A Heart breaking Return To Kishinev
FELDMAN, LEONID
A Heartbreaking Return to Kishinev For years, I had been dreaming about this trip; for weeks preceding it, I could not sleep. I had left the Soviet Union 15 years ago—after spending a month in...
...I had left the Soviet Union 15 years ago—after spending a month in prison because I engaged in a hunger strike...
...I mumbled something, still totally perplexed...
...The predominant emotion sensed in the streets and in the apartments, among the intellectuals and the workers, is fear—of anarchy, of violence, of crime...
...I was getting a private audition from an unmistakably talented tenor, but why...
...But we refuseniks were united...
...The hunger in the former workers' paradise is not only for food...
...LEONID FELDMAN The most heartbreaking story of my trip involved a stranger, a man in his late 50s, visibly apprehensive...
...Here was a unique opportunity for them to study Torah with six prominent rabbis from all over America...
...As we were walking in my old neighborhood, both very emotional, Yuri noticed a growing line nearby and suddenly ran to get in it...
...Suddenly Igor began to sing an opera aria...
...We were one...
...The nationalists in Moldavia are not saying anything negative against Jews so far, but if you answer a question in the street in Russian, rather than in Moldavian, you may be beaten or raped, as my cousin's neighbor was...
...The Jewish Agency rented an apartment for the rabbi and sent him on a mission to Kishinev to teach Torah to Soviet Jews who had been denied this right for 73 years...
...In 1976, the KGB did not allow Jews to study Torah or the Hebrew alphabet...
...Do you have to say that you believe because you are a rabbi...
...For this I was called a traitor and a criminal...
...He had been asking me for a private meeting for a few days, and I finally found 10 minutes for him between classes...
...His lecture explained why he became religious after spending his early years as a physics student and Komsomol (communist youth group) leader...
...A computer programmer and a physicist, David came to three of my public lectures and participated in five or six classes and seminars and four Shabbat dinners with detailed explanations...
...I was threatened by the KGB and humiliated by the police...
...We entered a hot, dirty room at the Pioneers' Palace...
...In addition, the two of us had numerous quiet conversations and intellectual discussions...
...Rebbe, can you get me a job as a cantor in America...
...The Soviet people are starving for freedom and hope...
...The two longest lines in Moscow—to McDonald's restaurant and to the Israeli Consular Mission—describe the situation in that country better than any sophisticated analysis...
...Most of them are Jewishly illiterate and incredibly ignorant of their heritage—except for 11 men who have been studying Judaism with an Israeli rabbi for the last several months...
...On the second day of my visit, I was told by one of the local Jewish leaders that I could teach anything I wanted as long as I did not mention Conservative or Reform Judaism...
...I was also warned not to try establishing a Conservative synagogue in Kishinev...
...A Jew was a Jew...
...I was going back to my hometown— Kishinev...
...The place for Jews is in the crematorium...
...Another aria...
...Posters with my name and title were displayed all along Lenin Street...
...It warns that Zionists are preparing concentration camps and gas chambers for the Russians...
...There are some 40,000 Jews in Kishinev...
...The Rabbinic Mission of the UJA visited Kishinev during my stay there...
...In a cultural center called the Red Flag, I delivered a lecture entided "From Marx to Moses...
...fl» Rabbi Leonid Feldman stands beside one of the posters that lined Kishinev's main street announcing his lecture, "From Marx to Moses...
...Let it go on record that, in 1990, six American rabbis were forbidden to teach Torah in Kishinev by Russian Jews whose vulnerable minds had been poisoned by another Jew...
...I followed him, curious to see what forced my friend to abandon me at such an inappropriate moment...
...Let it go on record that, in 1990, six American rabbis were forbidden to teach Torah in Kishinev by Russian Jews whose vulnerable minds had been poisoned by another Jew...
...My visit was announced in the local newspaper...
...I teased Yuri that he was a "real man" and his wife would be proud of him...
...I was now an American citizen— now a rabbi serving a congregation in Palm Beach, Florida...
...The rabbis' response: "Either all of us teach or none of us teaches...
...The end of this story is a powerful example of sin'at chinam (causeless hatred among Jews)—nobody taught Torah that night in Kishinev...
...As I was speaking to Soviet Jews about God, I could not stop thinking about the phrase we used to recite in school every day, "Lenin was, Lenin is, Lenin will be forever...
...In 1903 and 1905 the czarist government sponsored horrible pogroms in Kishinev...
...His face and his response, a Russian proverb, will probably stay with me forever: "The one who is fed cannot understand the one who is hungry...
...I was then an atheist who did not even know that Hebrew is read from right to left...
...Russia for Russians...
...He explained his nervousness by the fact that he had been waiting for this moment for several years...
...The irony is even more bizarre because Moldavian nationalists recendy renamed Lenin Street, Kishinev's main street, so there is no Lenin remembrance anymore...
...There were no categories then among Jews—attwere in danger...
...A busy schedule was prepared for them, including a class they would teach for these 11 most learned Jews...
...They were selling boxes of matches—five per customer...
...C'mon, you can tell me the truth...
...Everybody is scared, but Jews are scared more than others...
...Jews destroyed Russia, they are responsible for all the evils that have befallen it, and now they are running away...
...On the central square of Moscow I purchased for one ruble a pamphlet published by Pamyat, the infamous nationalist group...
...Then Igor showed me his portfolio: pictures, newspaper articles, awards, prizes...
...A local leader somehow discovered that the school was supported by the Reform movement, and the trip was suddenly canceled...
...He took me to the balcony of my Intourist hotel room and whispered, "Why do you lie about believing in God...
...A group of students from the Leo Baeck High School in Haifa was supposed to arrive in Kishinev for two months of intensive Hebrew teaching to Russian Jews...
...Feldman returned to his birthplace last summer for the first time since he was permitted to leave 15 years ago...
...When I finally came face to face with old friends, neighbors and family, it was exciting and painful at the same time: So much had changed in my life and so litde in theirs...
...At the end of our last evening together, David finally told me what was obviously bothering him all this time...
...On my second day in Kishinev, my childhood friend, Yuri, a member of the Communist Party, now a prominent theater director and producer, taught me the most valuable lesson of my trip...
...Rebbe, I have not told you the most important thing," declared Igor solemnly...
...The lines are longer than ever—for sugar, milk, eggs, soap...
...It was my best friend, David, however, who revealed the depth of despair that prevails in my former homeland...
...I was interviewed twice by Moldavian television...
...This rabbi had accomplished a great deal in his short time there...
...The afternoon before the class, I received a message from the group of students: "The rabbis are welcome to visit, but only those with Orthodox ordination may teach the class...
...These precious commodities are available only to comrades who possess the ration coupons distributed monthly by the government...
...He was obviously proud and was waiting for my reaction...
...Today the Soviet government allows everything, including the freedom of Jews to categorize and divide themselves...
...I can sing two prayers in Hebrew...
...I know it's impossible...
Vol. 16 • February 1991 • No. 1
