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Our Jewish community was founded during perestroika [45], in 1988. We did not have a rabbi, and those people who knew Jewish traditions were supplying for him. My mother died in 1993. She was buried Jewish cemetery in accordance with the traditions thanks to the community They made minian like it was supposed. Now we have a true rabbi. I am unreligious. I cannot understand how people can believe in God after holocaust. I cannot deceive myself, I take interest in religion and traditions as without that religion Jewish people would stop existing. Jewish customs and traditions are interlaced with the belief and cannot be classified. I cannot believe in the deity. The issue is in my opinion belief petrifies, but the life goes on. Religion cannot keep abreast with the times. I do not see it possible for our belief to be closer to the modern life. Now there is such a trend as progressive Judaism and I think that it is a fake, a surrogate. It is too simplified and adapted. I do not like orthodox Judaism either as it is another extremity. I like many customs, but not all of them. I do not think it makes sense to observe kashrut nowadays. In due time it was to be observed at least from point of hygiene, but now it sis obsolete. And again the ban to use transport on Saturday, take money in hands. It was rational when the towns were small, when people could walk from home to home, from home to synagogue and now we have such distances that this ban is even harmful. As for ban to work on Saturday, I agree it is better not to work and to devote this day to God and oneself. What is work? Now some people even believe that opening a fridge and switch the light I also a job. These are extremities, there is a limit to dogmas! In general there are too many bans. I think that the word you cannot is the main one in Jewish religion. There should be some way to make our belief more adapt to modern life, but I do no know this way. It is very complicated … there are a lot of things I like in Jewish traditions. E.g., the rite to plant trees on Bi Shvat. I had never done that, and I do not have garden or a land plot. I like this rite anyway, and I think all people should follow it. Not only because there would be more trees, as the team of gardeners would do it quicker and faster, but if a person planted a tree, grew it, he of XVII-XIX centuries they did not find it necessary to wash hands before meal and they ate with dirty hands. As for Jews, washing hands was always a cult. They could pray only after having washed hands. Recently we were given torah in the community. I started reading it and was so absorbed that I could not notice that I spent half a night reading it. I liked it so much!
As compared to Soviet times there is hardly any anti-Semitism in Estonia. There is a different classification –citizens and non-citizens. I think that a certain share of anti-Semitism is useful. I think if there was not a notion like that, we, the Jews, would not survive. There would be no incentive to study better as every Jew understood that to get a job he should be a better expert than non- Jew. Of course there were as lot of victims of anti-Semitism, probably there are much more perished Jews than survivors, but still anti-Semitism was impetus, stimulus for survival and improvement of Jews, and it disappears we would probably stop existing as the nation. Though frankly speaking I do not consider Jews to be peoples, but the group of propinquity people. E.g., if comparing me and Moroccan Jews, the difference would be so vast, that we would not be reckoned as the representatives of one peoples. Our history is very complicated. Jewish history is a half of world history. Now there is a real threat of extinction of Jews, not because of physical destruction, but due to assimilation. The more there are mixed marriages, the quicker Jews disappear as the peoples. In my opinion, the Jew is not the person with Jewish blood, but the one who identifies himself as a Jew. Those whose father, mother, grandparents are Jews, but they are not trying to be the Jews, are they Jews? I do not think that we are any better than other people, but I cannot say that we worse than anybody else and should be exterminated. That is why I cannot accept holocaust and belief in God who allowed it. I do not think we deserved it.
Jewish community of Estonia means a lot to me. Of course, they do a lot of kind deeds- provide food, medicine, care etc., but still it is not the most important for me. Jewish community helps preserve the remaining representatives of Jewish peoples and this is the most essential for me. I want the Jewish peoples to exist and I am ready to do my best in that.
As compared to Soviet times there is hardly any anti-Semitism in Estonia. There is a different classification –citizens and non-citizens. I think that a certain share of anti-Semitism is useful. I think if there was not a notion like that, we, the Jews, would not survive. There would be no incentive to study better as every Jew understood that to get a job he should be a better expert than non- Jew. Of course there were as lot of victims of anti-Semitism, probably there are much more perished Jews than survivors, but still anti-Semitism was impetus, stimulus for survival and improvement of Jews, and it disappears we would probably stop existing as the nation. Though frankly speaking I do not consider Jews to be peoples, but the group of propinquity people. E.g., if comparing me and Moroccan Jews, the difference would be so vast, that we would not be reckoned as the representatives of one peoples. Our history is very complicated. Jewish history is a half of world history. Now there is a real threat of extinction of Jews, not because of physical destruction, but due to assimilation. The more there are mixed marriages, the quicker Jews disappear as the peoples. In my opinion, the Jew is not the person with Jewish blood, but the one who identifies himself as a Jew. Those whose father, mother, grandparents are Jews, but they are not trying to be the Jews, are they Jews? I do not think that we are any better than other people, but I cannot say that we worse than anybody else and should be exterminated. That is why I cannot accept holocaust and belief in God who allowed it. I do not think we deserved it.
Jewish community of Estonia means a lot to me. Of course, they do a lot of kind deeds- provide food, medicine, care etc., but still it is not the most important for me. Jewish community helps preserve the remaining representatives of Jewish peoples and this is the most essential for me. I want the Jewish peoples to exist and I am ready to do my best in that.
Period
Location
Talinn
Estonia
Interview
Morris Schiff