Document text
V
STATE New 7•ork
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM
Circumstances of Interview
Arnold *anon
27 Hamilton Terrace
Sept. 14, 1988
Yiddish songs, super*Ititions and miscallansous bits
FOLKLORE
1. Date and time of interview 80Pto 14$ 1938 0.0. late afternoon
2. Place of interview 181 Mast 170 At.
3. Name and address of informant
Bertha Edugateh
151 But 170 At.
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. Three roam apt. an
ground floor, converted into a corset sbopp., Vie Meets, Bay
windows display corseted and bressiered
I. Also surgical
applianoes, abdounel belts 'tee Front roan used for reception.
uodOotly like that of straggling young Bronx dentist
we doctor. Work room holds two sewing =whines* Many
spindles of lace, ribbon and rubber materials are suspended from
the ceiling over the wahines* Mere is a curtained spa** in the
work roan for fittings and ithere the customer can also eye a stock
of silk stockings, bandaus etc. Location of Shoppe is a few yards
tram the Grand Concourse, 170th At is a shopping center for the
neighborhood, Baby carriages choke the sidewalkso MMe Deets
customers are mostly americsnised middle class Jewish housewives.
Most of than play pommy poker, use make up* smoke and talk about their
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each husbands
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FO:`.7k
Personal history uf informant
STATE New York
WT OF V on Krt
Arnold Manoff
ADIMESS 27 Hamilton Terrace
CiAniF Sept. 14, 1938
SU6JECT Yiddish songs., superstitions and bits
1. Ancestry
Russian Jewish
2. Place and date of birth
FOLKLORE
NE' YORK
Age about 46. This is a delicate subject with this informant.
3.BRPnyin Russia. About 25 years in America
4. Places lived in, with dates
5. Education, with dates
Recently attended public school for adults.
F. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
Skilled corset maker.
7. Special skills and interests
Interested in social life of the Jewish semi -cultural level.
A bit of theatre, a bit of literature, dancing and =oh speculation
8. Community and religious activities about love and marriage:
Community activities include card parties and death benefit
WaRiklibn of informant
Rather stout but well corseted. Professional appearance.
Graying hair cut wafiplipMeeyivaciat4 personality when not subdued
10. other Points game
by business talk.
STATE
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
New York
Arnold Manoff
NAME OF wolu,,En
27 Hamilton Terrace
ADDRESS
Sept. 14, 1938
DATE
Yiddish superstitions, songs and bits
SUBJECT
AS TOLD EY BERTHA DLUGATCH TO ARNOLD MANOVF
FOLKLORE
NEW- YORK
If you leave something in the house you mussent go back for
it beaux if you go back for it you will have a disappointment.
Jewish people will not moove down from a high floor to a low
floor becuz it's SO hod luck. Also is hod luck if you put
a dress on the wrong side. You're supposed to leave it an the
wrong side and go around like that. That's What Jewish women do.
If a man passes you with an empty pail it's hod luck. If the pail
is full than they say, dh boy, I'll have a lot of business todiper.
Never take a cat with you when you move to a new apartment. A dog?
A dog I don't know. It's no use with a dog becuz a dog will always
find you out anyway.
I'll tell you a story about devils* We were brut op that
devils turn into enimAls. We lived in a little town in Russia
near a little bridge. The devils were under the bridge also.
That's what they told us. My brother used to go to cheder and
be had to come back over the bridge in the nightime. One night
it was spring and we were afraid that the bridge would be torn op
by the water, you know, that rushes down in the spring. So we went,
my mother and me, with a latern, it was a dark night. We went to
wait for my brother by the bridge. So we got to the bridge with
the 3v tern and we started there to wait for my brother. Then
all of a sudden we see a little goat that runs right under our
noses in the middle of the bridge. So we ran away screaming into
the town. We were sure that the devil stopped my brother from
going over the bridge and turned him into a little goat. So pretty
soon the whole town was op screaming and hollaring and so they kept
it op and then my brother came home later.
I know another one I'll tell you. Also with devils. I used
to pray and be scared and cry and one night I finished saying my
prayers. What kind of prayers? Well you know in Hebrew they
tell you you might die in your sleep. So we used to pray we
shouldn't die* One night I finished praying and I look at the moon
and I see soldiers on the moon with *Lips in their hands and ilhen
I look again and there are more soldiers and this time they are
notching so I was scared you can imagine how I was scared. So I
woke op my sister and I said to her, look at the moon, my godt
there's a regela war going an op there. So she looked at the moon
and she didn't see anything. Go to sleep, she said to me. So I
looked at the moon and I Mt a who army of soldiers with horses
and hatchets like the pogroms, you know about the pogroms, yes
and they were fighting and I look and I look and they keep on
fiGhting with horses a Whole army full with soldiers. So I woke
op my father and I said look *hats on op in the moan. So he
looks and he don't see nothing and he says to me I am crazy go
to sleep you're crazy. What didn't I see on the moon that night
and so I thought and I wondered to myself if I am great and
different than anybody else in the mad.
I used to dream about falling. Yes, well you know Jack
London says it's the monkey in us when we climbed trees and so
I used to wonder about it until I read that it was something in
us from the old days when we were animals. I'm sure it's Jack
London I read it somewhere,
While talking to me the informant had been working at her
machine* Opposite her at the other machine a woman of about
35 was also working and every now and then she would interject
a chuckle. This woman who later told me her name was Jessie
Goldfluss and that she lived at 1181 Sheridan Ave., gave me the
followings
This was told to me. Anyway. After the war when they
first started skywriting a man was walking in the street and he
saw the skywriting in the sky. He was a very religious man. When
he saw it he started to prostrate himslef on the ground in the
middle of the street, because he thought, you know, well he thought
that the Messiah, somebody, King David or Solomon had come. He became
very frightened and he thought he was going to die, so he became
even more religious and he started to own up all his sins and all
he saw was Chevrolet being advertised. That's true. It happened
right here in America. It's a real story.
I got another story. A young feller was brought up in a very
religious house and it just happened he was a choin, you know what
that is? A priest. They told him he should never go near a hearse
or a dead person. So one day he followed a hearse lust to see
what would happen to him. He wanted to see if he would die like
they told him. So he followed the hearse all the way to the cemetary
and nothing happened to him* So there went his religion. He was
never religious after that. That's right here in New York. Yes.
Its an American story. That happened to the boy when be was
about ten years old. It must have been an the last side.
This informant works for Bertha Dlugatch. She was reluctant to
give much information about herselr. The following are songs
which lire. Dlugatch sang for me. She claims they are old needle
worker// songs that were sung in the shops in Russia and in America.
The songs are in Yiddish.
In the street goes a rain
And the snow is falling, the snow.
My young years I have wasted
Sitting all the time at sewing.
Ever I BIM. Ever I sew
All the time with the needle stitching.
I have left no more strength.
mr bones are broken,
Ever SOW. Ever I sew 0.04...0„
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Love long
1*
Oa the sea swims a little ship*
Around and around with windows*
From all the pictures I have seen there
You are the most beautiful*
2*
Like a murderer slaughters a person*
Kills him with a knife*
You have slaughtered=
But you did not finish slaughtering me*
You are a murderer even bigger*
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Love. Song
The moon shines around you like the morning star.
Should I ever see you with me
Would I you drench with tears*
With tsars would I drench youo
Tau would so became moulten
Cease sweet life to cry.
I will be with you often
Often will you be with me
Woe is to me
how can I live a day
Oh my sweet life without you
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