Tag #153115 - Interview #78138 (Ida Kristina)

My father, Yankel Rubin, was the youngest in the family, a nipper. He was born in Oleshevka in 1882. There was no cheder in the village. My father and his brothers and sisters attended classes with a melamed, who came to the village once a week. He taught them to read and write in Yiddish. My father didn't have the traditional bar mitzvah at the age of 13 since in 1895, shortly before he was to come of age, my father's parents died one after another. My father's older sisters and brother had their own families. My father became an orphan. A Jewish joiner, who lived in the same village as my father, took him to teach him his profession. So my father became his apprentice. My father followed his family to Chernigov in 1907. He became a skilled cabinetmaker.