1984, Moscow
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HIMES
Dear Grisha,
My congratulations to you and Deborah on the birth of your son! How I am longing to see your children, such a large family, and you at its head! Of course I could never have imagined, and neither could your father, that you would choose this way of life. I am happy to the bottom of my heart. I can just imagine how difficult it is to raise so many children at one time. When I was young all our friends had one or two children, and two was regarded as almost heroic. I suppose the only family with many children was that of Rustam our yard keeper, who was a Tartar. You must remember him. His son Akhmed was in your class at primary school and Raya studied together with Svetlana. I can’t even remember how many other children they had. Only now, when I’m an old lady, do I realize what joy and riches it is to have many children. Svetlana has divorced Sergey but unfortunately he has refused outright to give permission for Anya to emigrate. When Svetlana tried to tell him the child would get a much better education and have far better prospects, he said absolutely definitely that he would never give permission and she could just forget it. Svetlana is in a very bad mood, saying nothing and crying, and it is depressing to talk to her. I do not think I have the moral right to emigrate without her. She is a helpless sort of person and for all her splendid spiritual qualities has difficulty coping with life’s everyday problems. I went to Leningrad for three days for Alexander Alexandrovich’s 70th birthday and when I came back found a radiator in the house that had burst just after I left. When I got back three days later, there were still puddles of water around the place. Now I shall have to do something to the floors. The parquet has all buckled. It’s very expensive to replace and we will probably just have to cover it with linoleum. If she had at least mopped up the water straight away and not waited for me to come back. She just cried. So do you think I could emigrate and leave someone as helpless as that behind?
Anyway, Grisha, it will have to wait for now. I can’t apply without her. In any case, I hope that when Sergey has new children—he has married a colleague—he will nevertheless give permission for Anya to leave.
Please send more photographs. It is the joy of my life to look at those wonderful children’s faces. They are all so good looking!
Don’t be angry that I can’t just decide to come on my own. Of course, I realize that my place is with my grandchildren, and I could help Deborah and teach the children Russian and literature. I could teach them to read Pushkin and Tolstoy. That is what I am really good at! It greatly saddens me that your little children do not speak Russian. If you only knew what a clever and talented niece you have. She even writes poetry!
I kiss you, dear Grisha. I greatly look forward to your letters. Since you emigrated, the mailbox has a big place in my life, which in other families would be occupied by a pet cat or dog.
Mama
10. 1985, Hebron
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INSCRIPTION ON A PHOTOGRAPH:
Mama! Our little family celebration. This year for the first time we had a harvest from the beds beside the house. It is a little vegetable garden which the children put such a lot of time into. In addition to our own children there are the two sons of Rab Eliyahu and the big girl is our neighbor’s daughter.
11. 1987, Moscow
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ERSHON
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HIMES
Dear Grisha,
My congratulations to you and Deborah on the birth of your son! How I long to see your little children. Your family is growing and that is a great joy. I find it hard to picture you in the role of patriarch!
Thank Deborah for the photographs. What wonderful children! You are such a lovely couple! Svetlana immediately noticed that all the boys have inherited their mother’s red hair while your daughter looks like you. There is a Russian belief that if a girl resembles her father, it will bring her happiness. Anya took the photographs of her cousins to school. She is very proud of them. Anya is a good girl, top of her class. Svetlana and I have hired an English teacher for her, Lyubov Sergeyevna. You may remember her. She worked with me at the school in the 1970s but then changed jobs.
I give private lessons, too, so we get by entirely satisfactorily in material terms. I very much love my profession, but have to admit that cramming is not as satisfying as teaching in a school, although of course I get good results. Last year I had eight private pupils and they all passed literature with top marks and went to the university. How it saddens me that your little children do not know Russian!
A few days ago we heard on the radio about disturbances in Hebron, and I am just trembling with fear for your life. Tell me, dear Grisha, can you really not move to a less dangerous area? If you were on your own I could understand it, but a family which has been through such a tragedy, can you really stay in such a perilous location? You said yourself that the German Jews who refused to leave Germany when Hitler came to power were crazy. I remember very well that you said they had been seduced by German culture, made the wrong choice, and paid for it with their lives and those of their children. Why should you, seeing such deadly danger, stubbornly persist in clinging to such a place?
I know you have your own convictions and arguments, but sometimes our circumstances are more powerful than our arguments, and sometimes life forces us to compromise. Do not be angry with me for saying this but understand me correctly. I am so worried for you and your children.
All my love,
Mama
12. 1987, Hebron
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Dear Mama!
Have you still not understood that we are talking about our life and not about where we choose to live? Jewish life can only be lived on the soil of Israel. It is not a matter of reuniting families but of restoring our destiny and history in its highest sense. You have no idea why we are here!
Twenty years ago Rabbi Shlomo Goren, a general in the Israel Defence Forces, entered the Cave of Makhpelah, took in a scroll of the Torah, and a Jew prayed there for the first time in 700 years. Since 1226, Jews and Christians had been forbidden to enter this holy place. Rab Shlomo Goren drove into Hebron in a jeep with only his driver, ahead of the whole army, and since that time Jews have been returning here. I will not leave.
We live here and will continue to live here, and I request that I should hear no more of these pathetic words because I am losing the last remnants of my sentimental attitude toward my close relatives. Your bleating about Svetlana and her problems with her former husband is simply ridiculous. My opinion is that you should come here so that your granddaughter can live in this land. Under Jewish law a child born to a Jewish mother is Jewish. For the opportunity to move here I spent five years in the labor camps. By remaining in Russia you deny yourself a future.
I find what you say about teaching my children Russian absurd. They have two languages, Hebrew and English. Deborah thinks they need to learn English and I do not object, but all the children will receive a religious upbringing and are already doing so. Rabbi Eliyahu teaches them, and in our settlement there are five times as many children as grown-ups. They were all born near the graves of their forefathers and are unlikely to have any need of the language of Pushkin and Tolstoy, as you put it. When my sons undergo their bar mitzvah at the age of thirteen, they will read the Torah in Hebrew, and believe me, the elder is already making great progress in his studies. This generation of children must be able equally well to read the Torah and to hold a rifle. We have called our younger son Yehuda.