Please tell us about your background. Were Jewish traditions observed in your family?
In the Soviet Union, speaking openly about traditions was nearly impossible – and at times simply dangerous. I’d put it this way: the subject was sealed shut. Not because people in the family didn’t know or remember, but because those were the circumstances of life at that time. There were many things you simply could not say aloud – it often felt as though there were “ears” everywhere.
When I was little, my parents were afraid to tell me much. Sometimes I overheard fragments of conversations between the adults – isolated words, names, mentions of the tribe of Benjamin. But at the time, I didn’t understand what any of it meant. Only later, when I was older and my grandfather and father decided I could be trusted not to speak to others about it, did they begin speaking with me more openly.That was when I learned that our family traces its lineage to the tribe of Benjamin, and that we preserved what my father called artifacts – objects connected to ancient history that had been passed down from generation to generation.That’s fascinating and quite unusual.
Can you tell us a little more?
In the Torah, each of the twelve tribes of Israel is associated with a specific stone. The stone of the tribe of Benjamin is jasper. In the Tanach (Hebrew Bible), there is an account of how Benjamin’s stone on the High Priest’s breastplate was lost and later replaced by another. According to our family tradition, it was that original lost stone that survived – and somehow found its way into our family, where it was handed down from father to son through the generations.After coming to Canada, I showed this stone to a rabbi, who examined it closely and carefully measured it. The image of that stone also appears on our family coat of arms, officially registered in Ukraine. In Canada, however, things proved much more complicated. Heraldry here is directly connected to the Crown, and registering a Jewish coat of arms is a serious challenge. I contacted the Canadian Heraldic Authority and submitted all the necessary documents, but I was refused.Over time, I became more and more drawn to the family stories connected to our traditions. I wrote a book about King Solomon’s ring – not as fiction, but as an attempt to make sense of a family legend. I was always deeply interested in the history of the Khazar Khaganate, whose ruling elite adopted Judaism. But what mattered to me was not so much the story of the ruler’s religious choice, but something else: according to our family history, one of the silver trumpets cast for Moses eventually came into the possession of King Joseph of the Khazars in the capital city of Itil. When those trumpets were cast, a small piece of silver was left over – and according to our family tradition, it was from that very silver that a ring was made for one of my ancestors.Another important legend is tied to that episode: in a dream, an angel named Breton appeared to my ancestor and instructed him exactly which symbols were to be engraved on the ring and included in our family coat of arms. Those instructions were carried out, and from that point on, the tradition took on a visible form. But my life is not only about memory and family legends. It also followed a very concrete Soviet path.I became a doctor not by chance – it was a profession practiced by more than one generation in our family. I graduated from the Kharkiv Medical Institute, and before that I attended medical college.Getting into college wasn’t difficult. I finished school with a silver medal (receiving top marks in every subject except for Russian language), and in those days medal recipients were admitted without entrance exams.At medical college, I was elected deputy secretary of the Komsomol organization (the Communist youth organization). Formally, I was only the deputy – but in practice, I did almost all the work. The secretary was what was called an “appointed” secretary, placed there by the district Komsomol committee and mostly focused on advancing his own career. The day-to-day responsibilities fell on me – a typical role for a Jewish deputy.After graduating from the institute, I was assigned to work as a surgeon in the village of Staryi Saltiv, near Kharkiv. And there, to put it mildly, I was not very lucky. The hospital’s chief physician turned out to be a former police collaborator (a loaded term in the Soviet context, usually referring to someone accused of collaborating with Nazi occupation authorities during World War II). Everyone knew it, but no one condemned him. The nitpicking began, along with constant psychological pressure. Every day I traveled from Kharkiv to Staryi Saltiv for work, and it was exhausting – not only physically, but emotionally. At a certain point, I had to rely on family connections in the regional health department. I told my father that continuing under those conditions was becoming impossible. In the end, I was appointed chief physician of a district hospital, where I combined administrative work with performing surgery and treating patients. Later, I specialized in urology. What drew me to that field was its breadth – it sits at the intersection of surgery and internal medicine, endocrinology, psychology, and sexology. To become a true specialist, I completed many advanced courses and specializations, and eventually defended my dissertation. I worked as a regional urologist, and I found the work genuinely fascinating. Then perestroika began. Many of our friends received Israeli visas and started preparing to leave. They attended underground foreign-language courses and made plans for a different life. My wife – a very energetic person – said plainly: “Everyone is leaving. Why are we sitting here?”Not long before that, my father had passed away, and my mother was left alone. And it was she who supported my wife’s position. My mother told us: “If you need to go – go. I’ll come to you later.” And so we were faced with the eternal Jewish question: to go, or not to go.
