Dear Cousins,

David Nesher asked about the accuracy of occupations in Polish vital
records because they seemed to change too frequently.

I answer, perhaps the problem is in the translations. For instance,
David translated "belfer" as "teacher" and "szpektor" as "supervisor(?)
I struggled finding the right translation for szpektor several years
ago - I even showed my ancestor's document with that word to somebody
who was very fluent in Polish, a native speaker by virtue of having
grown up in Poland. He looked at the word, furrowed his brow, and said
aloud, "How is it that I read Nowy Dziennik [the Polish Daily News]
every day and I never saw this word before?"

Szpektor might be Kaszubian, which is called a dialect of Polish by some
but I believe considered a separate language by most experts. According
to the very useful file at
http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/krakow/kra_occupations.htm,
szpektor means "teacher's assistant," which is an sensible alternative
to belfer.

Sincerely,

Ira Leviton
New York, N.Y.