Selected text
Before Estonia became Soviet in 1940, we had a female Jewish Zionist organization - WIZO [38]. It was very active in Estonian times. In 1990 we revived it and I was the one who took care of that. In 1989 the Jewish organization of Sweden invited me to come over. A very famous Zionist, the founder of the Swedish WIZO, Charlotte Etlinger, was living in Sweden at that time. I met her when I was in Stockholm. We spoke in Yiddish. She was trying to convince me that I should revive WIZO in Estonia, go to Israel and see with my own eyes how WIZO is working to understand the goals and tasks and the way to tackle them.
Life was hard in Estonia at that time, and I did not have money for that trip. When my sick Aunt Nessie found out about that trip, she gave me money for that, $100, bought me the ticket to Israel and talked me into going there. When I returned from Israel, I founded WIZO in our community and was its president for 4 years. WIZO is still active, but unfortunately it is not the way it was from the very beginning. Earlier there were a lot of young ladies, the enthusiasts, who used to be very active. We had to start from scratch. The motto of WIZO in Estonia as well as in many other countries of the world is as follows: strong Diaspora - strong Israel.
The main task of WIZO is propaganda of the Zionistic movement as the liberation movement for Jewish peoples. In other words: get out of slavery and become a fully-fledged citizen of Israel. And the second goal is the flourishing of Israel. Many WIZO ladies from all over the world collected money for our state. Houses, kindergartens, hospitals were built in Israel on that money as life there is like a powder keg. We could not collect money for Israel in Estonia as we merely did not have money. We mostly dealt with propaganda of the liberation movement.
Many Jews who came to Estonia after the war did not know anything about it, as in Soviet time Zionism was equal to fascism. Of course, it was important to explain what it was. WIZO held lectures about renowned activists of Jewish culture, science, the liberation Zionist movement. We helped the sick ones, came to see them in the hospitals, brought products to old people, congratulated them on holidays, brought humanitarian help and gave them to people for free. We did our best. I had been the president of WIZO for four years when I was elected the chairwoman of the Jewish community of Estonia.
Life was hard in Estonia at that time, and I did not have money for that trip. When my sick Aunt Nessie found out about that trip, she gave me money for that, $100, bought me the ticket to Israel and talked me into going there. When I returned from Israel, I founded WIZO in our community and was its president for 4 years. WIZO is still active, but unfortunately it is not the way it was from the very beginning. Earlier there were a lot of young ladies, the enthusiasts, who used to be very active. We had to start from scratch. The motto of WIZO in Estonia as well as in many other countries of the world is as follows: strong Diaspora - strong Israel.
The main task of WIZO is propaganda of the Zionistic movement as the liberation movement for Jewish peoples. In other words: get out of slavery and become a fully-fledged citizen of Israel. And the second goal is the flourishing of Israel. Many WIZO ladies from all over the world collected money for our state. Houses, kindergartens, hospitals were built in Israel on that money as life there is like a powder keg. We could not collect money for Israel in Estonia as we merely did not have money. We mostly dealt with propaganda of the liberation movement.
Many Jews who came to Estonia after the war did not know anything about it, as in Soviet time Zionism was equal to fascism. Of course, it was important to explain what it was. WIZO held lectures about renowned activists of Jewish culture, science, the liberation Zionist movement. We helped the sick ones, came to see them in the hospitals, brought products to old people, congratulated them on holidays, brought humanitarian help and gave them to people for free. We did our best. I had been the president of WIZO for four years when I was elected the chairwoman of the Jewish community of Estonia.
Period
Year
1989
Location
Talinn
Estonia
Interview
Cilja Laud