Tag #145355 - Interview #83224 (Ella Perlman)

At first I didn’t care about perestroika [33]. I wasn’t interested in politics and didn’t believe the promises made by Soviet politicians. Then I saw that many things in our life were changing for the better. There was openness and newspapers wrote about the things that could have been only mentioned in a whisper and to close people before. During the Soviet rule there was a ban on religion. During perestroika the authorities stopped persecuting people for religious rituals. People could go to the synagogue or church without fear. The most joyful event for me was that we were allowed the opportunity to correspond with relatives and friends living abroad and there was no censorship, and we were also allowed to travel to other countries. I always wanted to go to Israel and I always knew that it could never become true. I prayed to God that He give me a chance to see Israel, and maybe my prayers have reached Him.