Tsilya Basin
So you decided to leave Lithuania for Israel?
Yes, we made that decision. My father had a cousin in Israel who lived on a kibbutz. He sent an official invitation – without such a document, it was impossible to leave the Soviet Union. My father and my sister left first.
After some time, they sent us an invitation from Israel. But everything was complicated by the fact that my husband was a Communist. At that time, it meant a great deal. Anyone planning to emigrate to Israel had to go through a humiliating public meeting. People were insulted, degraded, stripped of their party membership and jobs. It was terrible. They held such a meeting for my father too. They gathered the entire factory where he worked.
My husband became so fed up with it all – the insults, the hatred. Later he told me how they called him in. And he said to them: “It’s not you throwing me out of the Party. I am leaving your Party myself.” Can you imagine saying that out loud in those days? It was very dangerous. He threw his party card at them right there at the meeting. After that, they told him: “You have a week, maybe a week and a half. Either you leave immediately, or you’ll be sent elsewhere.” And that meant they could exile you anywhere.
We packed very quickly. I had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant with our second child. I said, “I want to leave. I don’t need anything.” We hardly had any furniture anyway. We just gathered our things, and that was it. We left for Israel. It so happened that we left just as the Yom Kippur War began, on October 6, 1973. I will never forget that day. We had just received permission – the long-awaited, most important document. I ran to my friend, overjoyed: “I got permission!” And she said, “Tzilya, what are you talking about? A war started today.” And I answered: “Even with war or bombs falling on my head, I want to leave here as quickly as possible.” And we arrived in Israel just as the war was beginning.
From Lithuania to Israel – and then onward?
When we moved to Israel, we ended up in an area where we didn’t even immediately find a synagogue. At that time, we didn’t yet know how our Jewish life would take shape in the new country. But life in Israel itself gave the feeling of a Jewish home: kosher food in every store, holidays out in the streets. Everything around you felt familiar and your own.
When my husband applied for work, they reviewed his documents carefully and said:
“You’re needed in the army.”
He was surprised: “In the army?”
“Not in combat. In a military factory. You’re a specialist.”
He said, confused: “My G‑d, I don’t know a single word of Hebrew.”
They asked him: “Can you read technical drawings?” They handed him blueprints. He looked and said, “I understand everything.”
That’s how he got a job at a military factory. From that point on, he practically lived there, working day and night. And I had to build our life with a small child in my arms and another on the way. I was given a two-room apartment. The committee of Lithuanian Jews helped us. Without them, we wouldn’t have managed. They set up beds. I remember being given one pot, three plates… a little of everything, but all the essentials were there.
Later, circumstances brought us to Canada.
And you had to go through immigration again?
Yes. When we arrived, at first my husband had to take whatever work he could – digging ditches, doing hard labor. He couldn’t find work in his profession, and I would cry, thinking: was it really so bad for us in Israel?
To this day, I regret leaving. My grandchildren are there. One recently got married, and my granddaughter serves in the army. But my husband, on the contrary, came to love Canada. Our daughters are here too. They lived close to me, though one, sadly, passed away. My middle daughter is not religious, but my third, Leah, became religious, and her family supports me very much. They live nearby and bring food for Shabbat.
Right now, Leah is in Israel, waiting for her daughter to give birth. Her husband is a wonderful man, an English speaker, and he constantly calls me: “Ma, do you need something?”
A traditional question: what are your plans for the future?
When people ask me about the future, I just sigh. I am already seventy-eight. I only dream that my middle daughter will find her place and come closer to Judaism. She is surrounded by good people, works as a programmer in a hospital, and I so hope that one day we will all sit together at the Shabbat table.
And for the Jewish people, I want only one thing: peace. That there should be calm in Israel, that people can walk the streets without fear. And I still dream of returning to Israel someday. Maybe, with G‑d’s help, it will yet come true.