Tag #139977 - Interview #78536 (Raissa Yasvoina)

In 1958 I met Semyon Sholomovich Yasvoin. He was born in Kiev in October 1934 in a Jewish family of ordinary workers. My husband’s family wasn’t religious. As far as I know they didn’t observe any traditions. My husband didn’t even know the biggest Jewish holidays or how they were to be celebrated. His mother worked at a plant and his father had died before he was born. Semyon was in evacuation in Chimkent. He studied seven years at school and went to work as a laborer at a plant. Later he learned the trade of a butcher and got a job at the central market.  He was earning more than at the plant. However, people often abused him, calling him “zhyd” (kike) and at the same time accusing Jews that they always fixed things for themselves in the best possible way for themselves but never for anyone else. Once Semyon lost his temper and threw himself onto the crowd of people holding his butcher’s knife. He didn’t injure anybody, of course. People called the police, but they hushed up the case. 

In 1958 Semyon and I got married. We had a civil wedding ceremony. We didn’t have a big wedding party, just a festive dinner with close relatives. My mother was very sorry that we couldn’t arrange a real Jewish wedding. At this time even attending the synagogue was to be kept a secret. But frankly speaking, at that time I was not so religious as shortly after the war. I was responsible for typing the books and articles of writers, poets and literature critics. They were all atheists and this had its influence on me.