Menachem-Nuchem Pisetski and his father-in-law Shlyoma Karasyov

This is my paternal grandfather Menachem-Nuchem Pisetski, standing on the left, and his father-in-law Shlyoma Karasyov. The photo was taken in Odessa in 1903. My grandfather was born to a wealthy family in Odessa in 1878. My grandfather told me that his family was very religious: they followed the kashrut and observed all Jewish holidays. My grandfather attended cheder. Since my grandfather was a tailor he went to the synagogue for tailors located in Remeslennaya Street in the center of Odessa. Shlyoma Karasyov, my maternal great-grandfather, worked as a shammash in that synagogue. Most likely, it was my great-grandfather Shlyoma who introduced my grandfather to my grandmother Riva-Zelda. I never met my great-grandfather Shlyoma; he died in the 1910s before I was born. My grandmother and grandfather got married in 1898. They had a happy marriage: in the first three years their three children were born in Odessa. In 1905 my grandfather, grandmother and their three children moved to Uman, a small provincial town in the west of Ukraine, escaping from the terrible Odessa pogrom that year. My grandfather bought a big and beautiful house with columns in the center of the town and opened a garment shop. His clients were wealthy ladies. I remember my grandfather very well: he was of average height, baldish, had a moustache, but no beard. He went to synagogue regularly. I remember that he put on his tallit and tefillin when he prayed at home. I was five then and remember that I stood beside him and kissed the cubes - tefillin, and my grandfather kissed the edges of his tallit.