My mother Kreina Khalfina was born in Vasilkov in 1909. She received a Jewish education studying with a village melamed at home. Then she went to a Jewish school.
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Displaying 37381 - 37410 of 50826 results
Grigoriy Stelmakh
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My mother was very pretty, but she didn’t go out with boys. She didn’t support revolutionary ideas either. My mother said that when the revolution began, there were many idle young men and most of them were Jews since it was a Jewish town. They didn’t want to work or study. They ran around the town yelling ‘Death to capitalism’ teasing their Jewish fellow comrades who were working or studying. My mother remembered that when she was 15-16 years old, and came to dance at the club a Komsomol guy yelled to her: ‘Khalfina, get out of the club!’ and chased her out whistling and hooting, because she was a hostile element since her family was considered wealthy.
After finishing school my mother finished a training course and worked as a secretary.
In 1935 she met my father, who had become a widower a short time before. I don’t know how they met. Perhaps, through matchmakers that was customary with Jews.
My mother somehow repeated grandmother Ronia’s life marrying a man three years younger than her and having a child. They had a modest wedding. Sumptuous weddings were not a habit with communists. The most amazing thing about it was that my father agreed to have a Jewish wedding. Otherwise my mother’s parents would have been against their marriage and my father loved my mother dearly. My parents were escorted to the synagogue separately and at the synagogue they stood under a chuppah and all guests made seven rounds around the bridegroom. Then their marriage contract was read and they exchanged rings. Then they drank wine and guests began to greet the newly weds. My grandmother and her neighbors cooked sweets for the wedding part and there was little to drink.
My mother somehow repeated grandmother Ronia’s life marrying a man three years younger than her and having a child. They had a modest wedding. Sumptuous weddings were not a habit with communists. The most amazing thing about it was that my father agreed to have a Jewish wedding. Otherwise my mother’s parents would have been against their marriage and my father loved my mother dearly. My parents were escorted to the synagogue separately and at the synagogue they stood under a chuppah and all guests made seven rounds around the bridegroom. Then their marriage contract was read and they exchanged rings. Then they drank wine and guests began to greet the newly weds. My grandmother and her neighbors cooked sweets for the wedding part and there was little to drink.
My mother and father moved to Tarascha village of the Kiev region where my father got another Komsomol assignment. Shortly after the wedding grandfather Shulim died and grandmother Ronia moved in with my parents and were with us from then on.
I, Grigoriy Stel’makh, was born in Chernobyl town of the Kiev region on 18 July 1939. My father had another Komsomol assignment there being head of book sales.
r. During the Great Patriotic War Frania was in evacuation with our family in Shantala about 2000 km from Kiev.
After returning to Kiev Frania worked as a cashier in a store and was arrested for missing cash. Frania spent few months in jail, and then the court issued her a suspended sentence. In 1946 she married Leonid Kalantyrskiy, a Jewish warden from jail.
Frania was a worker in a hot shop at the rubber toys factory. One day in 1967 she was going home from a night shift when she remembered that she forgot to turn off a water tap in her shop. Frania was so worried that she had a stroke and died.
I met Lubov Turun from Moscow, who came here as a young specialist. When I saw the girl, I said to myself that this girl would become my wife. Lubov is Ukrainian.
Lubov’s family welcomed me warmly. We got married in 1968. We had a wedding party in a big restaurant in Kiev. There ere about 100 guests.
We lived with parents few years and then I received an apartment.
Our plant is located near Babi Yar. At the height of struggle against dissidents and during the period of terrible anti-Semitism our plant and Artyom plant arranged for volunteer teams on 29 September every year, on the anniversary of mass shootings, to be on duty in the area. There were spontaneous meetings in Babi Yar and KGB officers [18] wearing civilian clothes were watching them. Jewish members of the party were forced to join these volunteer units. They were instructed to watch the people who came to the Babi Yar to commemorate their deceased compatriots. KGB explained that we were not to bother individuals, but the groups of people, particularly the ones wearing caps (kippah) and covers (tallit) and they were lighting candles, it was required to report about them immediately to a special truck with investigation officers. They often broke up those meetings and arrested people. I am proud to say that they never offered me to join this group, although some Jews willingly participated there. In those years Yevgeniy Yevtushenko’s [Yevtushenko Yevgeny - Popular Russian poet. Born in 1933. Yevtushenko's first book of poems was published in 1952. He soon became the most popular spokesman of the young generation of poets who refused to adhere to the doctrine of socialist realism. The publication in Paris of Yevtushenko's Precocious Autobiography (1963) brought him severe official censure, and he was frequently criticized by the Russian government for his nonconformist attitude. Despite this, he made several reading tours abroad during the Soviet era. He has also written novels. In addition, he is an actor, director, and Photo grapher] poem ‘Babi Yar’ was published. It struck with acute truth and pain. ‘I can still remember every line. The world community a monument to the deceased was installed. However, there was ‘to Soviet people’ inscription on it and not a word about tens of thousands of Jews exterminated here, but everybody knew, anyway. Then perestroika [19] began and the Jewish community installed the mournful ‘menorah’. I remember the 50th anniversary of the shooting on 29 September 1991, when in front of many people and in presence of Bill Clinton, the former US President, Leonid Kravchuk, the first President of Ukraine, expressed apologies to the Jewish people on behalf of the Ukrainian people and I believe he knew what he was apologizing for. Not only for the actual fact of this shooting, but for many years of state and everyday anti-Semitism.
Therefore, I am grateful to independent Ukraine for giving an opportunity to many nations to develop, including Jews. I always think how my father and grandfather would be happy had they lived to this time and seen the wonderful synagogues, Hesed, wonderful holidays Purim and Chanukkah in the ‘Ukraina’ palace, the best in Ukraine, our community life and my participation in it.
My mother died in 1975. My father couldn’t bear the loss for a long time and then he married a Jewish woman from Leningrad 0of the same age with him. Their life together failed and she left. My father lost his vigor and died in 1981.
My sister Raisa has never married. She worked as a forewoman and engineer at big construction sites. She lives in Kiev. My younger sister Shura Novitskaya was married twice. Both her husbands died. Shura still works as an accountant.
Her daughter Yelena works in the Solomon University [Jewish University in Kiev, established in 1995], and her son Yuriy is an artist.
Lubov and I have two daughters: Irina, born in 1970, and Yevgenia, born in 1977. Irina finished the College of Public Economy and is an economist. She married Andrey Chepizhko, a nice Ukrainian guy. They have no children. Irina identifies herself as a Jew. She and Andrey visit us on Jewish holidays that we celebrate. We have a Chanukkiyah and my grandmother’s Pesach dish that I’ve kept safe.
, Ukraine
My younger daughter Yevgenia has been interested in the Jewish culture and religion since childhood. She graduated from the Law Faculty of the Solomon University and also fin8shed the Faculty of Judaism. Yevgenia is a great connoisseur of the Jewish culture, language and traditions. She actively worked in the Jewish organizations for young people and traveled all over the CIS. In one of her trips in Minsk she met a Jewish man from the USA. He also worked for a Jewish organization for young people. His relatives left Russia in the early 20th century. They got married. Now her surname is Kaplan. She and her husband live in a small town in Atlanta, USA. I don’t remember the name of the town. Yevgenia adopted ‘giyur’ and has the Jewish name of Aviv, which means ‘spring’. She works in the Jewish community center.
I am a pensioner now. I have a lot of spare time. I read a lot and study the Jewish history and religion. However, I don’t go to the synagogue. I don’t think it is necessary to go somewhere to serve the God. God is inside us.
Semyon Tilipman
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My wife Tatiana grew up in Dzygovka where people knew each other, and she thinks my grandfather Shymon Tilipman was a melamed. I am sure my grandfather and grandmother were religious. My father was raised religious.
Meir and his son stayed in Odessa during occupation. They perished.
My father Moisey Tilipman was born in Dzygovka town some time in the 1890s. My father was raised religious. I think he studied in cheder. Father spoke Yiddish and prayed in Hebrew. He met my mother in the town when he was in his teens.
My mother’s parents came from Soroki town [a district town in Bessarabia province, today in Moldavia; according to census of 1897 there were 15,351 residents and 8,783 of them were Jews. In 1910 there was a synagogue and 16 prayer houses in Soroki] in Bessarabia 2.
I remember my mother’s brother Moisha Davidovich residing in Odessa. His wife’s name was Riva. They had two children: son Naum and daughter Rosa. They were born in Odessa. I guess, Moisha moved to Odessa before the October Revolution 3. I know that he delivered bread to customers of a bakery in Odessa. During the famine [in Ukraine] 4 in 1932-1933 he supported our family. He perished along with my parents. He and both of them were convinced that there was nothing to fear about Germans. They even convinced other Jews to stay in their homes.
, Ukraine
My parents moved to Odessa secretly in the late 1900s. They had a traditional Jewish wedding in Odessa.
I was named Shymon after my paternal grandfather. Later I changed the name Shymon to Semyon for my sons’ sake. [Editor’s note: Semyon wanted his sons to have a patronymic that sounded more familiar to Russians.
, Ukraine
My father was a vendor at the Alexeevski market. He had a small booth shop at the market selling something. According to gradations of Soviet authorities he was a ‘non-working element’ [a term that determined businessmen in the former USSR at that period].
I went to school at the age of six in 1922. There were specific schools where I could be admitted as a son of a ‘non-working element’. There was a big higher secondary school in Komsomolskaya Street where they didn’t admit me. I went to lower secondary school #64 in Vneshniaya Street.
They were both born in the apartment on the second floor of a two-storied wing in the yard in 84, Arnautskaya Street. There was running water in this apartment, but the toilet was in the yard. There was a hallway, a small kitchen and a big room in this apartment. In the early 1930s we had a kerosene lamp hanging in the center of the ceiling. This room was my parents and my sister’s bedroom. I slept in the hallway. As for Fima, I guess he slept in the kitchen. Our neighbors were Jews, the family of Kapels.