into conflict with folk custom and traditions adopted in the areas where Jews live at a given time. In principle, Jewish law distinguishes between civil and ritual law. While in the sphere of civil law custom can override the law, in the sphere of ritual legislation this usually does not happen: here custom cannot allow what is prohibited by law.

In this article, I will look at several variants of "popular Judaism" that are revealed from interviews and field observations in our chosen region. One of them is the forced refusal to follow the commandments of Judaism and popular options for circumventing prohibitions. The second option is a conscious rejection of the religious traditions of our ancestors, observing them "for camouflage" and minimal interaction with modern orthodox Judaism. The third option is the formation of their own individual norms for selective observance of certain religious precepts.

Forced refusal to observe religious traditions due to persecution

The first type of justification for violating certain precepts of Judaism is related to the difficult historical and political situation in which Jews found themselves in the period after World War II. Open observance of the commandments of Judaism was subject to strong pressure from the authorities, and in order to somehow adhere to the tradition without attracting excessive attention from the state, Jews were forced to partially violate religious laws.

So, for example, according to the law, in a Jewish home, a mezuzah must hang on the jamb of each doorway - a certain text from the Pentateuch, written on parchment and enclosed in a special box. The mezuzah is created by a professional scribe in ink on parchment and costs quite a lot

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expensive. In the difficult conditions of the Soviet era, when it was impossible to find a real mezuzah, just paper sheets with a printed test from the "Siddur" (prayer book) were inserted into the boxes on the door jambs, which contradicted halakhic norms:

This son didn't have a meziza, so we had one Azek, who was very learned, very much... such a person. So he said - I'll give you two leaves from sider, you put it there. This will be considered to be meziza 5.

A "learned" person, who is a clear religious authority, finds a compromise option that goes against Orthodox Judaism, but preserves the tradition, albeit in a distorted form.

Similarly, when it was necessary to gather a minyan - 10 Jewish adults to lead a collective prayer - in Soviet times, children, women, and even non-Jews were sometimes counted among the ten. In one of our interviews we recorded a unique testimony of the war years:

And a minion is ten people. But when my dad was... we were in a camp, it was impossible to gather nine people - they would have been shot here-one-two. So I remember when it was necessary, this minion was needed, so Dad always went out and counted nine trees, and he was the tenth 6.

In connection with the ban on burying people according to the Jewish rite, another compromise version of the tradition appeared: a person was buried in a suit, as is customary among all surrounding peoples, but under the suit they put on special funeral clothes - tpakhrihim, in which the deceased should be buried according to the Jewish rite: "Only the deceased was washed. They dressed whoever they wanted - in a suit, but all the same, under the bottom were tahrikhim"7. One of govo's informants-

5. API, zap. in Tulchin (2005) by Kolodenker Pesi Shaevna, born in 1927

6. ATSBI, zap. in Chernovtsy (2008) from Kats Klara Moiseevna, born in 1935 in Chernovtsy.

7. ATSBI, zap. in Chernovtsy (2005) from Anna Iosifovna Schwarzbreuth born in 1925, b. in places. Maly Chernivtsy.

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he told us that if a dead person wears only a suit, he will be restless in the next world, he will be "bitten and tortured" 8.

In cases where it was impossible to observe mourning for seven days after the funeral and you had to go to work, they tried to modify the custom: instead of sitting at home without shoes, they put earth from the grave in their socks:

[Do they sit in mourning?] To Shiva. Seven days. They sit on the floor for seven days. Me too. I sat and my wife, although my wife is Ukrainian, we also sat together. We sat behind my mother for seven days. Here. [...] Need land... the land is taken in socks. [To your land? From where?] from the grave. This is also somehow explained by the fact that you seem to go so that you don't have to go there every day, that you sort of go near it... near the dead man. Well, I listened to that, like I heard 9.

The practice of putting earth in socks or shoes (not necessarily from the grave) by those who could not spend all seven days of mourning at home - primarily due to the need to go to work - was widespread. She is mentioned in many interviews. Apparently, its occurrence is due to the fact that one of the expressions of grief is that the mourner spends all seven mourning days barefooted. Having filled the earth in his shoes or socks, he seems to continue, even in the workplace, to remain barefoot.

However, in this case, a small piece of earth from the grave, on which the mourner walks, symbolizes, from his point of view, the constant presence of a person near the burial site. Generally speaking, Jewish tradition not only does not prescribe going to the grave of the deceased on every day of mourning, but also strongly recommends not to do so. Nevertheless, this practice of ritual substitution becomes precisely such a motivation in the minds of our informant.

Thus, it can be noted that in the case of forced distortion of the existing rules, the main mechanisms for the formation of "folk" religious practices are reduced to changing the status of the object (trees instead of people, a printed sheet instead of hands).-

8. Titova E. Jewish funeral rite of the Chernivtsi region / / Zhivaya starina. 2006. N 2. P. 38.

9. IPI, zap. in Mogilev-Podolsky (2008) from Koifman Mikhail Aronovich, born in 1957. in Mogilev-Podolsk.

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writing) and ritual deception (tahrihim hiding under a suit, etc.).

Deliberate rejection of religious traditions

a) Forced compliance - "camouflage"

The reverse situation, associated with the modification of religious traditions, took place in assimilated Jewish families, in which the commandments of Judaism were observed only ostentatiously:

[Did you observe traditions at home?]- Strictly... No, I'm just telling you in Hebrew, far di mansion (for people), so that they don't judge me, and so ... and I'm in my own, so to speak, house [ ... ] You know.. how much my father was not religious, that, for example, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Judgment, he fasted, but smoked.. This is... cannot.. Well, for example, when his father died, so he went to the synagogue and said to him ... this one... a memorial prayer.

[ ... ] my parents had it changed... a service, for every day there was a service, with forget-me-nots, and at Easter they took such a service with green stripes... And then my grandfather was still alive... so for the sake of, well... don't drop it... well, you can't mix meat and dairy, and my grandfather was told that these knives are meat, and these are dairy, but this is such a knife... camouflage was 10.

This interview shows what elements of Jewish tradition were preserved, even when most of them were lost: the Day of Judgment and the observance of memorial customs. We repeatedly recorded that kosher dishes were kept for elderly relatives, despite the fact that Kashrut was no longer observed in the house. Surprisingly, even in Soviet times, the religious community remained underground in one form or another, and sometimes, especially in small towns, operated quite openly. So, in particular, in Chernivtsi, "the whole city"knew that a Jewish boy was born:

10. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2005) from Sofia Filippovna Vollerner, born in 1910, born in Kiev.

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[Did you circumcise your children?] No, despite the fact that there was such a paradoxical case. I do not know how they found out. In general, when my eldest son was born, I didn't even have time to come home with my son, and already a man came from the synagogue to be circumcised. And it just so happened that Dad was opening the door. Well, since my father was an old communist. Since the age of 18. He said, " What kind of circumcision are you doing?" In general, I didn't allow it. Oh, and to tell you the truth, we didn't even think about it 11.

Attitudes towards religion have undergone very significant changes, and along with observing several basic elements, such as keeping the fast on Yom Kippur, marking the anniversary of the death of relatives (yortzayt), or trying to buy matzah on Passover, 12 the main definition of religiosity has become a sharply negative concept of "fanaticism".13
A characteristic change in the religious consciousness of Soviet Jews can be seen in such a small fragment from the interview:

One of our grandfathers, a Kohen (descendant of the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem), was buried in a shroud, and the other said, "Dress me like a human being, in a suit."14
Orthodox old men were shamed and slightly excused:

After all, I was brought up in a native Jewish family with such traditions, my grandfather was very pious, I remember even coming to us and praying. He was very religious, my grandmother, she was illiterate, no, she was like that. He said there that she needed to pray, she did, but fanatically, like him, she wasn't religious, grandma, and grandpa yes, went to synagogue, every week, on the Sabbath, here, went, yes, yes 15.

11. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2010) from Tsnaimer Eleonora Borisovna, born in 1926, born in Kherson, in Chernivtsi since 1946.

12. See for more details: Lviv A. Mezhetnicheskie otnosheniya: uchashenie matsoy i "krovyy navet" [Interethnic relations: matzoy treats and "bloody slander"]. Shtetl, XXI vek: polevye issledovaniya, St. Petersburg, 2008, pp. 71-73.

13. See for more details on the use of this term: Zelenina G. "All life among books": Soviet Jewry on the way from the Bible to the Library / / State, Religion, Church in Russia and abroad. 2012. N 3-4(30). P. 63.

14. ATSBI, zap. in Chisinau (2010) from Glutnik Hany Fishelevna, born in 1958, Balti.

15. ATSBI, zap. in Chernovtsy (2007) Kluzman (Segal) Musi Abramovna, born in 1941, born in Tulchyn, Vinnytsia region, in Chernivtsi since 1979.

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The Pope went to the synagogue, the one that was open, he did not always go, but only when he thought it was necessary, there was no fanaticism. He went to yortzait, to izkor, and twice a year prayers were read if his parents died, so that they would be happy in the Garden of Eden 16.

I know that we were born into a religious family, I know everything according to the Jewish law, how and what, but I don't want to be a fanatic. I'm not a fanatic. I don't go to synagogue, and I've never gone to synagogue, only Ion Kiper. When Judgment Day, then we gathered to hear the shofar, even as the shofar was being blown. But no, I didn't really [...] my family was religious - everything. But they're not fanatics enough to wear beards like this. To go with black polts 17.

Even a direct violation of age-old traditions by parents is perceived as some kind of valor:

The pope had [tries to remember the name] thales, toles. White cape with black and boxes. It was called thales mit tviln. [What does this mean?] Something divine. They prayed. The Pope was not religious. He was a bit of a crook. You couldn't drive or smoke on Saturday. He would get on a bicycle defiantly and drive around the city with a cigarette 18.

It is characteristic that fanatics are called people of strange, provocative behavior (I went to synagogue every week), who differ from ordinary people even in appearance. And in general, even when our informants talk about their parents ' religiosity, which they are now beginning to be proud of, they still emphasize their moderation and lack of fanaticism:

My father was a really religious person, but, as they say, in moderation, not a fan. He went to the front, took tolos and tvyln with him. And a prayer book. So that's saying something. He didn't always go to synagogue in the last few years, because he was so tired.-

16. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2008) from Steinberg (Weinsaft), Ita Zigrfridovna born in 1945 in Chernivtsi.

17. ATSBI, zap. in Chernovtsy (2009) from Goldheimer Dvory Khaimovna, 1929.b. Kaushany, Bessarabia.

18. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2009) from Volper Faina Lipovna, born in 1927, Starokonstantinov.

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it was a pity, but when he came, he was always given a place of honor there, and he always read prayers at home on Saturday, and we knew that. All holidays were always observed exactly to the point of, we all felt this as children and grandchildren 19.

b) Rejecting and ridiculing classical Judaism

The condemnation of religious fanaticism often extends to the young Orthodox Jews of today that our informants have encountered in various organizations in recent decades. Traditional religious prohibitions seem strange and wild. So an elderly Jewish woman tells about her neighbors-a family of young rabbis: "They had wild oddities: sometimes they could, sometimes they couldn't... They bought themselves a frying pan, they weren't allowed to wash their cups" 20. About the custom of putting stones on the grave instead of flowers, adopted throughout the Jewish world, including Israel, Bessarabian Jews say: "stupidity" 21. Reading a brief summary sent to the Khotin synagogue code of Jewish laws (Short Shulchan Aruch), our informants openly laugh when faced with some of the regulations:

Here it is written so absurdly that no one observes [...reads from a book]: "Two Jews who know each other, even if they are not friends, are forbidden to sit at the same table if one eats meat and the other dairy." You can't sit at the same table... [laughs...]. "You can't rub spittle on the floor with your foot - spittle - but you can step on it with your foot without rubbing it" [everyone laughs].22

When a new religious authority appears in a community that has been without a rabbi for many years, its behavior is often sharply opposed by those who have preserved the tradition in a slightly modified form than is customary in Orthodox Judaism. So, one of our informants told about how her friend was buried according to the Jewish rite. Invite me to the funeral-

19. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2009) by Anna Petrovna Miller, born in 1946

20. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2007) from Uzvalova Sally Borisovna, born in 1923, born in Iasi.

21. ACBI, zap. in Chisinau (2010) from Roitburg Cizar Iosifovich, born in 1937, born in Galac.

22. ATSBI, zap. in Chernovtsy (2006) from Postelnik Yakov Aronovich, born in 1938 Khotin, Mednik Chaim, Vaysman Srul and others.

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including many non-Jewish colleagues of the deceased, as well as a newly arrived rabbi in the city:

They called this rabbi to read the prayer, and that's all. [ ... ] All the employees, all from the office, and the director, and that's all. And it was not comfortable: the face is covered, and that's all. And I say, " Well, let them open their face so they can see her." They were with her, they worked with her, they respected her very much, like this. And I say. How he heard that, how angry he was! I wanted to run away! I say, " Well, what? I can read this prayer that you are reading there myself." Well, barely held it, and no, never opened his face. They were so eager to bring flowers, and everyone was so eager, well, to see, but they didn't see it. Actually, she was ill recently, and then she put on her whole face - he didn't allow it, we don't allow it. Yes, it sticks. Well, what may not be the right thing, but according to the law. If there is already a synagogue, according to the law 23.

The ritual behavior adopted in the non-Jewish community before burial comes into sharp contradiction with religious law, since according to the Jewish funeral rite, the deceased's face must be covered. This fragment of the interview shows an internal conflict that is very important for the narrator. On the one hand, she considers herself a sufficient authority on religious matters, is angry with the strict rabbi and is ready to read the memorial prayer in Hebrew herself, but on the other hand, she says "it is not allowed here", "according to the law" not in the right way, "as it intuitively seems right to her.

c) Attitude to Israel and modern Jewish traditions: one's own and another's

A particularly tense situation of conflict between one's own, familiar, and someone else's, but "correct" Jewish tradition arises when our informants clash with Israeli religious practices. It is here that for the first time many of our interlocutors face for the first time those whom they consider religious fanatics: "when you walk through religious neighborhoods in Israel, you think that this is how you lived for 100 years.-

23. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2009) from Koifman Tsili Moiseevna, born in 1925, born in Brichany.

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24. At the same time, a negative attitude towards any open manifestations of religiosity, even one's own, Jewish, remains in this case.:

[In Israel] there were Jews there all the time, Jews, but there were Jews there. That they did not rob anything, these with paces that go. They are such Jews that they do nothing but pray, pray and pray. And when the Jews started coming from here, they already started building everything, but there was nothing there, everything was terrible. These people don't do anything all day, just pray. And they wear such long skirts, and even a husband and wife can't sleep together in the same cro... beds 25.

All the successes of Israeli life are thus attributed to the efforts of Diaspora Jews. The same hostility is caused, respectively, by religious customs, which are very different in Israel from the usual ones in Eastern Europe. This is especially true for funeral rites, which are very different and which, unfortunately, are most often encountered by our informants:

And there are no worms, nothing. And no coffins. They took this one, I cried so much, took him by the legs and shoulders and put him in this coffin and put these stones on top of it. Here they have it, but we have the same land, so. Well, I know, my grandmother was buried, I remember, it was still my father, my grandmother was buried in a coffin, and everyone - both my father and mother. In the coffin. This is probably the custom here, but not there. No coffins needed there 26.

Israeli customs are perceived as "alien" ("theirs") and unpleasant ("I cried so much"), but at the same time there are logical excuses for them. Moreover, in the description of funerals sometimes slip features that are generally stereotypical for marking "alien", for example, the famous false idea that in a different tradition they are buried not as usual, but in a sitting position: "In Israel, they do not bury as much as we do - there.-

24. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2008) from Kleiman Itsik Berkovich, born in 1933, born in Brichany.

25. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2007) from Zherebetskaya Berta Adolfovna, born in 1921, born in the village of Nepolokhovtsy, Chernivtsi region.

26. ATSBI, zap. in Chernovtsy (2008) from Kats Klara Moiseevna, born in 1935 in Chernovtsy.

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yes " 27. It is interesting that this is how Slavic neighbors describe traditional Jewish funerals without a coffin, which they observed from the outside in early childhood.28
The ambivalent attitude towards Israel is particularly evident in the concept of the Western Wall: on the one hand, it is the holiest Jewish place in the world, on the other hand, here Diaspora Jews are confronted with unfamiliar rules of "Jewish" behavior. So, in particular, one of the informants, a native of Chernivtsi, tells about her visit to Jerusalem.:

There is a Wailing Wall, people go there, they come from all over the world. And you know, I was there five years ago, I went up there, and they throw some notes in the holes. Well, they pray. And if you go in there, there are guards-girls, boys, that you can't go in with bare hands and bare feet, or without a handkerchief. And ... you have to get dressed. If not, it gives. And you go in and pray there. You get out of there, she's on her own... I go over and give her the clothes back. And she tells me that you will never cry again in your life. And you know it's true. I swear to you that it's true [crying]. You will never cry again. Never. Because they come there, so you cry, ask God that... And I had such misfortunes - my daughter died, died. The husband, the husband died. My children - my two sons-have left, and I am already left alone. And these are the sorrows I went to this Wailing Wall and cried. And you know, in the same year God gave me a man. He is very decent, good and we live very well together 29.

At the same time, most of our informants support another popular etymology of the name of this object: the weeping wall; the wall that weeps:

This temple. There's A Wailing Wall, A Wailing Wall. So it's people who go there and light candles and pray. And people come from us there too. People bring photos. And there's only one ste left-

27. API, zap. in Tulchin (2005) from Kolodenker Lev Shaevich, born in 1925

28. See for more details: Belova O. Etnokul'turnye stereotipy v slavyanskoi narodnoi traditsii [Ethno-cultural stereotypes in the Slavic folk tradition]. Moscow: Indrik, 2005, pp. 184-204.

29. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2006) from Himmelbrandt Reeva Friedrichovna, born in 1932, born in Chernivtsi.

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on the Wailing Wall, and from there it drips, drips, drips. It seems that.., as the source of 30.

This version arose from an attempt to explain the external name that came to the Russian language from Christian culture. Within Orthodox Judaism, this place is simply called the " Western Wall." And the above etymology is generally somewhat similar to the Christian veneration of myrrh-streaming icons and other sacred objects that independently emit oil or dew. Moreover, among assimilated Jews, there are sometimes quite unexpected explanations for the origin of this place of worship:

Yes, she cries and a lot of people go there and pray to her too [ ... ] Yes, yes, yes, the wall is dripping. She cries and there they go and ask what God has to do to make everything good. [ ... ] There once Jesus Christ walked or is seen passed or lived there Jesus Christ is seen there. They pray a lot there. From all over the country, from all over the world go there. It's half male - the men pray and all pray in Hebrew [ ... ] I went there with my sister. And there my sister gave her daughter in marriage 31.

Thus, among the far-from-religious Soviet Jewry, there was an ambivalent attitude towards orthodox Judaism. This includes rejecting "fanaticism" ("such Jews that they do nothing but pray, pray and pray"), and rejecting provocative clothing and behavior that is sharply different from the usual one, which is associated with the fulfillment of the commandments. Not only Israelis, but also local rabbis are perceived as "strangers"and " strange". But at the same time, respect for the religion of one's parents and for the established folk customs causes our informants to take an increased interest in various forms of observing Jewish customs and often leads to the formation of a new, individual religiosity that is unthinkable in traditional society.

30. ATSBI, zap. in Chernovtsy (2005) from Sternberg Roza Ovshievna, born in 1930 in Khotyn. The same: ATSBI, zap. in Balti (2012) from Pevsner Anshl Gershevich, born in 1920, born in Balta; API, zap. in Tulchin (2005) from Kolodenker Lev Shaevich, born in 1925, etc.

31. API, zap. in the city of Balta (2006) from Milchenko Liza Lvovna, born in 1930, born in the city of Balta.

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Formation of individual religiosity

The most striking example of the emergence of a new version of the observance of Judaism is the justification for eating deliberately forbidden pork. Kosher pork is generally an oxymoron for Soviet Jewry 32. But, as our research has shown, some people have found quite "halachic" ways to distinguish between kosher and non-kosher in the home:

Pork, for example, could not be eaten. But... we lived... in a place, I told you, a place called Capresta. And there were such wooden stalls, stalls, and connected with this Caprest, this one... Prodanesti. And there were special katsaps such that they slaughtered pigs. And there was ham being sold when I passed these stalls, it smelled like that. Well, we, the young people, all wanted, my mother allowed us to buy, but eat on the windowsill! And do not cut with a knife, so if you bought it there... Well, not all the time, but, you know, how smoked fish is sold now, it's delicious... She [mom] let us put a newspaper or something on the windowsill, and then, so, look, wash your hands, rinse your mouth, so that they don't come to drink water. And my mother is deceased, she adhered to the law, I told you, the towel was for meat, for..... Now, if you had to eat dairy, then she had to rinse her mouth out before she started eating dairy. It did not interfere with one another 33.

Just as Jews traditionally rinse their mouths after meat before milk, use special separate dishes, etc., so in this case, our informant's mother introduced a similar rule for eating ham and even allocated a special place in the house - a windowsill covered with a newspaper.

We recorded another unique evidence of the existence of rules for eating pork in Chernivtsi:

[Do Jews eat pork?] Oh, who's how. You know, to tell you so honestly if, that's nothing! You don't kill, you don't curse, you want to try - so what?! And it's delicious, I always take kuso myself-

32. For more information, see Shternshis, A. (2006) Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923 - 1939. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

33. ATSBI, zap. in Balti (2011) by Tamara Izrailevna Mundriyan, born in 1930 in the village of Gyrtop, Floresti district.

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pork receipt. But you need to know-which one! The front part can be taken a piece. [The front door. And the back one?] No-no. [Why can't you use the back door? Because-through the back part she gives birth!34.

On the one hand, this motivation has no basis in tradition - pork is a non-kosher product and can not be used in any way in food. On the other hand, it is clear that assimilated Jews, who live in isolation from strict religious traditions, eat pork, and they have a need to work out an excuse for themselves. It is interesting to note that the justification is quite traditional - the back of the carcass of any, even kosher, animal-cow or sheep-is considered non-kosher, because there is one tendon that needs to be removed in a special way. The prohibition against eating this tendon is found in the Torah, where Jacob wrestled with the angel and the angel injured his thigh: "Therefore the children of Israel do not eat the dry sinew that covers the bulge of the thigh to this day, because he touched the bulge of Jacob's thigh with a dry sinew" (Gen. 32:33). There is even a special Jewish profession of a menaker - a person who knows how to carve this vein. However, in Eastern European communities, in order to save money, they preferred to simply sell the entire back of the carcass to non-Jews. Apparently, this is why in the mind of our informant there was such a refraction of the existing tradition and its application to another, non-existent one. Only the motivation has changed - the back of the pork carcass can not be eaten, because it is ritually unclean-because childbirth passes through it.

The following example also shows what an unusual transformation halakha sometimes undergoes in the popular environment. According to the Jewish religious rule, a small piece of dough should be thrown into the fire when baking Sabbath bread, which should symbolize the separation of part of the bread - the challah-to the priests at the time of the Jerusalem temple (see Mishnah, Tractate of the Challah). But in popular practice, the idea of sacrifice contained in this custom initially took on a completely opposite motivation:

34. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2007) from Himmelbrandt Reeva Friedrichovna, born in 1932, born in Chernivtsi.

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[Has it ever happened that a piece of Sabbath bread was separated and thrown into the oven?] Well, sometimes it's easy... this is not the law. Just a small piece of people... they quit. That brownie. Brownie is in every apartment. And in general. Not among Jews, in general. It's called the owner of the house. Well, we don't see it. And it used to happen that old people: "Oh, this is for a brownie! Well, it's for a brownie." A piece of chola is thrown to him. [What's the Hebrew for "brownie"?] Brownie!35.

Apparently, we see traces of the transformation of the original halakhic institution about the separation of the hala as a temple sacrifice and its replacement in the consciousness of the bearer of the tradition with the custom of ritual entertainment of evil spirits living in the house. Obviously, this action is not perceived as regulated by religious Jewish authorities, it is just a custom. It is characteristic that the informant could not give a Jewish name for such an evil spirit and called it the Russian word "brownie", emphasizing that it is in every home, not only among Jews. Often we record a deliberate violation of Jewish customs, which are justified by the need to build relationships with the surrounding non-Jewish population. For example, one of the informants explained to us why he buried his Russian wife in a Jewish cemetery:

Well, I had a Russian wife, a Ukrainian. I put her in a Jewish cemetery, I didn't even think about it, I thought that if anything, then put it in Ukrainian, she also has a sister. And before she dies, she says: "I won't come to visit you, I don't need you to come to visit me - you have to live out my life where you will be." I say ," I won't get into Russian." "Less lodges, then." The sisters were offended, but nothing! Only I made a difference. Let's say the parents-the grave is closed according to Jewish [laws] should be a slab, and she asked for flowers. I left it open and soot the flowers all the time, looking after them. And that's all, and nothing terrible is mute. They won't get beaten up or fight 36.

Once in a non-standard situation, a person is forced to independently develop religious practices that will help him / her develop the necessary skills.-

35. ATSBI, zap. in Khotyn (2005) from Zlata Usherovna Mednik, born in 1931, born in Khotyn (Chernivtsi region).

36. ATSBI, zap. in Khotyn (2006) from Trakhtenberg Yefim Khunovich, born in 1925, born in Khotyn (Chernivtsi region).

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dut distinguish between standard compliance (closed grave) and innovation.

In general, the funeral rite, as we have already noted several times, causes a vivid clash between law and custom. In order not to offend non-Jewish neighbors and friends, people are ready to break the accepted rituals: open the face of the deceased, arrange a wake, put flowers in the grave. Sometimes even the informants themselves admit that they start behaving like everyone else, because they are used to it:

Flowers are not accepted here. It was already there, of course. But I know it's not accepted. It is customary to put stones there and that's all. [ ... ]. But you understand - well, you live in such an environment where people bring. It's not just Jews who come to funerals... Well, people bring flowers - well, will you throw them away? That's insulting... well how? It's to offend people who are... And then they themselves got used to bringing flowers. I wear 37 myself.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that orthodox Judaism for most of our informants, even for those who found the functioning of traditional Jewish culture in natural conditions, not distorted by Soviet atheist propaganda, turned out to be largely "alien", unusual and strongly distinguished from the background of everyday life. But at the same time, our informants still have an increased interest in various forms of observing Jewish customs, especially regarding everything related to funerals and commemorations of deceased relatives. This interest, combined with dislike for Orthodox Judaism or the inability to follow its precepts, often leads to the formation of a new, individual religiosity that is unthinkable in traditional society. We have identified several main mechanisms for the formation of Jewish "folk" religious practices: the transformation of existing Halakhic prescriptions through (a) ritual deception-

37. ATSBI, zap. in Chernivtsi (2011) from Bogdanskaya Riva Efimovna, born in 1932, born in Mogilev-Podilsky.

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b) changing the status of the object; c) applying traditional laws of ritual purity to a deliberately impure object.

Bibliography / References

Archive materials

ATSBI-Archive of the RSUH Center for Biblical Studies and Judaism.

API-Archive of the St. Petersburg Judaica Center.

Literature

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Belova O. Etnokul'turnye stereotipy v slavyanskoi narodnoi traditsii [Ethno-cultural stereotypes in the Slavic folk tradition].

Zelenina G. "All life among books": Soviet Jewry on the way from the Bible to the Library.Gosudarstvo, religiya, tserkva v Rossii i za rubezhom [State, Religion, Church in Russia and Abroad]. 2012. N 3-4(30). pp. 60-85.

Kaspina M. [The clash of Law and Custom in the traditional Culture of the Jews of Eastern Europe: Folk Judaism]. 2010. N 13 Online. P. 39_54 [http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/0130nline/13_ online_kaspina.pdf, доступ от 25.08.15].

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Panchenko A. Religious practices: to the study of "folk religion" / / Mythology and everyday life (Issue 2): Materials of the scientific conference 26-26 February 1999. SPb., 1999. pp. 198-218.

Titova E. Jewish funeral rite of the Chernivtsi region / / Zhivaya starina, N 2, 2006. pp. 37-39.

Archival materials

ATsBI - Arkhiv Tsentra bibleistiki i iudaiki RGGU [Archive of the Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies, Russian State University of the Humanities].

API - Arkhiv tsentra "Peterburgskaia Iudaika" [Archive of the Center "Petersburg Judaica"].

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