Borrowing a Torah from Guatemala

This excerpt describes El Salvador's first Bar Mitzvah, that of Ernesto Freund, Herta's son and Lea's husband.
*****

(When you had the children, what Jewish education did you give them? There was no rabbi. Just what they saw at home?)

Absolutely. I remember there was once a Jew who lived, many years before i met him, Moishe Levy. Moishe Levy had enough knowledge to give some preparation for the bar mitzvah. He could read Torah, etc.

(That was when they were preparing for the bar mitzvah. Since your son Ernesto, was the first one to have the bar mitzvah in El Salvador, how was that? How was it done? How was he prepared?)

He was prepared by Moishe Levy.

(Moishe Levy.)

We had no Torah. But Guatemala had several of them and we went by car to Guatemala. It took at least eight hours to drive to Guatemala and they lent us a Torah and that is how we did it.

(We are talking about fourteen years later. How many people were in the community?)

By that time, there was Felix Cohen who was married. There was Mario Henriques who was married. It is difficult to say off hand.

(The Liebes family was there when you arrived?)

Yes.

(And so by the time Ernesto was bar mitzvah'd in 1937 or '38--he was born in 1925--there were about twenty families, fifteen families?)

Maybe.

(And still....)

I remember that everbody stayed on in the Jewish community. The prayer part of the bar mitzvah as such, was the whole thing. Like in the synagogue, but in our big house. And everybody stayed on for lunch, I remember we had about fifty people there for lunch.

(With youngsters and children and....)

Yes.


Transcription prepared and provided by University of Florida, Oral History Program.
Interview conducted by Lea Freund on May 19, 1981.