KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
entertainers from Rovno who toured small towns performed in Ludvipol as well. The town had a few mikvahs (Jewish ritual baths). I do not recall my mother going, but the rabbi would not perform a wedding cer- emony unless the bride had visited the mikvah. Some people did all their bathing at a mikvah, if they did not have bathing facilities at home. I imagine that in the big cities of Poland, when I was a young boy, Jewish people were more “European” than they were in our town, with young people trying to assimilate to some degree into the culture of the country without abandoning Jewish life in their homes. The Jewish Bund organization had already been estab- lished and a lot of Jews wanted to free themselves from what they perceived as the “Jewish yoke.” They wanted to be equal to other people, at least in the outside world. They learned to speak Polish and became professionals, and to do so they had to fall in line with the majority of the population.
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