YURI KOFMAN (YEHUDA BEN BARUCH)
Where were you born?
In Khabarovsk.
Were there any other Jews in Khabarovsk besides you? (Joke)
Yes, can you imagine? Have you ever encountered manifestations of anti-Semitism? In Khabarovsk it was felt less, perhaps because it is in the far south-east of Russia, and anti-Semitism was not so widespread there. But when I moved to Chisinau at the age of eleven, everything changed. There it was normal to say to a Jew: "Kike!", to insult without any reason - and no one saw anything extraordinary about it.
Were Jewish traditions observed in your family?
My grandmother on my mother's side was a religious woman. She passed away a year ago, on the day that coincided with the Yahrzeit of the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. In Russian, her name was Esther Yuryevna. And my great-grandfather, her father, was called Yudl, so I was named after him. He was the gabai of the synagogue in one of the Ukrainian shtetls and, of course, wore a traditional beard and sidelocks. After the war, my grandmother married my grandfather, Samuil Lazarevich Kofman. At the beginning of the war, he was a pilot, but he was shot down. He could no longer return to the sky, and he was sent to serve in the SMERSH – military counterintelligence agencies created during the Great Patriotic War. After the wedding, my grandparents left for the Far East, where he rose to the rank of colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Of course, he could not receive the rank of general by definition.
You grandmother, being the wife of a colonel, could no longer observe Jewish traditions?
Not exactly. As a child, I lived with them, and I remember there were two separate beds in the bedroom - as prescribed by the Jewish laws of family purity. Once a year, matzah appeared in the house. My grandmother cooked scrambled eggs with it, cooked broth with dumplings from matzah, and we ate it every day. Then the matzah suddenly disappeared and appeared again only the next year. Why this happened, I did not understand at the time. I remember the taste of Purim hamantaschen, with different types of jam. It was very tasty. My grandmother celebrated Jewish holidays, but did not tell either her daughters or grandchildren about it. I knew nothing about Judaism – there was no synagogue in Khabarovsk. We just knew that we were Jews. And when grandma and grandma wanted to say something secretly, they switched to Yiddish.
Do you understand Yiddish? What is there to understand…?
I generally thought that it was German and that my grandparents had watched too many films about partisans and were now speaking the "enemy" language so that we, the children, would not understand anything. I only remember two expressions - "mishigene kop” (crazy-head) and “wunderkind” (genius-child).
Probably, for them you were both, depending on the situation.
"Wunderkind" more often. Like many Jewish families, I went to music school to learn to play the piano - simply because my mother and aunt played – and how can it be that the child does not!?
When did you come to understand that a Jew lives a little differently?
The path was gradual, with different stages. I first saw a synagogue in Austria when we emigrated through there. Then, in Toronto, it turned out that our house was very close to the JRCC synagogue at 18 Rockford Road. One day, my friends told me that the synagogue was celebrating Simchat Torah – it would be fun: dancing, “lechaim”, noisy jubilation. I was eighteen, and I was interested. I remember how the young Rabbi Zaltzman put me on his shoulders and danced with me. And then the whole group of us went to his home, where he had three or four small children at the time. Several years passed. When I turned twenty-five, my grandfather passed away. He had no sons, and the responsibility for reciting Kaddish daily fell on me. So I started going to the synagogue regularly. Soon after I met my future wife, who grew up in a traditional Jewish family. Conversations began about Judaism, about Shabbat, about roots. Then there were the first holidays in the synagogue – Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. We had a traditional wedding, a Chuppah, and when our son was born he was circumcised. That is how Jewish traditions grew into our family. And then came the trials: difficulties with business, unanswered questions, the need for support. Every person turns to the Almighty when he is having a hard time. I went to the rabbi, picked up the Siddur, and began to come for Shabbat. Gradually, I gave up driving, stopped using the phone on Shabbat and holidays, and step by step my path toward observant Judaism developed.
What do you do for a living?
I am in the window business.
What would you like to see in your future?
I would like to live near a synagogue, see the happiness of my children, and spend a lot of time with my grandchildren: take them to synagogue, read to them, be at their Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs.
