Every year for Rosh Hashanah, The Fellowship includes Jewish New Year treats like apples, honey, and grape juice in the thousands of food boxes we distribute to elderly beneficiaries and families in Israel and the former Soviet Union. This year’s efforts have just begun, with staff delivering the first of these boxes to Holocaust survivors. One of these beneficiaries is 86-year-old Rina, who still lives in the same house her husband built when they moved to Israel from Uzbekistan in 1991.
Rina comes from a very large family originally from Kyrgyzstan. She had 10 siblings, four of whom sadly died at very young ages. When World War II reached them, they were forced to move. One of her older brothers was drafted and went to fight. He and another one of her brothers never returned. Rina’s father also went to fight and returned with his left hand full of shrapnel, making it difficult to move.
The family had once been well-off, but the war plunged them into poverty. Rina remembers that when her father returned to them, he cried upon seeing that they had no clothes or food. Earlier, Rina’s mother had sold a Star of David decorated with precious stones to buy food, but it soon ran out. While Rina and her sister scavenged for fruit pits in the markets, their mother sewed dresses for them using old clothes and fabric given to them by neighbors. Rina even remembers seeing people who succumbed to starvation lying along the street.
Despite the poverty, Rina and her family continued to practice their Jewish faith and observe their traditions. While they lived with her grandparents, they would go to synagogue and bake matzah for Passover. As she grew older, Rina met her future husband in school and took various odd jobs so that she could one day support children of her own.
She says, “The country was hungry after all the wars; I did everything to support the children and feed them. My sons stopped going to school. My son told me, ‘Mom, if I tell you why I don’t go to school, you won’t let me go out on the streets at all.’”
Amid rising anti-Semitism in the country, Rina decided to fulfill her grandfather’s dream of making aliyah. She, her family, and one of her sisters did so in 1991. Rina remembers this with a mixture of pride and sadness, as they were the only members of her large family who were able to move.
Throughout the many crises Israel has faced, Rina has done her best to shelter in her home, which does not have a safe room, while the neighborhood shelter is far away. After nearly a lifetime marked by hunger and poverty, the support she receives from The Fellowship is essential.
Rina says, “I would like there to be peace in the whole world, that young children will not be killed, and that God will send everyone health. That is what I wish for myself and everyone for the New Year. Thank you to the donors of The Fellowship who understand and support us: may God bless you.”