Not far from Kletsk, there were several villages: Nahorna, Novisalke – Plaskovitz etc., as they used to call/nickname the cluster of villages in which Jewish farmers lived. In these villages they had a minyan, a shokhet [slaughterer] for slaughtering poultry and also a melamed [teacher, usually for small children]. There were also Holkhey kfarim [Hebrew: villages-goers from place to place; Yiddish: from the nearby Kletsk and from villages farther than Kletsk. [I think she means people who move from place to place and frequent the villages ]

In the nearby village Bulvonka, a learned villager dwelled. He used to get the weekly HaMelitz from Petersburg, the monthly Russian-Jewish Voskhod and the monthly Ruskaya Bogatstvo.

The village-frequenters used to drop in to draw news from him. He told them what was written in the newspapers and they spread the news they heard from him all over the villages. That way the Jewish dwellers of the villages were informed of what was going on in the settlements in the land of Israel. Hamelitz had a special reporter - R’ Me’ir Toibnhoiz from Zephath [Hebrew, pronounced: Tzfat] who used to travel to the settlements of the Galilee and send regularly reportages to Hamelitz. In addition, the Bilu immigrant Khayim Khisin also used to send letters to the Voskhod. The Jewish farmers, inhabitants of the villages, were informed in this way about what was happening in the Jewish world, not less than the inhabitants of Kletsk.

[Bilu: acronyms of an organization of immigrants to Palestine – Beit Ya’akov Lekhu VeNelkha = Sons of Jacob, let’s all go]

There was an inn in Liubinitz. Village frequenters used to come to us. They made rounds of all the neighboring villages: Halovich, Halinka, Tikhenich, Kribushin, Kaplanovich, and also more distant places such as Platnitza, Kajan-Horodek, Karalich, Robnovich, and they felt as family-members. My father and mother knew all of them because they [not clear who] brought each week milk products to be sold in Kletsk. This way they got to know all the rich merchants and the grain merchants who had near us store-houses for their grains.

On the whole, the Jewish farmers were like one family. Each knew what was going on with the other. All the girls were friends. The melamdim who taught the “coarse-brained” boys, taught the girls as well. So, I learned in my youth to read and write Hebrew.

I recall with a pounding heart those days. They were the happiest days of my life. I was walking among the fields and trees, playing hide-and-seek with a girlfriend – delights of a village girl, and I was vivacious.

However, my parents were dissatisfied with the fact that we were living surrounded by non-Jews in a remote corner. In winter it was very difficult to drive to Kletsk because the roads were damaged and snow covered everything. If it was necessary to drive, we used a sledge on roads covered with snow and deserted fields.

Our Joy was great when snow melted and the nights were brighter. We hosted the shepherd Stephan for the night when he happened to be there [in the inn]. He knew Yiddish like one of us, he was like a brother and friend to us and made us happy.