The most famous Jewish customs. Jewish traditions Social life peculiarities of Jewish life

Despite the fact that almost all Jewish traditions have religious origins, most people in Israel try to observe them.

If the whole country on the same day, hour, minute does the same thing, not obeying any decree, but of its own free will, then this speaks of the super-strong cohesion of the nation. One can argue as much as one wants about the religious component of all Jewish traditions, but one cannot fail to note the fact that Israel is a free state, and no one can force people to believe or not, to pray or not to pray, to observe traditions or not to observe them.

1. Get drunk unconscious

Once a year, on the holiday of Purim, one should get drunk so that it is impossible to distinguish between enemy and friend. On this day, you can always find a variety of alcoholic drinks on Jewish tables, because the holiday of Purim tells Jews to free themselves from common sense. Even on this day, all schoolchildren and many adults dress up in costumes, all for the same reason, so as not to distinguish enemies from friends.

2. Live in a hut and eat under the stars

A few days before the celebration of Sukkot, the Israelites build huts near their houses (and sometimes on balconies), which are called so - sukkis (emphasis on and). According to tradition, on this holiday one should live in a built hut in order to remember how our ancestors lived for 40 years in the desert. The most interesting thing is that if you have not built a sukkah, then you can go to any already built one, spend the night, drink water, and, sometimes, even eat there.

3. Do not drive on Yom Kippur

There is no law prohibiting driving on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), but 99.9% of all cars in Israel are parked on this day. The most interesting thing is that the roads are not empty, but filled with children on scooters and bicycles. On this day, an entry in the Book of Life takes place, so many believers do not eat or drink anything, but only pray for the whole day.

4. Celebrate a holiday on the evening of the previous day

O! It's just unique! “And there was evening and there was morning: one day” - so it is written in the Torah. This means that the day begins in the evening, which means that the holiday begins in the evening, as soon as the sun goes down, and this is very convenient. Imagine eating, drinking, celebrating until midnight, and in the morning you don't need to go to work, beauty.

5. Eat matzo with chocolate paste

During the 7-day period of the Passover holiday, you cannot eat anything yeast (leavened), and from flour you can only eat matzo. Matzah is oven-dried water with flour without salt or other additives. Not very tasty, to be honest, but if you smear it with chocolate paste, then it is impossible to resist such a delicacy.

6. Hang the Israel flag on your car

The Independence Day of Israel is celebrated every year on a grand scale. It was on this day that the fate of millions of Jews who were able to return to the homeland of their ancestors was decided. A few days before the holiday, people start decorating their homes and cars with the flags of Israel. Without exaggeration, more than 50% of cars on the roads fly blue and white flags with the Star of David.

7. The whole country freezes for 2 minutes

On the Day of the Catastrophe, at 10 o'clock in the morning, a siren sounds throughout the country. Everything freezes. People quit their business, stop who was walking or driving, get out of cars and buses and freeze for 2 minutes. These are the strongest two minutes in the world. People remember those who died in the Holocaust, in terrorist attacks and in wars ...

5.4 Jewish life and way of life

We can only judge the life of the Jews of eastern Belarus by the recollections of contemporaries and a small number of preserved documents. This is how the compilers of the military statistical survey for the General Staff of the Russian Empire (5), published in 1847, describe the Jews:

“The Jews who have settled in Belarus since the 12th century are slightly different from their compatriots in all the western and southern provinces of the empire.

The constitution of the body is weak, but stately, of average height, the hair is dark blond, black, and sometimes red-red. Recently, many Jews have changed their clothes to Russian or foreign cut dresses. Some men have shaved off their beards and mustaches and wear their hair in the style of the middle class or the upper class. The welfare of Jews in the province is very different. In Mogilev, Shklov and a few townships there are capitalists who are engaged in wholesale trade, take over various articles, supplies and work. Jews of average condition are engaged in similar trades, but on a smaller scale, they maintain inns, distilleries, and so on. In the lowest state, Jews are engaged in procurement, trade and supply activities and crafts that do not require physical strength, maintain small shops and shanks, and occupy public offices.

Rich Jews have clean and spacious houses and healthy food, on the contrary, the poor, who make up the majority of the Jewish population, live closely, poor and unclean, so that the most accurate description of their miserable situation would seem an exaggeration, but still insufficient to an eyewitness. When cholera opened in the current year 1847, most of the patients were poor Jews.

A distinctive feature of all Jews is religiosity and strict performance of all rituals. The main flaw is their tendency to deception and to some extent laziness, prompting them to avoid activities that require exertion. "

Descriptions of Jewish life made at about the same time by N.G. Gortynsky are interesting. and Dembovitskiy A. (8, 14). - prominent officials of the Mogilev province, which included Mstislavl, who for a long time watched the life of the Jews of the Mogilev region in the second half of the 19th century. We often have to come across these names.

A. Dembovitsky was the governor of the Mogilev province and wrote a book in which he highlighted various issues of public life, including relations with Jews. The activities of Alexander Dembovitsky were noted at the local history readings held on October 28, 2001 in Mogilev on the topic: "Mogilev through the eyes of Alexander Dembovitsky." They were dedicated to the 160th anniversary of the birth of this former Mogilev governor and his main work.

Nikolai Grigorievich Gortynsky (1799-1887), on the basis of archival research and his own observations, wrote a large work "Notes on the Jews in Mogilev on the Dnieper and in general in the Western Territory of Russia", published in St. Petersburg in 1870, and then republished in 1878 ...

It seems to me that the attitude of these two officials towards Jews reflects the public opinion on the Jewish question that was prevalent in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. Basically, their notes, claiming to be objective in reflecting reality, are imbued, to put it mildly, with a negative attitude towards Jews, in which they want to find the reasons for all Christian troubles. On the other hand, in their notes one can find sketches of Jewish life and everyday life of the 19th century, made by inquisitive contemporaries, which is of unconditional interest.

I will try to present them with slight deviations from the text. It seems to me that in describing the life of Jews in the 19th century, the authors are quite objective, which cannot be said about their attitude towards the Jews themselves, where there is an obvious hostility.

Appearance and clothing

According to Gortynsky, in the period preceding the reign of Nicholas the First, that is, until 1825, Jewish men shaved the middle of the head, from the forehead to the back of the head, leaving peisiki on both sides. The shaved top of the head was always tightly covered with a velvet skufeyka (kipa), on top of which outside the house, during prayer, and also at the table, a semi-velvet black hat was worn, furred with marten or sable fur at the bottom. In summer, a black hat with a wide brim was worn outside the house. A mustache and a beard were required. A flannel with bundles of hanging laces (tsicele) attached to it at the corners was worn over the shirt. Jews wore narrow pantaloons, short to the knees, stockings and rough shoes with buckles in the front, while poor Jews wore no buckles. Rich Jews used a long black zipun as outerwear. The zipun was girded with a wide black silk scarf. Over the zipun, when leaving the house, they wore a black lightweight coat without sleeves, and sometimes even in summer large fox fur coats. By order of Nicholas I, the Jews replaced the described costume with a common European one, leaving only a mustache and beard, as well as a flannel with laces on shirts, hiding them in pantaloons.

On weekdays, men wore tefillins for morning prayers, which are rectangular black leather cases in which passages from the Torah written on parchment are kept. Tefillins are attached - one to the head, the other to the left hand.

In synagogues, men cover their heads and shoulders with light woolen shawls made of white fabric with blue edging at the ends (tales). During major religious holidays, white linen shirts with an embroidered silver collar were worn over the dress.

Jewish girls wore their hair on their heads openly, combing and braiding them above the back of their heads in two braids with ribbons at the ends. Earrings were fixed in the ears, and beads with pearls and gold chains were worn around the neck, with gold coins hanging from them. Married women shaved their entire heads. A narrow muslin with starched ends hanging from behind (schleer) was imposed on it. On the sides above the temples, three small pillows with pearls and expensive stones (bindas) were tied on top of the schleera, and a large scarf was tied around the head, hanging widely over the face. When leaving the house, a wide fox hat covered with brocade was superimposed on all this. A black velvet quilted tie (scarf) with strands of pearls and sometimes expensive stones fastened to it (galsband) was tied around the neck. The top dress of the Jewish women was a narrow hood made of colored silk fabric with silk lining, and in winter - on fox fur.

Such a frequent mention of fox fur suggests that such clothes were probably used by the Mstislavl Jews, since there were many foxes in the vicinity of Mstislavl, which was reflected even in the city's coat of arms.

The described costume was gladly changed by Jewish women to a common one. At the same time, the shaving of the head was preserved, on which wigs were applied from hair or silk, and the poor even from dyed flax.

Gortynsky believed that changing the costume did not change either the beliefs or occupations of the Jews. They still consider themselves temporary aliens and await the coming of the Messiah and leaving for the independent kingdom of Israel. And I made a conclusion:

"Neither clothing, which is the same as Russian, nor the use of the Russian language introduced between Jews, will not make them loyal citizens of Russia, because not costume and language, but religion is the cement that binds each nationality."

Lifestyle

Gortynsky testifies that poor Jews, and they constituted the bulk of the Jewish population, are extremely abstinent in everyday life. Poor nutrition often makes them even exhausted. Accommodating several people in one room, separated by light partitions, screens or simply dirty curtains, they breathe extremely spoiled air, feed mainly on onions, cucumbers and other gardening products, herring and rye bread, thin and always of good quality. Only on Saturdays they eat beef and fish, and even then in very small quantities.

With such a lack of food and even poverty, few take on heavy mechanical work, and more are engaged in sedentary crafts, however, without the proper skill and badly. A significant part of the Jews scour the city all day and, having no skill, looking for an opportunity to earn something by service or deception. For the convenience of finding such earnings, they try to live near markets and shops. Therefore, their buildings in such places are constrained. The houses are fused with each other, so in the event of a fire it is impossible to approach them to extinguish the fire.

I will allow myself a small digression. During my 2004 trip to Ukraine, Russia and Belarus with a visit to Mstislavl, I often had to use the metro and suburban rail transport. There is a constant movement of sellers in the carriages, who immediately lay out their numerous goods and develop a noisy and annoying trade. This is all very annoying, many are unhappy and scold the sellers. But when you think about the described phenomenon, you understand that people go for it out of poverty, despair and the desire to earn a living. Moreover, there were no Jews among the sellers. So nothing depends on nationality, but only on living conditions. When there is nothing to feed the family, people of any nationality begin to "scour" in search of earnings. On Israeli trains, as well as on the streets, you will never meet private and annoying merchants.

But back to the testimony of Gortynsky. In the middle of the 19th century, well-to-do Jews lived richly, sometimes even luxuriously, but their expenses did not exceed their income. If they borrow money, it is not for luxury goods and panache, but only for commercial turns in which they are skillful and cleverly calculating. Family ties in different places contribute to the success of their entrepreneurial spirit.

The main features of the Jewish way of life are abstinence, sobriety, the nosy servility of the poor Jews and clever prudence in the trade of wealthy industrialists.

They keep the orders of their elders in strict confidence and carry them out precisely. They do not tell about the crimes of their fellows, hiding them from Christians and government bodies.

Jews obey state laws, authorities and state rabbis approved by the government. In addition, Jewish societies maintain special spiritual rabbis who are reverently respected, pay their salaries, carry out their religious instructions and court decisions in internecine matters. The prohibition (herim) imposed by them on some object is sacred and inviolable to every Jew. This separation of Jews from Christians was widespread. Jews try to resolve all issues at the court of rabbis, which examines all litigations according to religious laws. Jews who evade such a court and demand a solution to cases by civilian institutions are suspected of bad faith. There are times when even Christians, in a dispute with a Jew, agree to the judgment of a spiritual rabbi. These rabbis do not have sufficient legal and financial competence and serve Jewish authorities more in religious, ceremonial and marriage matters than in civil matters.

Jews collect significant sums for public needs, to help the poor and to help a fellow believer who has committed a crime. At the end of the prayer, they usually do not leave the prayer house (school), but confer on topical public issues. Significant money is collected in the Jewish public treasury by agreement of the elders. They come from donations from wealthy Jews as well as taxes. You can often see in poor Jewish houses a tin box nailed to the wall with a slot in the top lid, where the owners put a small coin daily or weekly. Subsequently, a large amount is collected from these small donations. In addition to these fees, a significant increase in the public treasury gives the burial of the dead.

Jews have special burial brotherhoods, which accept respectable Jews with a good reputation. They receive decent money for their work on burial and a place in the cemetery, depending on the condition of the deceased and his heirs. Sometimes a contribution was even appointed in the form of a percentage of the inheritance.

Burial in a place of honor is of great importance for Jews, which is not accessible to every rich man, but only to those with a different genealogy, especially honest reputation and charity. The burial place is taken care of during life. From the sums collected, the proxies, without control from the government, are spending on helping the poor, buying recruitment receipts and the affairs of the accused Jews and other needs.

With this money, for example, schools and public baths were built in Mogilev.

Marital cohabitation of Jews is strictly obliged by religious law, as the means of reproduction of the human race indicated by God, and therefore bachelorhood for a young person after a certain age is reprehensible. If a wife cannot bear children, then the Jews accept this as the canonical reason for divorce. For the conclusion of marriage unions, there are special people who trade matchmaking. They travel to different cities and towns, write down which of the wealthy Jews has a son, and who has a daughter, and with what dowry. Based on this information, they try to introduce suitable couples, bring them closer together and, having agreed on the conditions, unite. If successful, deeds are rewarded on both sides.

Jewish women do not take part in social events and are mainly engaged in family affairs. At the same time, Jewish women show great ability in trade, especially petty ones.

Unfortunately, few materials have survived about the Jewish life of the Mogilev and, in particular, the Mstislavl Jews, which interest me in the first place. Therefore, I return again and again to the memoirs of S. M. Dubnov. This is how he describes his mother's difficult life. His mother, Sheine, was a typical Jewish woman of the old school. She gave birth to five sons and five daughters, of which only one son died in childhood. The rest she nurtured and raised, took care of teaching boys in school and teaching girls to do housework. Having lost her home after the fire, the mother and the babies had to live in other people's rented apartments, which, as the family grew, had to be changed often. Father's meager salary was not enough to run a huge household, and the mother had to find an auxiliary job: she opened a shop to sell glass and china dishes. Early in the morning, when the children are still asleep, she runs to the market to buy provisions, opens a "bargaining" in her china shop, where customers rarely dropped in. Then he leaves the shop in the care of his daughter. And she hurries home to feed the kids, provide provisions and send the boys to the cheder, cook dinner with the help of the servants and, having a little bite on the go, she again runs to the shop .... I had to live on credit and pay once a month or two, when I received his salary from my father in the mail. Creditors came these days: Melamed had to pay for training boys in cheders, a tailor and a shoemaker for mending dresses and shoes for children, for a householder for an apartment, and then you still have to buy goods for a china shop in a wholesale warehouse in another city. "

Goratynsky also describes this type of earnings:

"Poor Jewish women, having a few kopecks in their pockets, go to the city on a market day and, meeting peasants going to the market, buy from them chickens, eggs, mushrooms, canvas, etc., give everyone 10 or 15 kopecks as a deposit and with the purchased products and sellers-peasants, go around the houses they know, in which they resell what they bought. With the money they receive, they pay off the peasants, leaving themselves the bargained profit. Thus, they lead the sellers for several hours. If they fail to sell, they return the product, demanding the deposit back. Usually a quarrel arises on this basis. "

Jews, especially the poor and middle class, are completely dependent on their husbands. They love to dress up, but rarely make their outfits out of new materials. Jewish girls love to dance, but only with each other, without the participation of men.

The virgins' chastity is carefully guarded, and if she has lost her virginity, the parents immediately report this to the rabbi, who draws up a special act explaining what happened so that this circumstance is not imputed to her. If a Jewish woman goes on business to one of the men, then she is usually accompanied by an elderly Jew for supervision and protection.

A sad story happened in the Dubnov family. The eldest daughter Risya, a beautiful, black-eyed girl, was deceived by a visiting paramedic who had been practicing for some time in Mstislavl. Her tragedy was not only in deceived love, but in painful shame and panic fear of public opinion, which in that patriarchal environment could drive people to madness. She paid dearly for her girlish sin: three years later she got married, but her husband, having learned about his wife's past, left her in the first year of marriage.

With all the attention to the chastity of the Jewish women, there were also debauched women among them, whom those around them despise. In any calamity, for example, cholera or other general illness and great mortality, they are attacked and brutally persecuted. Jews believe that Gd punishes them with disease and pestilence for tolerating these depraved women.

The Jews, like other peoples, have their own aristocracy and their own plebeians. The former include not only rich people who own their fortune for several generations, but also people whose origin comes from the noble families of the Kogans and Levi. These people are respected regardless of the size of their wealth - both rich and poor. Many fathers of families dream of marrying their daughter even to a poor groom, but one who comes from a noble family or a very learned one. People belonging to the so-called aristocracy are rarely artisans, considering such an occupation beneath their dignity. They are more likely to trade or study the Torah, receiving material assistance from society. Holidays for Jews are always of great importance and have a significant impact on private and public life. On holidays and every Saturday, Jews do not allow themselves to do any physical labor, do not prepare food, doing this on Friday. On the evening from Friday to Saturday, Jews invite Christians to dry the candles and move the candlesticks from one place to another. When traveling on Friday, they always rush to stop for the night before sunset in a town or tavern owned by a Jew, with whom they participate in a joint dinner for a fee. Even the poorest Jew always makes sure that there is good food in the house on Shabbat (Saturday). Holidays, postponing all affairs, Jews spend in prayer schools or at home reading sacred books, visiting their friends. On these days, cities and towns inhabited by Jews seem deserted and empty, all trade shops are closed, bazaars are empty and streets are completely deserted.

Christians who buy food from Jews try to stock up on them in advance of the Jewish holidays.

Jews exactly fulfill the commandment of the Law of Moses about the holiness of the Sabbath. At the end of this section, I would like to cite some statistical data characterizing the life of Jews in the Mogilev region.

According to official data for 1880 (16), the birth rate of people of various religions per 100 souls was:

As a rule, there were many children in Jewish families. Therefore, the low birth rate cited in official documents can only be explained by the fact that many Jews who were born were not included in the metric lists.

The mortality rate among Jews was significantly lower and amounted to:

The low mortality rate among Jews, despite the unhygienic external environment in which they live and their inherent morbidity, is due to:

Greater purity of morals (Jews completely lack some types of infectious diseases, such as syphilis),

Abstinence in food and bodily pleasures,

Unparalleled love for children,

Trust in medicine and frequent visits to doctors.

Dubnov, in his work, based on official sources, gives the following explanations for this phenomenon:

“The bourgeois Christians generally do not like to be treated by doctors, they don’t like medicine either. While the poorest Jew, with the most insignificant illness of a child, with his last money, even borrowed from the kagala, brings a doctor and buys medicine. the child either calls the old midwife or asks for advice from a neighbor and gives the child whatever they recommend.

Dwellings and household

The architecture of Jewish homes changed during the 19th century (14).

At the beginning of the century, visiting houses included a large parade ground 12-14 fathoms long and 8-10 fathoms wide, covered with one high roof so that carriages could fit inside the courtyard. In one of the corners under this roof there was a Jew's dwelling, which consisted of two rooms. In the shed, some gates were near the hut, and others on the opposite side, so that the carriages could freely enter and leave. Such a barn was called a "shop" and had stalls for horses and a place for a Jew's household, which consisted of one horse, one cow and three or four goats. There has never been a separate courtyard fenced off. In the 80s of the 19th century, this type of visiting house completely disappeared in the Belarusian region. By the end of the century, the appearance of Jewish houses did not differ much from Christian ones. Differences are observed in the environment around the house, where there is always rubbish. The Jewish dwelling itself always stands naked, without a yard and without a fence. You rarely see a shrub or tree near it, for Jews do not like to plant plants, which are also destroyed by goats. The Jews do not even know the elementary economy: the wealthy of them have only a cow for milk, and the poor have only goats. A goat is very cheap and, moreover, after a year it becomes a goat and already gives milk. Feeding a goat also costs almost nothing: in the summer it goes to the pasture, and in the winter it finds food itself, picking up hay that has fallen from the carts of passing people along the way. This is also confirmed by Jewish artists, for example, Abram Manevich, who was born in Mstislavl, in whose paintings a goat is very often present.

In those places or streets where only Jews live, houses are extremely crowded, do not have any outbuildings and were built without any plan. Entrance doors open directly from the street into the living room and are usually in the middle of the house, while in Christian houses, from the corner or from the courtyard.

On the doorframe there was always a folded piece of parchment nailed down, called a mezuzah, on which Hebrew texts were written. It is believed that this custom was introduced with the goal of every Jew being reminded hourly of the laws bequeathed by Moses. When leaving the house and going to bed, every Jew must venerate the mezuzah with the recitation of the appropriate prayer. Jews are also convinced that this talisman prevents evil spirits from entering the dwelling. Those who have some kind of economy nail mezuzahs to the gates of a barn, barn, stables or other premises so that evil spirits do not penetrate there and do not infect livestock and grain. Inside, at the door, there is a lakhan with water, and on it is a jug made of red copper or tinplate, with two handles at right angles. The washstand serves the Jew in order to pour water on his hands with any prayer before eating. The Jew takes the handle of the jug with one hand and pours his free hand or just his fingers, then he takes the other hand with the other hand and pours the fingers of the first hand. Water falls to the floor, from which there is dirt and phlegm near the doors.

Along the wall facing the street, there is an oblong table and two wooden benches, one plank wide, on either side. The table is always covered with a dirty linen tablecloth, which is replaced by another on Friday. Opposite the table is a plank partition, behind which there is a bed, and on it, even for the poorest Jew, lie down feather beds and pillows (babycats) of blue calico, very rarely covered with pillowcases. Sleeping Jewish women and their husbands literally drown in featherbeds. The stove is located behind the partition, but its side opens into the first hut. The oven is always Russian, for without it on Shabbat the Jews could not have had anything warm for dinner; the side of the stove is usually adjoined by a small fireplace located at a corner. The floor is usually plank; it is washed only twice a year: in the spring on the holiday of Passover and in the fall - on the holy shrubs, scraping it with a spade and sprinkling it with yellow sand. At the same time, Jews wash all their furniture: tables, chairs, beds, wardrobes, benches, and those living by the river carry furniture into the river and wash it diligently.

Behind the partition and behind the stove, on the wall shelves covered with doors, like a cabinet, are placed dishes: the rich have tinned copper, and the poor have clay. All dishes, knives, forks and spoons, in two, and some of them in four copies. In the middle of the hut on the ceiling beam hangs a heavy girondole made of yellow copper. Its style is always monotonous: in the middle there is a copper ball, from the sides there are candlesticks from 4 to 12. In them on Fridays, when Shabbat comes, greasy penny candles are inserted, which on Friday evening must burn out without a trace.

On the whitewashed walls of a room, there is usually a smoky lithographic image of a revered rabbi or a crudely drawn picture of a Jew covering a hastily put together booth for the Feast of Tabernacles with fir trees. Rarely does one come across a portrait of Montefeore (a famous Jewish public figure and philanthropist), sitting in a dressing gown and a yarmulke. Sometimes there is a geographic map without glass, on which Jerusalem is indicated in the middle.