Boruch-Afroim Rivkin

This is a photograph of my father Boruch-Afroim Rivkin. It was taken in 1950 in Gomel. I don?t know who took it. My father was born in 1887 in Khotimsk, his name was Boruch-Afroim Rivkin, and Russians called him Borukh Nakhmanovich. He studied in a cheder. In 1910, my father married my mother, Mira Yakovlevna Slutsker. My parents had six sons and one daughter, and I was the youngest. In 1927 it was still permitted to be engaged in private business. My father organized the manufacture of rubber, i.e. a private workshop for whetting scythes. There were no hired workers: only my father, Aunt Mussya and the senior children. Later, my father closed that workshop, firstly because the taxes were excessive, and secondly he did it for the sake of his children. My elder brothers weren't admitted to the eighth grade at their school because they were the children of a private craftsman. They finished seven classes and left school for a technical school. Later they got jobs in order to gain seniority, and only after that they finished an evening school. Later, my father worked as a warehouse manager at a sewing manufacturing firm. When my father worked as a private craftsman, he visited the synagogue every Saturday. At that time the synagogue still operated in Gomel. When he started working at a state enterprise, he visited the synagogue only on holidays, but he prayed every morning before going to work. He put on a tallit. When the Jewish holidays came, my father usually took his off days.