Even in the Soviet Union, the Zionist dream always beat in our hearts. In the city of Orhei in Moldova, we all waited for it to be fulfilled – next year in Israel. The path to making aliyah was paved with difficulties, starting with the government's refusal to grant us a permit and including personal troubles, such as the death of both my parents, who were members of a hachshara group and sent some of the little money they had to help build the young state of Israel, but didn't have the privilege of going there. They died during our struggle to make aliyah. My brother, myself, and my two young children were allowed to make aliyah in 1978.
My life became divided into two chapters. The first was in Moldova. I was born in Orhei in 1947, I married and had children, studied nursing and worked as a nurse from age 17. The second chapter has been unfolding since 1978 in the state of Israel. In Israel I had the privilege of working at the Shmuel Harofeh Hospital, gave birth to twins, and saw my two granddaughters enlist in the Israel Defense Forces.
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Under Soviet rule, we maintained a Jewish lifestyle and Jewish tradition, but secretly. The Soviets did everything they could to make us forget our Jewish customs and the Hebrew and Yiddish languages.
Like many new olim, we, too, chose the city we would move to based on where in Israel we had family – in my case, it was Uncle Haim in Rehovot. Later we moved to the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, which was built for the new immigrants, particularly from Moldova and the Ukraine, who arrived in Israel in a big wave of aliyah. There were also two families from the Republic of Georgia. Our aliyah brought many educated people, including doctors and nurses, like me.
Choosing Kiryat Moshe and to live near my family allowed us to recreate, a little, the sense of family and community life that I had grown used to in Moldova, especially on Jewish and Israeli holidays. The death of my mother was still fresh, and that feeling of community gave me a little bit of consolation. Even before I finished ulpan, I started working as a nurse in the Shmuel Harofeh government hospital. Even then, like now, there was a shortage of nurses. Luckily for me, the ulpan teacher agreed to send me pages of homework and free me up to work – there were mouths to feed, after all. I would do the lessons, and my brother Yaakov would hand them to the teacher and I would arrive to take exams.
Being hired so quickly helped me learn Hebrew and integrate. In my day, it wasn't acceptable to speak Russian and we were immediately demanded to turn into Hebrew-speaking Israelis. The situation was different in the aliyah wave that came 12 years later, in the 1990s.
When that wave of aliyah arrived, my life changed again. In an instant, I had become a "veteran." At Shmuel Harofeh, the new immigrants were treated very well. At the time, I was deputy to the head nurse of one of the departments and I instructed the new doctors and nurses who arrived, from helping them with language in talking to other staff to training them in new procedures.
We were happy that an educated, experienced new workforce had arrived. The aliyah of the 1990s was a good thing for Israel, because it brought many educated people to the country. Still, there were major difference between our aliyah and the big aliyah of the 1990s – both mental and social.
The last few years have sharpened the understanding that despite the differences between us, the important thing is to protect the Jewish character of Israel – that character we never privileged to enjoy while living under the oppressive Soviet regime, not until we make aliyah to Israel.
