Tag #129344 - Interview #78037 (Lilya Finberg)

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. My childhood and adolescence during the war were spent in a Jewish environment, but it was very assimilated. My mentality was 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. I had a feeling of irreplaceable loss and I was drawn to my roots, to God; I began to fear to break His commandments. Everything my mother-in- law would say or do became understandable and necessary for me.