Alia
A surprise awaited us at the airport.
At some moment, the customs officer asked me for tickets, and then took the tickets from my hand, and said: "You are not flying anywhere". I asked to contact the Israeli consulate at the Dutch embassy. The customs officer said: "The Romanian board (the plane we were supposed to fly on) will take off, and then you can be in touch with the consulate".
I realized we were in trouble. Now they're going to take us somewhere. Untill somebody will start looking for us, anything can happen. And I did what I thought I had to do in this situation: I started screaming like crazy, beating my fists on expensive equipment through which passenger's belongings were passed for inspection.
In three or four minutes the customs officer came up to me and threw the tickets in my face. They fell to the floor. I did not say that this is offensive behavior and so on. I just stooped down for the tickets and we joined the queue waiting to board the plane.
The connection was in Romania - at those times it was a country in a state of semi-collapse. We arrived at night. Yonik dissapeared. We were very worried, we were looking for him. Finally we found him on the second floor in the store.
We boarded the El Al plane. Hebrew was spoken on the plane! At this moment something fundamentally changed in our lives.
We arrived at night. Luba was struck by the stars and palm trees at Ben Gurion Airport.
We were greeted by Gilat, our friend, who visited us in Moscow several times. Our things were taken to the Ramat Tamir hotel, and she took us in her car. She said with delight: "Yeruschalayim - the mountains are around it, and God is around his people."
The Ramat Tamir Hotel was like a heaven. A small room - we were used to live in one room... Meals in a restaurant.
At the hotel, everyone visited us, both acquaintances and strangers.
We found an apartment in Ramot Daled.
The area was Ultra-ortodox, like Mea Shearim, in some ways even stricter. We were received well and often invited for Saturday by our neighbours. But, of course, life there was difficult. For example, a man in all black, meeting Luba on the stairs, could turn to the wall and stand like that, putting his hand on his eyes, until Luba passed.
But our main problem was the education.
Miryam went to Beit Yaakov School. She entered the girl's environment at once. Her language was quite good. Communication with children, which she lacked so much, appeared in her. She even had girlfriends.
At school, she celebrated Bat Mitzvah. (We still did not understand the importance of this date and somehow did not arrange a worthy party).
But the level of education seemed strange to Luba. All her life she remembered that in Beit Yaakov, asking questions, they immediately dictate answers, which then need to be learned.
Michal went to kindergarten and felt pretty good.
The real problem of this society came to light when Yonik went to "Heider" at the age of three.
Luba was persuaded, and she, thinking that this was the way it should be, sent him to study. On the second day, it turned out that this was impossible. Children walked around in wet pants, no one changed them if they did not go to the toilet on time. Nobody told them to go. What kind of Torah is there when the pants are wet and the children are ignored?
I started attending Shvut Ami yeshiva. I wanted to advance in the classical study of the Gemara and the Shulchan Aruch. But it became clear that the yeshiva had its own politics, intrigues and struggle for power. This place could be only a temporary shelter.
Then, I began working for Steinsaltz Institute: translating the introduction to the Talmud, and then the Talmud treatise "Bava Metzia". I got a computer home - a rarity at that time.
When I could't find an editor - all the time some inadequate people came across - Luba took over the editing of the translation of the "Introduction", and then the Talmud treatise.
Her work is still admired today.
It became clear to us that a way out of the Ultra-ortodox world had to be found. But how? We didn't know or understand anything. For ten years of refusal, we did not collect information, but only dealt with the problems of leaving.
Somehow I learned about the settlements. Luba was against it, because she was afraid of life outside the city. We almost did not understand the ideological side of life in the settlements that time.
I do not remember how and why, Yafa and Chaim Makovsky from the settlement of Neve Daniel came to us. Sasha Lukatsky, a refusenik from Moscow, a Chabadnik, settled there. Maybe he prompted them at the time when they were looking for people.
The conversation with the Makovsky family was very pleasant.
We decided to come and see what's what in the settlement.
We came there for the first time on a Saturday in the winter. There was a mist, a cold, penetrating to the bones. The "caravan" where we stayed was heated by an oil stove. We didn't know that we had to open the window at night and had a terrible headache in the morning.
Although the atmosphere was wonderful, but we were afraid that we would not survive this kind of life. Neve Daniel at that time consisted of two houses and thirty-five caravans. The buses didn't get there. Power outages were regular. We decided that we are not able to live like this.
It took another six months before we agreed.
Without a car, with Luba's sick heart. Rav Fuchs, Rav of our neighbourhood in Ramot, asked me if we were moving for ideological reasons. I replied that no - only because of the cheapness of housing.
We have moved.
We arrived to Neve Daniel late in the evening in a truck that contained all our unpretentious belongings. All our future neighbors helped with the things, in one second they assembled a closet, connected a washing machine, and another new life began in the "caravan" under the incomprehensible number 620.
While things were running from the truck to the rooms, a man of about forty approached me, tall, stout, slightly limping on his right leg. He asked me if I knew a conscientious objector from Leningrad named Meshkov. I was a little offended and said that I know several Jews bearing the surname Meshkov in different parts of the world, but the refusenik Meshkov was only in Moscow, and that was me. My new neighbor looked at me with uncomprehending eyes and walked away without saying anything.
In the morning there was a knock on the door - a woman stood on the threshold with a pie in her hands. After introducing herself and congratulating us on our arrival, she handed Luba a piece of paper on which an address was written and asked if we knew these people.
This was our Moscow address. Esther was the womwn who stood at the door. Her family moved to Neve Daniel three months before us.
What's amazing? We have not received letters in the Soviet Union for six years. I asked visitors to write on the covers: "If this letter is not delivered, it will be wanted by the US government". Well, or England, or some other country. No one did it, everyone considered it nonsense. Except the Caplin family. And only their letters reached us.
Of course, Luba ran for that amazing letter that the Canadian government was going to look for ... Our caravans were close by, and we also built houses on neighboring plots.
The caravan leaked mercilessly. Food had to be brought from Yerushalayim. The bus did not go uphill, where the road, which was unacceptable for transport, led. Products had to be brought from the market in Yerushalayim (they were cheaper there), so we climbed uphill with plastic bags. In the city, Luba did not take the bus, but dragged everything on herself all around the city in order to save a few shekels. Of course I was worried about her. I worked, she was at home. She invested a lot in raising children, which, of course, was the most important thing for us.
It should be added that we traveled to Jerusalem through Beit Lehem, an Arab city without a single Jewish family. Many times stones were thrown at our cars.
But everything was somehow perceived, if not with joy, then with full readiness to endure difficulties, since it became clear that this was a struggle for the land of Israel, which did not end on the first day of our repatriation.
I began to work at the universities of Bar Ilan, and Har HaTsofim, at the courses at the Rabanut. I also worked in a Yeshiva "Mahon Meir". Yosef Mendelevich and Zeev Sultanovich helped me to get a job. At home, we continued to work on Steinsaltz's Talmud. I wrote for the newspaper "Nedelya", for the magazine "Aleph". Luba edited everything. And that's on top of everything else.
In the settlement, the atmosphere was very warm, and after a short time we could not imagine another life.
I served in the army because Luba explained to me the importance of this. I was so stupid, or so busy spiritually searching, that I didn't understand myself that military service is the basis of our existence on holy ground. When I was called to the army, I was thirty-nine years old. Three months of training, and then for twelve years, one month a year - in the reserve service.
Luba was alone at home with children and food delivery. She didn't like to ask for help. She managed herself.
Since 1991, I worked at the REKA radio (reshet klitat aliya - a program aimed at accommodating repatriates). It was created by Zvulun Hamer specifically in order to have a religious section that would be led by Yosef Mendelevich. The program was a great success. After some time, I was left alone - everyone else was quietly fired for right-wing views. I continued. The rating was high.
Four years later, we received permission to build a house. We wanted to build with Jewish professionals, but couldn't find any professional and honest workers. So we began to build with the Arabs.
Luba made the basis of the project herself. We wanted it to be cheaper, the only expensive thing that we afforded to ourselves was a semi-circular living room with six windows. Luba drew the construction plans herself. The work manager then built something very similar into the neighbor's house... In short, we got acquainted with the ugly side of Israeli reality. We changed the work manager to another work manager. At some point, Luba discovered that he did not fill the pillars of concrete, but piled gravel and covered it with concrete on top. The house would fall on our heads, if Luba did not discover the defect.
This is just part of some unexpected outright dishonesty we've encountered. It became clear that we are not in paradise. It's was embarrasing. But there was nothing to do.
The construction took two years. We've moved in, to our house. One day Luba said: "The walls of the house are too thick". When we were in a caravan, we were closer to nature, everything seemed easier, and relationships with people were easier... But the house, of course, was more comfortable. For three years they lived without heating, because there was no money to install heating. In winter, we wrapped ourselves in blankets, sat at the computer, and worked.
At this time we have been working on translating from English the commentary of Rav Hertz, formerly the Chief Rabbi of England, which is known as "Chumash Soncino" (after the publisher that published it).
The order was from Michael Grinberg, who owned Gesharim publishing house. I translated, Luba edited. Thanks to mutual understanding with Michael, it was possible to add explanations to rhe commentary, put it in order and expand some texts of additional articles. Before Haftarot (excerpts from the prophets that are read after reading the weekly chapter of Tora in the synagogue), we wrote short biography of each of the prophets.
As a result, the book sold 100,000 copies.
