I ISRAEL
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W-:00,:
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For Sale, Cheap:
Russian Pianos
SARAH HONIG
Special to The Jewish News
T
he most immediate
effect of the influx of
Soviet olim, predicts
Rami Rosalsky of Holon,
"will be to pull the bottom
out of the Israeli piano
market. Piano prices will
plummet dramatically, and
people will be able to pick up
huge Russian pianos for
bargain prices."
Rosalsky speaks from ex-
perience. When he (not yet
Rami but Radomir) came to
Israel with his parents in
1972, they shipped over a big
heavy piano from their na-
tive city of Kharkov in the
Ukraine. Rosalsky, today a
40-year-old technician at a
large sophisticated elec-
tronics plant, explains that
"the piano was an in-
vestment. We couldn't take
money out of the USSR, so
we converted whatever cash
we had into durables like
massive, cumbersome Rus-
sian furniture and that
piano.
"But it wasn't a good in-
vestment. The furniture we
brought was hardly in style
here," he recalls with a
chuckle, in his well-
appointed high-rise flat in a
new neighborhood.
"Besides, the Israeli
market was saturated with
Russian pianos. It seems
that we weren't the only
immigrants with the same
idea. But the excess of supp-
ly was further aggravated by
the lack of demand for these
pianos. We finally unloaded
our investment for an
amount which did not exceed
$300 in the lirot (pounds, the
predecessor of the old shekel
which has been superseded
by the new shekel) of those
days."
A few months ago, when
he wanted to get his three
daughters a musical instru-
ment, Rosalsky purchased a
state-of-the-art electric
organ made in Japan. "Only
the keyboard bears some
resemblance to our old
piano. The new gadget takes
up very little space but costs
far more than what that
large dark piano netted us,"
he remarks wryly.
He is sure that right now
"back in the USSR, poten-
tial olim are converting
money into pianos." Accor-
ding to some sources, over a
million Soviet Jews have al-
ready requested
"invitations" from Israel,
the first bureaucratic step on
the road to aliyah. "That
means a lot of pianos here,"
Rosalsky estimates.
But viola player Mina
Pesselson, who came to
Israel from Tallinn, Estonia,
the same year Rosalsky did
and who lives in the same
housing estate as he does,
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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 11