Meaningful Interviews: Rabbi Zalman Sirota #1

welcome to meaningful interviews my guest today is an old friend rep salman sirota he happens to be a family a family relative his wife is related to my wife zayder of zalman cena bronski what but what may make me ask you to zellman to to come on and talk to us is because of your background you know you were uh born and raised in russia ussr whatever they called it at the time and um you came that you said all i believe and then to israel and then you came to america so you have really three parts to your life and uh i'd like to hear a little bit about your family background and your upbringing and we'll go from there please well it's not really three parts yeah i wasn't is i wasn't in israel for relatively short number of months relatively short period okay anyway uh my wife i was actually born in tashkent uzbekistan this your family was there still from evacuation from during the second world war and my father's family actually was there even before and was they still stayed there besides my father still they left russia and my grandfather there mothra sirota was really the one who hosted many refugees during the second world war and many many hundreds of people just survived pushed the gospels thanks to him his house and yard and everything was filled with with people the refugees he would just go to the train station and find someone he saw a from need or someone like coming from poland from russia from each other places and he would take them to his house until we'll find they found some some other place and in later years also he maintained a minion in his little street where he lived uh three times a day totally until and all the years till he left russia and in his uh house he was he baked mata for for the whole city uh of tashkent all all the years and uh but i remember and in general he was a real bashan spirit he said till him every day by hearts in euthym uh and the whole team he said and whenever he went off where he was going whichever place he was going he was just saying to him and uh he was actually a brussels um not from birth actually but he was a your name and that's why whom he befriended and he became a brass lover horses he's i believe his family actually brought your noble exhibition before before and uh but he became a vascular hostage and as soon as it was possible he has actually had this erasmus his name and uh and others okay that's just a little bit from uh for where i was born but then because of circumstances we i was only i believe six months old or something like that we have the move tomsk to siberia because my other grandfather uh oliver was he was a channel a square of us and he was he was bowed too much by kgb he was giving us dur and was talking about still stalin's ears and he was giving assure between and he still he still managed to before the revolution and all the upheavals in ukraine and the and the pogroms he was still was able to learn for 15th monument in shiva and he was up and there he was a very good head also and they bothered him kgb and only you can't really whatever as much as you can you try to not to give them any information but they wanted from him he should spy on others he should tell about khabar they threatened him otherwise they had enough information on him for his activities and so the only way to do basically was to go some remote place someplace else a different republic and and the opportunity presented itself because my mother finished university uh in in tashkent where she studied studied mathematics and instead they wanted to take her for a phd program but instead she volunteered basically to go there when specialists were needed because in that part of russia during the war they had all the military uh factories we moved there to this far from the front lines and then and they produced they produced their tanks and things like that but after the war they kind of wanted to start producing other things different types of more like what people needed for just for life to recover from the war etc so we needed specialists we needed also mathematicians in order to figure out how different uh metals can go together can go together was a lot of math involved there whatever so she volunteered and it's a separate story how she was about shabbos house she managed all the years the university without shabbos and then in where she was sent it was her muzzle but she would found some other way i guess anyway but but for muzzle but that shabbos was a day off we didn't have enough electricity still after the war so every factory had a different day off and the verb where she was sent to this lab to work their day off with shabbos yes and and because of that my father whichever jobs he had was able to claim he wants also shabbos off because he wants to be home with his wife the day she is off okay so and the interesting thing after she had to work there for three years after she finished off the videos we moved to moscow a month later she got a letter from a co-worker that now is ready to became enough electricity with borough hashem now it's ready some sunday is a day off a lot of us in russia in my grandparents lives and my parents lives and my my life too may i ask you yes for a moment what what was the reason uh they moved to thomps to siberia because my my grandfather my mother's father was so lonely lord the kgb was really on his case and anchored there whatever it was called that time we were really in on his case we want him to become an informant right so in other words he he claimed that he doesn't know them he didn't deny that he is from and everything but but he doesn't really the friend of theirs he doesn't know them so they but they it didn't kind of work about survivors let's say that they make sure to become a friend and go whatever you you people will take care of you whatever right right so so yeah so that's why they left her skin yes right yeah another another question um did your zeta did your grandfather have murder ever take you along to uman no but my father went a few a couple of times a few times in order to be much minion they didn't have enough brussels russia to to have our own minions used to go to because there was a father-in-law so he he could not be everybody around he was aiding by behind me on the board so they he used to go to to be muslim with minion are you talking about angry just during this one do you have any recollections of joseda talking about uh brussels citizen or during the yeah during the war of one of the people who stayed for a while by myself and who kind of said became very close to was the big brother jose who was later the verma spear the leader and the brasso mccloys in your salon uh yes so he also stayed in my zadah's house for a while until we found some other legends or whatever he stayed for a while when his daughter wrote a book actually and she mentions that she writes about that too so your your family and the ladies and bender had a a a relationship uh well not me i didn't know bender remembered the message he was in russia but then after the war he left with polish citizens he actually was a polish citizen actually he his stories all he he kind of he went into in order to be in women for rosh hashanah while being in poland he [Music] entered illegally russia in order to be numerous rosh hashanah but then he couldn't get back anymore and they arrested him and was the whole thing later whatever but he went but he during the war he ended up in the scans uh-huh my understand my understanding is this is a baby bender was uh at the height of the match i heard he was yes yes yes he was a dominar he doubled for hours do you see a commonality between you know brussels and chabad in certain areas i'm just curious here have you ever thought about it in the union or missouri snappers even though there are very few brussels proceedings left but those few were real uh really really real value mysterious levels and and uh was there any antagonism also yes also the government was stronger against them because also because they knew that they are very strong so they kind of persecuted them over the years probably after habad were the next group which was which the government was after okay i'm also asking i understand what you said um during those years that you feel any uh kind of antagonism the breast lift they're running no no every everyone was everyone was together united was together everyone tried to try to help each other you know everyone knows with everyone everyone was was together and because it was a common struggle against the whole system against the whole situation okay so so now continue with how how how did you look at your judaism your yiddish guide your hasidiskai as a young boy slash teenager in in in in russia okay so i was about four four years old or so when i came to moscow yeah yeah and uh so i was almost i remember very vaguely i do remember a little bit right uh by the way it was a minion by a shabbos in amsterdam yes it was right actually had a brother there borus i don't remember the name whatever yeah i'm sorry i didn't my family talking about that mentioning the name is he the one that came there to slowly after no i don't think so okay but i'm not sure okay um anyway we became in in in remember we move yeah moscow was not easy to get into moscow but again through job for whatever we were able to to do it and but not moscow itself and the city and william saba because the moscow was almost impossible to get to to get to live in moscow if you didn't live there from before uh the city itself what years are you what years are you talking about 1956 okay yes and uh so believed in a place called it wasn't very to the north of moscow it used to be before the war that's where roma lived mom is not far from where we live and uh what you know abroad is that mayor there's a little city a little village right no no no but no but he lived but before the war and still beginning of the war he lived then he leave the moscow but he lived not in the city also he lived in the suburbs i thought he lived in mount no maybe for a while at some point also before maybe but i i'm aware that he lived you can you can read it in the book which we uh answer more he lived in a place called uh mamantovka or something like that he lived in those places and we lived right right not far from there okay our place was called plasma okay but it's uh it's about like 15 miles from moscow at the time but now now moscow became even even expanded now it's only maybe five miles from moscow whatever right okay fine but uh also maybe a little more but now yeah it's closer even to the city itself and uh where we moved in the same place that's why we kind of maybe chose that place leave the family of hazan and also that place had kind of a concentration of some of some jewish people everywhere the jews everywhere in russia and especially around big big cities because although eden had to move out of a small settler a small city because even before the war because it was impossible there to hide from the sex and from whatever everybody knew each other so they moved to bigger cities and uh so we so there was a concentration in that particular place a bigger concentration was also some like some places probably heard the name perlovka was in the same with the same direction north of moscow and uh and of course malacca was to a different side of moscow more to the where was it doesn't matter it was more yes right right so so we moved to that place and at that place you had had had the kind of uh i remember still was a million a million there not just shabbos every every monday and thursday was also a million and of course some if someone had your say it was worth three to three times a day a million you made okay wasn't and rosh hashanah in keepers still probably i don't know i would say close to 100 people which i remember still okay and uh at one time i remember in keeper they came and they uh closed up the place and took our took away all the religious articles and they made pictures of all the younger people and it happened one time it's only time that i remembered i was still very young then but then so we were closely hazan family but my my grandfather was actually teaching some of their children and and was he was teaching on a more steady basis he was a teacher of children of emily friedman where he was a nephew of hazan hazan's wife and he was one survivor of his family from from his side besides the abyssal treatment or who were managed to leave russia after the war was frozen frost in the face and so my zeta was really a steady teacher of his sons we all live in a soul by abrian obsidian and he was teaching children for a while so here and there in different times but he was reluctant to he found others because the masada wouldn't want to take money and he felt bad about it now that someone was calm should come and spend time and it was the main thing that was it was a very big danger according to at least nominally according to the law you you could teach your own children in practice it was not tolerated even that but according to the law it was okay but to teach someone else's children was officially a crime so and he and he did it so but he was also the teacher my teacher my my say that he actually because my father worked long hours in order not to work on shabbos he had to change many different professions and jobs and won't work long hours he didn't have time for it my dad my father still managed he had the schools to learn in terms of that's how he became in during the war years in tashkent washington and he was still he still studied there so big because those were all kind of the um only place in where stephen still had some some sami shiva during the war in durham and after the war the mosque syrian was still khabad so people like my both from isaiah's for whom it was more important but the children should be reshaming in the safe room it wasn't they would rather than become to learn if this was the only option even though they themselves were not about obsidian right all right so my so my so my father became a habanero he still he still learned in touch with me he learned barbarism was teaching them tanya it was his atmosphere yes and right so but my father didn't have time much to spend he also had to prepare he was bulkier an armenian whenever he had little time he had to prepare for that and but he's his own head it'll be his own children but he'll never have time really for me much so my isaiah that was and i said it was a real banter so mercedes was the one who was teaching me but not just teaching me also giving me he was he was already retired he didn't work he had time and he was giving me really adrocha in general okay my they there must say well i could you explain that last sentence isaiah that gave me could you give me an example an example okay so i wanted i wanted to say that's exactly what i wanted to say even though he was very uh i was a cockman he was a kind of intellectual and it was a banter he had unbelievable a moon of shooter and he believed overweight he was actually descended a descendant of tamil and yes which which talmud do you know oh he was uh was was really not a close descendant but he was a descendant of uh of uh uh ragdalia millennials who who was a town coming from barcelona zedra bisol lived with us basically over years and uh and my here together with my grandmother they were taking care of us children because my mother also worked full-time right as he became a math teacher because as a teacher she was able to make the schedule not to work in shabbos right okay he was that she was a teacher in high school in college teaching math so she was she was very educated yes and in general mentioned that but it was much more difficult actually for women to keep keep pedestrians to stay from in russia because a much bigger challenge like why because the boys were still taught to terror and they were sent away when was still possible when was somewhere to bear to send away or we were hiding them as much as was possible in the years my years wasn't possible but whenever it was still possible but the goals in order kind of to show that they're not against the government most people sent most students and their girls to school right so they were more than indoctrinated in those schools and had more challenges within bishmira shabbos and and many many didn't understand the challenge right yeah so so my my mother broke hashem was one of those who did who was succeeded all the years but uh but it was not easy to say the least okay right you're right and and and once you mentioned your mother just for a second yes um was she educated by her father in in yiddish sky too in other words she from what you're telling me she was a momentous a serious you know smart and educated um in secular studies what about in leadership things okay you mean shabbis knew from the home all the things she had to know right and she obviously knew the basics of of of humans of how to dab and things like that but schnapp she didn't have the real real education like ghost kevin having here no she did not right okay because previous year when he was younger my zed also had to work for long hours in order not to work shabbos that was actually working as a bookkeeper accountant whatever that's what he became right and also was able to keep shabbos that way all the years and but he also didn't have that much time but every time he felt he had to devote to his son that's how it was right i understand yeah i understand yeah but yet but yet you're saying jose there was a bent tighter yes okay so okay yeah yes yeah go go back now to your to you what you're saying about yourself all right so my myself had a very strong and together with being an intellectual he project had a moon of shooter very strong one and uh and that com and that combination is is not always so common and uh yes and uh and so he had a lot of a spawn what you're saying is that someone who's on those days in those years and was so you know bright and and knowledgeable you know there usually their munda was weak compared to their intellect right and and what you're saying is what was unique about him is that together with a strong mind and yes and it's being abandoned and all that yeah and was the assad me and my sisters a lot of stories about shantae what study came all the time he was reading us those stories telling us stories yes i understand continue yeah and an obvious event the problem was sometimes it's hard but that's just the fact sometimes it's hard to learn from someone who is emotionally involved with you and yeah and i was very close to him with him uh but sometimes it's hard it's easier to learn from outside teacher but it was very hard to get on to to get anyone it wasn't almost impossible also he couldn't teach me about siddhas okay and uh so he was teaching me basically neglect not uh saying okay now now all the during the time that he learned with you yes did was there a were you were you aware at that time that there was a rabbit and anything about the babbage or not really i'll tell you tell you the truth i knew it was a rabbit but they didn't know any details and knew nothing about the rubber i don't think i knew what he was what he was coming catharina's love and when his father was was the role there but i did i didn't i didn't know nothing nothing about about her and just but i we knew a lot about and about this a lot of stories about rebreaths right of course whom of course my father even never saw and with that matter my grandfathers also didn't because were not have seen him okay but but we heard a lot and had very large respect for him for what he was doing what we heard about him and everything yes and so so the rem rayat was a lot which we knew about and of course because they still were a lot of older chabad siddhim who learned itself and heard the mooring from the shops themselves in 100 million there those i knew and quite a number of them yes and we had even born in a living i haven't two of them i i knew who were living mom is not that far from us who were they do you remember their names one was called kucinsky yes the other one was called i'm not sure hilda lived maybe hillary level i'm not sure we called it you know people didn't call people by last names right right he kind of kept i never i never heard these two names never okay okay was actually his last name okay okay right um right so you you know you knew you more more more exciting verbs still from older times so of course moscow morsidium of course we were friendly in new york and of course tribute to colossae and number of others a number a number of others uh just don't recall right right right now yes yes right now yeah yeah good yeah but okay later years was only shabbos and who is this new rep in new york in the 1950s people we didn't have a meaning of sydney most of the people of armenian were people just older people who already still remembered still learn something and hate their northern days uh who were not even formed during in the intermittent years but then and they became older we started to go to school shop whatever and those were the majority of people in the minion we people my kind of honest people only at some events or something once in a while otherwise and the moscow is huge and everybody was lived in different parts of moscow and suburbs and was these distances were big and was not so easy to get together right and right like like in samarkand it was a small much smaller city and the city lived more or less in the same neighborhood so it was very different in that respect even though even though probably moscow had more more sydney and more from hidden than samarkand maybe right but but but we're dispersed very much so and yeah but okay because uh yeah let's say one last question before you think you test kisling did you all did you get together did you know about your test kiss live or not yes we knew about you test yourself [Laughter] and uh became about horses during the war because again for the same reasons and he was not from home before like and uh yeah and then his aiding became with his father-in-law and so i got to know of him i was yes too okay yeah and now of course yeah and yeah still still uh some yeah and there are many others still in moscow yes it was yes never heard of him yeah yes daughter of mercy yes okay and i have i used to i was in their house in their home for different reasons not you know fight a few times too okay and they lived in the evening itself a place okay so so let's go back so also our friend was uh constance his family his son-in-law was a bisque yeah yeah right and uh many others now i'm mentioning just whom you were close kind of and so besides myself ashford family of because he was a unique family who was openly from who did not hide it and the children were openly home kind of they still in my times was impossible not to go to school we would take away your children if you see the senate to school and you couldn't hide he couldn't hide those times around moscow it was not like whatever the only person i know who still was hidden was in malachi but it was very hard it was just for a few years whatever it was and when men left russia and uh but it was in general it was impossible to to hide to hide children just you know right you had to yeah you had to tell children sometimes or a doctor or whatever it is or is this aware that it was impossible to to not to pretend that they are someplace else with some relatives or whatever if it was possible for a short while but it wasn't possible so everyone had to go to school and in school they indoctrinated you everything against the description and and you had in the at home it was that was the biggest challenge i really actually wanted to talk about it but you know how much time we have now but if we had to to you had to have that strength and you had to know obviously we knew russia we had to know russian and german grandparents talk to us in english but we had to know russian too and to learn russian because on the street if he couldn't talk english you had to you didn't keep you couldn't even let anybody know but you know this and but you had to know already from the very young age what to say what not to say what say to say to whom what not to say to whom and in school you had you had to go to school and you couldn't say anything what in bosnia really believed you had to pretend there was a gang game of pretending and uh and you had to be smart about it and uh it was it was a very big challenge it was very difficult for children to do it and uh and they were kind of we had to we had to get such he knew that was part of a big challenge besides teaching us besides giving us uh giving us this guide to and to be strong in it to to know also what how to behave what to say but not to say and how to to to navigate all that and it was a very big challenge hashem by nature me and my sister next to me her name is now married name is pressman she lives in line we kind of were more kind of an intellectual side and more introvert types to to some degree me maybe more than my sister private more private people but i had my my next sister was more social and outgoing personality so it it's a from very young age not just to know but what to say but not to say and keep your mouth shut and whatever it was very big challenge and it was dangerous if we would say something which would not suppose that authorities not supposed to know about our parents about our home what we are what what we eat what we don't eat and how we get our kosher food possibly or or anything how we celebrate yount or whatever it is or why we and why we don't want to go to show to school shabbos or did you go we don't want to write or whatever it was a very very big challenge the problem the i know i think the saving grace a little bit was but it was a game of pretending not just from our side also from authorities i believe that they knew we didn't know the details obviously but in general they understood the venue but we are religious and why we don't want us let's think like that about shabbos or whatever but it was easier for them to pretend but they don't know right because if they would kind of show that they know they would have to do something about it and be responsible for it and if they wouldn't reach his results without results they would be punished too yes okay for not giving us the right education you know right right so so it was a little bit game of pretending and it was everything was cynical and there were relatively few people who really believed in communism and socialism and all those things but all such people like you know like my sister had a teacher who really believed in it i had a teacher actually a jewish teacher whose father himself used to go to armenian sometimes okay and so she knew but her husband was a was a member of communist party because of his job or whatever so we were very much afraid but but she kind of still both because it was easier to pretend and beyond the other hand because she still kind of had the feeling for for forever so they let us go especially as long as you could provide some credible letters from doctors with your healthy days that you need to treatments on shabbos but whatever which we had friends still jewish doctors who would give such letters such documents but it was not easy it's easy to say about talk about it it was very difficult and very dangerous to do all that but as long as it was some credible backing but she could pretend that it's over all okay and as long as we were kind of uh other students me and my sister so if they let it go we kind of close their eyes or more or less right but go go you were saying this was all you're saying all this because you started to say that and his family had a big impact on you because they were not scared no not not just not just because of i'm just saying they were unique i mentioned very unique in that way but just now not just because how they we were kind of our friends and was very close with me personally kind of he liked me very much and i'm conscious on a personal level also and so it and he was he and he was very genuine he was one but by the way i think one of the better books about that period he himself wrote the book different russian knights it was translated in english right yeah but but he writes more about his own family the history but at the same time he had to give a background so he mentioned what the situation was you can see that from the book and the other good book is some account which the bill is osmond wrote yeah which is very truthful however and it was also about kind of my period of time however the difference is sponsored like i mentioned both people were more together in a smaller place also the population were muslim who themselves were still more traditional right so they themselves also kept certain things so they were more it was easier to they they kind of understood more and let it go number one and number two was the culture there was of backstage of bribes that's just in their blood so it was easier to bribe them it was still dangerous and you have to know how to do it but like saying i said that moroccan was able to make masses keep a minion because he just paid real monthly salaries to all the policemen around the neighborhood and about everyone okay so but he you have to drink vodka with them become a friend of hers he knew how to do it not everybody and but but it was possible still there to take that chance in moscow it was impossible to do something like that because we're too dangerous you mean him in moscow itself not in the little shop in the in the sabbath store i mean it was impossible it was impossible even to try to bribe someone it was too dangerous for both sides both sides were afraid too much afraid it was it was not possible so this wasn't this was not one of the options right now how old were you when you were impacted by rabbi how old were you at the time oh from my from from from the time when you know from the time but i remember him well like say from the time i was six years old until they left russia when i left russia when i was about 14 of the electrician like five years before they did uh-huh they left russia like in 1965 66 in the hell just before rosh hashanah of 66. all those years all those years um he was a big influence on your life yes too but yeah probably and probably next to my zederby stroller yes right okay and uh okay also i did travel to tashkent because i have my said the boba bear so i i had a reason to travel there i was i spent there when i was already 11 years old i spent there like probably four months and some point so i i learned something somewhere i got some friends a little bit but later when i had already got older and i already finished the high school and i was kind of more free to travel i i spent there when i was already 18 years old i spent there an hour also about four months and i became very close and i that's where i learned more citizens where and i became very close with my friends uh who formed from from about families and between also i traveled here and where and so in other words yes tell me if this would be correct that you you really became a bad hosted and looked at yourself as a laboratory when when you went to tashkent as well after that i'm not really i was already i was already kind of uh helped myself was it already even before bar mitzvah i was governing sahari and and i was saying heaters as soon as we knew about heaters as well whatever you know okay okay i did not no because you said that you know yes when you went tashkent after high school you know you i you started to learn you said you started to really enjoy i learned more i said i learned more more more more who who taught you how citizens tashkent yeah more with my friends i learned also a little bit of my uncle uh who by by by marriage you becoming my man congratulations claim oh yeah yes and uh i i had had friends and i had the yeah we had a lot of our brain who would the friend who is yeah yes he was uh just just to see him down and how he happened i was in his house how he doubled each word like counting money here and and yeah there was the gorilla family and uh we which credit yeah yeah so so those are the friends uh yeah galpin [Music] yeah now so during those fabregas and during that time there was more conversation about the rebel of brooklyn yeah yeah yeah but people still didn't know much i did before first god like was in 1967 wow okay yes at the first time which i saw where anyway kind of maybe someone got someone got ready in 1966 maybe for some tourist stores i mean i don't think anybody had before but i'm not 100 sure but small format from from from printed new york i did this this i got this right yes even even even before even a little bit before that i got my hands on on the cottage yes okay and so i read it um what what was the what do you recall do you call the do you recall the impression you [Music] were you moved by it do you have any collections yes yes yes could you say could you say a few words about that please no i i i i i remember the whole the whole thing with the rabbi yates right there about marshall moyales yeah that's the beginning it took us it had the great significance because the name of the lab exists whatever and everything yes right and and of course the the whole story of your base thomas the maestro will be samus was red and red but you know and i actually got the second failure before the first so i read the second one first i remember that mm-hmm i uh we're gonna stop now but this has been so special that we're going to do have to do one more segment please because we still have a lot to cover but um if with your kindness i hope next week you'll be agreeable to do one more segment no because because this has been i i can't tell you how informative has been because you know i've heard a lot in the general way but you really gave details and and and brought brought us into what you were experiencing what was going on at the time that that's that's unique and significant especially for today's young generation the new generation the future generation our grandchildren great-grandchildren i think i can tell you a little more i can tell you i guess i can tell you a little more about um my own struggles later when i got a little a teenager with uh with going to school in shabbos and and her story with me my sister and about okay i i i do want to hear it yes i do want to hear it but let's stop now let's give the rev so so people because this is an hour we already went it's the time flies so uh it's an hour and i'm really thankful to you and i look forward to you coming back next week you miss hashem with amuse's help and to tell us about that and also you know your short time energy stroll a little bit and then on to new york uh we'll cover that thank you very much thank you okay come on