Rachel and Pinya Kushel and family

This is my mother-in-law, Rachel Finberg, and other members of the family of my husband, Kushel Finberg. In the first row, from right to left: my mother-in-law; my nephew Lyonya Rabinovich; my father-in-law, Pinya Finberg. And in the second row: Naum Rabinovich, my sister-in-law's husband; and Olga Finberg, my husband's sister. On August 3, 1947, when I was 21, I married. Kushel was our neighbor. My mentality had been Soviet, rather than Jewish, with its two main characteristics: first, atheism; second, internationalism. There was simply no place for Jewish traditions or faith. We all believed in Communism and feared nothing. The war and the Holocaust radically changed my mind. With my marriage, my life began to fill with Jewish traditions and Jewish religion again. Thanks to my mother-in-law, keeping the main rituals and attending synagogue became a normal thing for us.