My son has been in Israel several times. He has quite a few friends there. But he has an interesting job in the United States. And, of course, he will go on living in the country where his job is. He is very interested in Israel. He likes to travel there. He says he will take me there one day. I would like to go there, if everything goes all right.
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Displaying 49591 - 49620 of 50826 results
Elena Orlikova
My son and grandson have always been interested in their Jewish identity as well as history of the Jewish people. My son had books related to this subject as soon as they became available. It was when he was a student in Saratov. Now he reads more and more about it as he travels to Israel. I’ve never told my children anything about Jewish history or traditions. I know very little about them myself. I just explained to them that there are Russian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Jewish people, etc. We are Jewish, and Jewish people historically live in various countries. So they happened to go back to their roots at their own initiative.
Unfortunately I do not observe any Jewish traditions or rules. I don’t remember and I don’t know any and it is perhaps too late to start anything in this respect. We were brought up as atheists and this cannot be changed. I think this is what many Soviet people of our generation are like. Only on family gatherings in the memory of my parents I make stuffed fish and sweet and sour stew according to my Mamma’s recipe.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My grandfather and grandmother got married in 1894 when my grandmother reached 18.
They lived with the Faivish family at first, but later my grandfather received an apartment from the grammar school where he was working. It must have been a two-room apartment as far as I can guess.
They boy was circumcised. They followed all traditions as was customary in the Jewish families at that time: they went to the synagogue and prayed regularly, lit candles on Sabbath and did no work on this day, they fasted on Yom Kippur, celebrated Purim, Pesach, Hanukkah and the other holidays.
Their family was rather well off and they were trying to educate their children. Zinoviy studied at the commerce school and Solomon went to grammar school.
But in 1917 Lev, Leib Orlikov, my grandfather, died of a heart attack, and my father became the head of the family at 21.
I don’t know any details. All I know is that since then he was involved in some sort of commerce. It was probably more convenient for him to live in Ekaterinoslav - Dnepropetrovsk at present - and he moved his family, his mother and two brothers, to Dnepropetrovsk. They lived in Bazarnaya Street in the center of the city. My father rented a comfortable apartment for them.
I don’t know any details. All I know is that since then he was involved in some sort of commerce. It was probably more convenient for him to live in Ekaterinoslav - Dnepropetrovsk at present - and he moved his family, his mother and two brothers, to Dnepropetrovsk. They lived in Bazarnaya Street in the center of the city. My father rented a comfortable apartment for them.
Although this was a difficult time: the period of revolution and civil war. There were all kinds of gangs all around the country1, many enterprises were closed due to the war and there was not enough food produced.
I don’t know how Solomon, my father’s brother happened to be in Mariupol, but he was shot there by some white guard bandits.
She came from a rich merchant’s family. Her father Zelman Kats was a merchant of guild II2. At that time Jewish people were not allowed to live in Kiev, especially, in its central part, in the neighborhood of Kreschatik3. Only merchants of guilds I and II, doctors and midwives had this right. He lived near Kreschatik, in Mikhailovskaya Street. He owned a butcher’s shop. A shochet was cutting the meat there and it was considered kosher meat.
I only know that he came to Kiev and married Rachil Markovna Kulinskaya, the daughter of a rich merchant in Kiev. My grandmother was about 15 years younger than my grandfather.
She got education at home, she didn’t go to school, she had private teachers at home to teach her to read and write, as well as the rules of conduct in the society, good manners and foreign languages. Of course, she spoke fluent Russian and was an educated and intelligent lady.
My grandparents’ family wasn’t very religious. They only celebrated the main holidays and very rarely went to the synagogue.
After the revolution the newly founded Soviet state expropriated all richer people’s possessions leaving their families in poverty. All people were equal in their poverty. I don’t know exactly how this all went with my grandparents.
She talked (or argued, I’d say) with my grandfather in Yiddish.
They lived in a small room in the wing of the house that they previously owned. Any observation of traditions, rules or just order in the house was out of the question. They became a poor and degraded family. My grandfather worked as a night watch in an office in Kreschatik.
He wore a tyubeteika [a small traditional Tajik cap] cap.
After he came back from work he went to bed and in the evening he went to work and took his violin. He used to play violin at work. Nobody bothered him there.
I don’t know whether he was religious. He never prayed in my presence, but I know that he observed Sabbath and celebrated holidays. On holidays all their relatives were supposed to visit and greet them. There were no festive dinners, because my grandmother was ill and couldn’t cook for a whole family gathering. But it was a must to visit them on all Jewish holidays.
Maria Illinichna Kats, my grandfather’s sister, lived with them. She was born some time in 1870s and she was single. She was a dentist and was a very kind and nice person.
People said that she belonged to such people that could only love once in a lifetime. She loved a man once, but he married somebody else. She did not forgive him and never married herself.
Until her last days she walked to work, some children’s home in the outskirts of Kiev.
We keep her letters that she wrote in August 1941 as our dearest relic. She described the situation in Kiev before the very German occupation. All 3 of them - my grandfather, my grandmother and Aunt Manya - were shot when Germans entered the city. They didn’t even take them to the Babiy Yar4; they just shot them where they were.
She got involved in the revolutionary movement and was fond of the revolutionary literature. She went to Moscow and worked in the Ministry of Education (ministers were called People’s commissars - narkom5) with Anatoliy Vassilievich Lunacharskiy6. She met Osip Semyonovich Oguz (a Jew and a revolutionary, like herself – he came from the Baltic republics) and they got married.
Very soon they both got disappointed in the revolutionary movement and in the idea of communism and moved to Kiev. They worked in medical institutions.
Her husband Osip Semyonovich lived a very long life and died at 96 in 1990. He worked at the logistics department of Kiev Medical Institute until he was 92. He was a very respectable employee. Everybody liked him.
, Ukraine
We remember how Borukh Kulinskiy, Boris, my mother’s uncle, died. He died in 1937. Unfortunately I don’t know anything about his life. I remember the funeral ritual. It must have been a strictly Jewish ritual, because his body was wrapped in a white cerements and he was on the floor. There was no coffin. There were women sitting around him crying. I can analyze it now, but in those years all such things were called prejudices and we didn't take a closer look to the depth of such things.
Gusta has worked as a children’s doctor all her life. She is over 70 years old but she still works at the polyclinic twice a week as a consulting doctor.
They arranged celebrations for children at home. The children liked Hanukkah most of all. Their acquaintances’ and relatives’ children came to their house. They were mostly other merchants’ or their friends’ children. They had great parties and always enjoyed themselves. Each child got a golden coin and lots of sweets. My grandmother and her housemaids cooked all kinds of confectioneries, strudel, honey cakes, sponge cakes, etc. They celebrated all religious holidays in the family, but my mother didn’t tell me much about it.