On 12th August 1952 a group of Jewish writers was executed: Dovid Bergelson [27], Peretz Markish, David Gofstein [Gofstein, David Naumovich (1889-1952): a Soviet Jewish poet], who lived in Kiev, Lev Kvitko [28], Yitsik Fefer. Many representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia were executed. Then there came the period of the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ [29]. There were rumors that echelons for sending Jews to the Far East were prepared [30]. Rumors said that Stalin wished to deport Jews to save them from people’s anger. I cannot tell how true this was, but there were such rumors.
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Displaying 40231 - 40260 of 50826 results
Ihil Shraibman
When Stalin died, this was over, but I felt no relief. I cannot say that I heard about Stalin’s death with joy or relief… However, I think he was a merder [murderer in Yiddish]. He can be called so even for his execution of writers and Soviet intelligentsia. There were hundreds of thousands of camp prisoners [31], tens of thousands of them never returned home, and these processes started in 1937 [32]. He issued orders for all of these doings. In 1953 I was restored in the Union of Writers of the USSR.
The 20th Party Congress [33] in 1956, and Khrushchev’s [34] speech was nothing new to me, everybody knew something, but none of us imagined the extent of these crimes. We had hopes for improvements in the future then.
I wasn’t a Zionist, but when Israel was established in 1948 I was glad for Jews. I knew how important it was for Jews to have their own country. However, I wouldn’t say I was a great supporter of Israel, but my sympathy was growing in the course of time.
In the 1970s first mass departures started in Kishinev. There were meetings conducted where those people who decided to move to Israel were declared traitors in public. My acquaintances also started moving, but I never went to the railway station to see them off. My wife did, but not me. I’ve never considered departure to Israel, America or elsewhere. I didn’t want to leave here.
Olga and I often spoke Yiddish at home and Edward can speak and write Yiddish. However, I didn’t specifically teach him Yiddish. At that time I still had the fear of being arrested. If somebody got to know that I taught my son Yiddish they might have formalized the accusation of nationalism made to me earlier.
On 25th June 1968 I met Marina in Pizunda. I was staying in the Creative House in Gagry [town by the Black Sea in Georgia]. She came on vacation to Gagry with a group of teachers from the Ural. They had stayed 18 days, when one day, when the weather wasn’t so good, they decided to go to an organ concert in a cathedral in Pizunda. They were going back to Gagry on the boat of the Union of Writers when we met. Marina was under 30, she had thick auburn hair, bright eyes and an astonishing smile. When we met, we held hands and never parted since then. She stayed in Gagry and from there we traveled to Sochi where Edward came on tour. We stayed in Sochi for a month. Then Marina went back home to Kurgan in the Ural and I returned to Kishinev, but I wrote her three-four letters per day. We parted in August, and in October Marina visited me in Kishinev. I went to visit her on New Year’s Eve and stayed for three months. Marina was a solfeggio and music literature teacher at a music school. She also studied at the extramural Department of Choir Conductors at the Cheliabinsk College of Culture. We got married in June 1969. I was happy. The only thing that saddened our joy was that it was hard for Edward to accept Marina. He loved his mother so much.
My mother died at the age of 89, in 1980. My father had died eleven years before her. The summer three years before she died something happened that we all remembered. I described this in a miniature. Mama was seriously ill and bedridden for a few weeks. My sisters attended to her. One day she turned very bad. She was lying with her eyes closed, her face grew very pale and she turned yellow. Ida screamed, ‘Mama!’ Zina and Hana joined her, ‘Mama!’ and then Mama opened her eyes and asked, ‘What happened?’ She lived three more years after this. We buried her at the Jewish cemetery beside my father’s grave and I recited the Kaddish.
When Perestroika [37] began, I had positive feelings about it, but then the situation changed and the results were not quite as expected… The Jewish life has revived and improved since the start of Perestroika. The society of Jewish culture was established in 1989 and I was a part of it. My students, the Kishinev writers Boris Sandler, Mikhail Lemster and I were among its organizers. There are other writers, who think I am their teacher: Mikhail Felzenbaum, a very good poet, Zicia Veitzman, Jean Krivoy. The Jewish newspaper ‘Nash golos’ [Our Voice in Russian] was established in Kishinev then. It was published in Russian, but there was one page in Yiddish and I had Yiddish publications in this newspaper.
Thirteen years ago the Yiddish center at the Kishinev Jewish Library [1991] was established. I was elected its chairman. We gather every month. I read lectures about Jewish literature and writers. Besides, I was acquainted with many writers I lecture about. I never write essays about the writers I don’t know in person. I only write about those, with whom I was friends. We conduct our meetings in Yiddish and only those whose Yiddish is not sufficiently good make speeches in Russian.
Hesed [38] Jehudah provides assistance to me like it does to many other Jews. My wife and I receive food packages. I often make speeches, when Hesed invites me to its events.
In 1997 I published the ‘Schtendik’ [Always] book in Yiddish in Israel. I was invited to visit Israel on this occasion. This was my first trip to Israel. It’s hard to describe my first impression. It’s still vivid in my memory. Is it possible to find words to describe the excitement any Jew feels standing by the Wailing Wall? Marina and I left little notes there like everybody else did. We met with my brother Isrul’s family in Ashdod, who came to Israel in 1995. My brother died shortly after their arrival. We spent three weeks in Israel. We had meetings with writers in Israel, but my meetings with my readers were the most significant ones for me. Presentations of my book took place in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Rehovot, Richon LeZiyon, Ashdod… I was given a warm welcome at those meetings. What I read was received with great attention. I remember a woman in Ashkelon. She and her husband drove us to the station from where we were to leave for Jerusalem. She said with tears in her eyes, ‘We’ve never had such writers before.’ My books were read by former residents of the USSR and nationals of Israel. Hebrew is the state language, of course, but Yiddish is also our national language. There are wonderful books in Yiddish and it shouldn’t disappear from the life of Jewish people.
Polina Leibovich
My grandfather was a soldier in Nikolai’s army [2]. He served in the tsarist army for 25 years. I don’t know whether he was a cantonist [3], but he never quit his Judaic faith. According to my mother, my grandfather had a business and provided well for his family. My grandmother, Cipora, was a housewife like all Jewish women at that time. I only know four of my grandparents’ children, including my mother.
My paternal grandfather, Rahmiel Sohis, came from Latvia where his family resided in a small Jewish town. My grandfather was a rabbi, a teacher, as my father used to say, and all the Jews of the town went to ask for his advice.
My father, Yakov Sohis, was born in 1869. My grandfather insisted that my father finished a yeshivah. He was very well educated in Judaism. He knew the Talmud and Tannakh and was interested in the Jewish philosophy. In his youth he worked with my maternal grandfather, Gersh Iris. That was when my father met my mother. They liked each other and got married in 1893. The bride was 16 and the bridegroom was 24 years old. Of course they had a traditional wedding under the chuppah. After she got married my mother wore a wig that Jewish women were required to wear. In the only photograph of this period she wears a wig, but later she quit wearing a wig.
After my grandpa died, my parents opened a dairy store that became the start of my father’s business.
At that time my father owned a store of men’s clothes on Aleksandrovskaya Street. I know little about his business, though I know that my father made charity contributions to the Jewish community like all other wealthy Jews. We had a big house in the wealthy Jewish neighborhood, Irinopolskaya Street. There were three, three-bedroom wing annexes in the yard. They also belonged to my father and he rented them out. There was the mansion of Perelmuter, a wealthy Jew in Kishinev, near our house. The lawyer, Levenstein, and his family lived near him. They were educated and respectable people, and our family had good neighborly relations with them. There was a wealthy Romanian or Moldovan family living in another mansion, but we didn’t know them. There were five rooms, a kitchen and back rooms in our house. My parents had a bedroom and Shymy – that was how we called my brother at home – and I had our own rooms, there was also a big living room and a dining room. We had ancient furniture of red wood, velvet curtains and crystal chandeliers. There was a piano in the living room, but I didn’t study music. Unfortunately, I have no ear for music, though I love and understand it.
. He started every morning with a prayer with his tallit and tefillin on. My father always had a yarmulka on at home. My mother also taught me to pray in Hebrew, I can still remember it: ‘Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad…’ ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One’… this is what I think it means. I had a small siddur in my childhood. I still have a siddur, though I don’t think I am a fanatic believer.
My mother was a housewife and we had a housemaid to help my mother do the cleaning and some housekeeping while my mother cooked herself. She made delicious Jewish food: gefilte fish was number one, of course. Jews like gefilte fish. She also made chicken broth, yeisek flesh – sweet and sour meat stew. My mother made delicious pancakes from stretch dough. It stretched like parchment paper – very thin. She filled them with cottage cheese adding fried onions – very delicious. Our family also liked pte [petcha] – hardly anybody would know the word. It was cooked from calf legs bought at the market. It was cut to smaller pieces, cold water was added and it was cooked for seven to eight hours like holodets [holodets: a cold meat dish, usually made of boiled bones with little meat on them, the meat is mixed with the bouillon and cooled, after which it becomes jelly-like because of the high percentage of gelatin in it]. Two hours before the end of cooking, onions, carrots, garlic and spices were added, and then vinegar or lemon juice. It was served hot, but I never ate it for I didn’t like it unlike the rest of the family. I liked Moldovan mamaliga [boiled corn flour] that my father cooked. This was the only dish my mother allowed him to cook. When the family felt like having mamaliga, my father made it. It goes without saying that my family followed the kashrut.
The nanny was very good and was devoted to our family. She was like a member of our family, but she was quite a drunkard, as they say. Often a policeman took me back home from a stroll for she would be lying on the pavement drunk while I would quietly play beside her, when they found me. My mother was terrified by this situation saying each time, ‘This was the last time. It’s impossible to go on like this’, but my nanny didn’t have a place to go to, and my mother was so kind that she tolerated her. She lived her life with us. She loved me and loved our family.
My mother was involved in charity activities along with other Jewish women in the community. They were called patroness dames. There were two marble plaques with the names of these dames on the wall of the choral synagogue, and on one plaque there was the name of Shyfra Sohis. My mother sacrificed herself for the sake of others. She was ill having calcula in her gall bladder. She had attacks of acute pain at times, but as soon as she felt better she got up and hurried to the lower side of town where poor Jews lived. She distributed special coupons to poor Jews and they would go to the Jewish community to receive food products.
Our family observed Jewish traditions like all other Jewish families. We strictly observed Sabbath. My mother baked challah in a special oven. I also had one recently, but I gave it away. My mother cooked cholent, chicken broth and fish for Sabbath. She left the food on a special grate with lamps above it to keep the food hot. On Friday evening my mother lit two candles in silver candle stands. My father always had the company of a poor Jewish man, when he came home from the synagogue for Sabbath. This was a rule. Before a meal my father always recited a prayer in Hebrew, and my mother translated it for me. On the afternoon of Sabbath we always sang songs called zmires. We did no work on Sabbath; we didn’t even turn on the lights. My father had many religious books, and every week he read me an article from the Torah which is habitual for Jewish families. I could listen to him for hours. I remember that Shymy also sat with us. My father read in Hebrew, also called loshen koidesh [‘holy language’ in Yiddish], and of course, interpreted each word to us.
Pesach was the main and my favorite holiday. Shymy and I got presents for sure. I usually got a pair of patent leather shoes for Pesach. There were preparations for the holiday. In fall my mother started making goose fat: she had a special board and utensils to melt the fat. This fat was kept in a special jug in the attic where fancy crockery for Pesach was kept. Before Pesach the house was cleaned thoroughly. I remember that my mother thoroughly cleaned the kitchen utensils that she had no replacement for. All chametz was removed from the house. My mother also distributed coupons to the poor for them to receive food products for the holiday. My mother took the crockery from the attic after the house was cleaned up. It was beautiful crockery of thin china. There were silver wine glasses and silver tableware. The table was always covered with a beautiful white tablecloth.
At the end of the day, before seder, everything had to be ready. Undoubtedly there was fish, meat, matzah pudding and haroset – ground apples with wine and nuts to symbolize the clay that Jews worked with, when they were slaves. There were candles lit in silvery candle stands on the table and the seder began. We always had quests on seder. My father and brother conducted the seder: this was a tradition. My father told us about Moses who led our people from Egypt. My brother, Shymy, asked the four questions – fir kashes. He would ask, ‘Why are we sitting on this night? My mother or I didn’t say anything, but I knew the fir kashes by heart. I’m not sure, but it seems we also sang zmires on Pesach. My parents and whoever was our guest had their glasses filled with wine. The children also had a little in their glasses. Each adult was supposed to drink four glasses, but I don’t remember for sure whether they did.
I had a little thick glass with a little handle called a koise. There was a big copper glass for Elijah the Prophet on the table. It was polished and shining as if it was made of gold and there was the candle light reflecting in it. The glass was filled with wine. My father used to say, ‘Look carefully. Elijah will come at midnight and open the door.’ We left the door open for him to come in. Seder began early in the evening, but ended very late. Gradually, the scene became blurry in my eyes: the candlelight and the shining glass for Elijah. I always fell asleep and never knew whether he came or not. And I never saw him.
At the end of the day, before seder, everything had to be ready. Undoubtedly there was fish, meat, matzah pudding and haroset – ground apples with wine and nuts to symbolize the clay that Jews worked with, when they were slaves. There were candles lit in silvery candle stands on the table and the seder began. We always had quests on seder. My father and brother conducted the seder: this was a tradition. My father told us about Moses who led our people from Egypt. My brother, Shymy, asked the four questions – fir kashes. He would ask, ‘Why are we sitting on this night? My mother or I didn’t say anything, but I knew the fir kashes by heart. I’m not sure, but it seems we also sang zmires on Pesach. My parents and whoever was our guest had their glasses filled with wine. The children also had a little in their glasses. Each adult was supposed to drink four glasses, but I don’t remember for sure whether they did.
I had a little thick glass with a little handle called a koise. There was a big copper glass for Elijah the Prophet on the table. It was polished and shining as if it was made of gold and there was the candle light reflecting in it. The glass was filled with wine. My father used to say, ‘Look carefully. Elijah will come at midnight and open the door.’ We left the door open for him to come in. Seder began early in the evening, but ended very late. Gradually, the scene became blurry in my eyes: the candlelight and the shining glass for Elijah. I always fell asleep and never knew whether he came or not. And I never saw him.
Rosh Hashanah was a wonderful holiday. I loved it. It is the Jewish New Year. My parents went to the Choral Synagogue. My mother took me with her and we sat on the upper tier with the other women. Before we started going to the Choral Synagogue we went to another synagogue which I don’t remember. There was a festive meal on Rosh Hashanah with apples and honey, a round-shaped challah loaf and broth with mendelakh – little pieces of dough fried in oil.
On Judgment Day [Yom Kippur] my parents fasted and so did I. I fasted at least till two o’clock. I started fasting at about the age of 14. My father came from the synagogue in the evening and had a shot of vodka with bronfn and lekakh. Bronfn is vodka and lekakh is honey cake. Eggs were frothed to make lekakh. Then the family sat down to dinner. I remember that on Yom Kippur my mother served broth with little dumplings filled with meat. They are called pelmeni in Russian.
I liked Simchat Torah very much. My father used to hold me and go for a walk, when I was small. I always waited for Simchat Torah with a special feeling. We, children, walked with little red flags and red lollypops on sticks. I remember the Torah being carried out and we kissed it stretching our little arms. I remember this well. How wonderful those years were!
On Sukkot we made a sukkah in the yard from special planks that were kept in the attic. On top, the sukkah was covered with straw or reeds – I don’t remember for sure. We got together with our Jewish neighbors for celebrations and had meals in the sukkah all week long. Sukkot is celebrated in fall. When it was cold, we wrapped ourselves in warmer clothes, but still had meals in the sukkah.
On Chanukkah my father gave me Chanukkah gelt. I don’t remember what I did with it – bought sweets, I guess. I also remember merry dreidel whipping tops. We had a big silver chanukkiyah on the window. Every day another candle was lit in it.
On Purim my mother made hamantashen for our family and for poor families. She visited them before Purim taking baskets full of presents to them a week before Purim. My parents were rather old and we didn’t have noisy celebrations at home, but there were jokes, and children visiting and we had fancy dress costumes on.
I was a stubborn girl and wanted my wishes to come true. It was hard for my mother to handle me and she often said, ‘I will send you to school’. I was six, when my mother had enough of my unbearable character and sent me to school. It was a Romanian elementary school one house away from our house. The teaching was in Romanian at the school. My parents didn’t know Romanian. We spoke Yiddish or Russian at home, so I had to learn Romanian. I don’t remember having any problems in this regard.