“In a future letter I will tell you more about certain people who give up a part of their time to works of charity, and how they do it; for there is no Board of Guardians here, as there is in London.

“Then when Father and the boys go to synagogue, we start to prepare for the day’s work.  First we take all the furniture we can out of the house, so as to leave the rooms free for the lower part of the walls to be whitewashed and the marble floors cleaned.  Of course, we try to use as little water as possible, as it is scarce, but even so the floors must be clean and look well polished, and the wooden furniture washed and rubbed well with sand.

“Then the tea-urn and all the saucepans and trays, which are either brass or copper, have to be cleaned and brightened; and, as we cannot get brass-polish here, we rub them with fine sand.  It needs plenty of ‘elbow grease’ to make them look bright, but the rubbing well repays us.  Since we came here I quite understand how brass or copper looking-glasses were used by our ancestors, for, after rubbing very hard with fine sand and a piece of lemon peel, you can see your face clearly reflected in the trays.  Some who had no mirror used the trays for looking-glasses.

“Mother prepares our Sabbath meals, whilst we girls are doing the hard work—­hanging up our best curtains or putting our best covers on the beds and cushions, and spreading the Sabbath table-cloth.  These are put away again on Saturday evenings.  Those who have them also use special Sabbath china, glass, and silver for their meals.

“This work keeps us busy nearly all day.  About three hours before sunset Father and the boys go to the public baths, and by the time they return we are all dressed in our best clothes, the samovar (the urn) is placed on a table in the porch, and we all sit there to rest and drink tea, awaiting the coming in of ‘Princess Sabbath.’  A matter of an hour before Sabbath a voice is heard calling out: 

‘Sabbath is in, friends!  Sabbath is in!’

“The first time I heard the call I could not understand the reason until Father told me that, as there are no bells in the suburb and very few people have clocks, one of the highly-respected members of the community undertakes the job of going right round Meah Sheorim every Friday, so that the women may know when to light their Sabbath lamps—­for directly the Sabbath call is heard all the women stop whatever work they are at and go to light the Sabbath lamp, which has seven wicks, in a basin of oil hanging from the ceiling, for there are no candles here.  When this is done the men and children go to synagogue, and some of the women too.  As they all love bright colours, when you see them from a distance walking to synagogue, the suburb looks like a flower-garden.

“After Sabbath dinner, which consists of the cholent baked on the previous day, Father gathers the boys round the table to hear what lessons they have learnt during the week.  He discusses and explains part of the Torah to them, while mother and we girls read the Zeene ureene (a commentary on the Bible for women), the Ethics of the Fathers, and the like.  This goes on for some time, and then we are free to go and visit our friends.  We and several of our friends often go to an old lady’s house, where we spend pleasant Sabbath afternoons.