printed from "The becks in siberia" becksinsiberia.com

Cover

Narrative

	Early Years: To 1939
	Outbreak of War: 1939
	In the Russian Zone: 1939-1940
	In the Taiga: 1940-1941
	Bodaybo: 1941 - 1943
	The Way Back: 1944-1945
	An Adventure:1945
	Semipalatinsk:1945-1946
	Repatriation: 1946
	Germany: 1946-1951
	Notes
	Notes 2

Trip to Siberia 2008

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Cover

Narrative

Notes 2

Notes 2

When there is a death, near relatives of the deceased follow a set of mourning customs for a week; this is called “sitting shiva”, or shiva for short; shiva means seven, the seven-day mourning period. Also, for the following eleven months the mourners recite a special memorial prayer, the Kaddish; this can only be recited in a

The caste of Russian noble landholders.

This is a city in Kazakhstan.It was renamed Taraz in 1997.

Russian for dragnet or round-up

Russian for old man

Phonye chaser, chazerel, plural chazerlach

“Fonye” is Ivan, a generic name for Russians, like Joe for Americans. The curse, phonye chaser, thus means Pig Ivan or Pig Russian. (Let us not forget that Czarist Russia, when this epithet came to be used, was virulently anti-Semitic.) A Russian coin thus became a little pig, chazerel.

Blatnoy gorodok

Gorodok means city; blat is a slang word, having entered Russian either through Yiddish or Polish, and has the sense of “connection”, protekzia in Israeli Hebrew.
From Wikipedia: Blat is a term which appeared in the Soviet Union to denote the use of informal agreements, exchanges of services, connections, Party contacts, or bla

Festival which falls in mid-winter. Candles are lit to commemorate Jews’ successful rebellion against Greek overlords in Second Century BCE.

Holiday in late winter / early spring celebrating salvation of Jews from persecution in Persia in the middle First Century BCE.

The Russian police services which were notorious for their secret operations, notably political repression and slave labor camps, the GULAG. After 1954 these activities were taken over by the KGB.

Irkutsk oblast (Province), where the events take place, is populated by various “native” tribes, of whom the largest are the Buryat, a Mongolian people. They are shamanist and Buddhist.

The trans-Siberian railway runs on an east-west line where the taiga begins above the northern steppe of Central Asia. A branch line, the Turkestan – Siberia railway, runs from Novosibirsk south to cities in Kazakhstan.

A territory in Far-Eastern Siberia, near the Chinese border, where the Soviets in the 1930’s tried to create a Jewish homeland, as an alternative to Palestine. Less than 50000 Jews moved there.

To start a trip on Shabbos

It is forbidden to begin a voyage on Shabbat. However, if one has begun the voyage before Shabbat, one may continue (but not get off the vehicle).

"Comrade". Under Communism, a more usual form of address than gaspadin, mister.

Before the amud

Prayers are led by one of the members of a minyan. In properly furnished synagogues, the prayer-leader reads from a prayer book on a lectern, amud.

A Lithuanian in Yiddish. Lithuanians and Galicians do not always get along: the two Jewries stereotype each other.

Chippe kedishin

Galician Ashkenazi pronunciation of chupa kidushin, a term synonymous with wedding ceremony. In the Jewish wedding ceremony, a couple stands under a canopy, the chupa, and the husband sanctifies their bond by placing a ring on his bride’s finger, the act of sanctification (of this woman to this man), kidushin.

From Wikipedia: The code name given to illegal immigration by Jews to the British Mandate for Palestine in violation of British White Paper of 1939 restrictions, in the years 1934-1948.

Some Sabbaths have an individual name; this distinction is related to the time they fall in the Jewish calendar. Shabbat Hazon occurs around Tisha B’Av; it gets its name from the first word in the Additional Reading read in synagogue that day – in addition to the portion of the Pentateuch that is read each week, a passage from

From Hebrew, instructors.

Land of Israel. This name designates the geographical and historical area of Israel / Palestine, without consideration to political facts; it is commonly used when referring to Palestine during the period of Zionist return, before the State of Israel was established.

Books of Ezra and Nehemiah

These Biblical books tell the story of the Jews’ return to the Land of Israel after exile in Babylon in the Sixth Century BCE, and their rehabilitation as a people.

Bris, brit , brit mila, britot

Brit mila means Circumcision Covenant. The act is thought to create a bond between father, child, and God. The ceremony is sometimes referred to with the single word brit, plural britot; the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the word is “bris”.

Acronym for Post Exchange, retail stores on US Army premises, like the Shekem in Israel

De facto, de jure

These are Latin terms used to describe legal situations. De jure asserts that a situation is accepted by law, and de facto asserts that a situation is accepted by practice.

The second month of the Jewish year.

A founder of Mizrachi, a religious Zionist movement. Rabbi Maimon helped draft and signed the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Rabbi Maimon would not have been able to sign a document on Saturday May 15, 1948 (writing is forbidden on Shabbat), and for that reason the ceremony was moved forward to Friday, May 14.

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