ISRAEL
Healing
Hands
Israelis rush to be healed by a new
Soviet oleh with special powers.
AVA CARMEL
Special to The Jewish. News
J
erusalem — One recent
immigrant to Israel
need not worry about
unemployment, for just three
months after arriving from
the Soviet Union, and barely
able to speak Hebrew, he is
quickly making a name for
himself. His calling card
reads simply, "Maxim
Abramovich, healer," yet the
powers of this unassuming
man are legendary in the
Soviet Union.
Exuding a rare calm and a
warm intense gaze, sixty-one-
year-old Abramovich shakes
my hand. Then, catching me
off guard, he passes his hands
slowly over my prepared list
of questions. Satisfied, he
begins to speak, with the aid
of a translator.
"It was at the age of eight
that I first discovered I
possessed unusual powers.
My father came home from
work one night, saying he
was late because of a meeting
in the factory. But I could see
by his 'aura? which had turn-
ed red, that he had been
drinking. When I said so, he
gave me a sound spanking.
Only then did I realize that
the ability to see people's
auras was unusual and I
quickly learned that it wasn't
always prudent to reveal
everything I knew?'
At the beginning of World
War II, his family, on vacation
in their native Lithuania,
was rounded up by the Nazis.
Twelve-year-old Maxim
escaped to a forest near Vilna,
where he was adopted by a
group of partisans. "There
were so many occasions dur-
ing the war", he recalls,
"when people near me were
killed that I became convinc-
ed that I remained alive for
some higher purpose. I could
feel something directing me
and felt the need to discover
what my purpose in life was."
After the war Abramovich
was recruited by the Com-
munist Party and taught
criminal interrogation. "It
was there that I saw the dark
side of life. During the time of
Stalin, many members of my
family had been killed, but I
still believed in the ideology
of Communism and in a
Soviet State?' When called
upon to interrogate a
notorious criminal whose
brother held an important
position in the Party, he refus-
ed to comply with a request to
have the criminal released. "I
was promptly fired, arrested
and jailed. Shocked officials
told me I wasn't playing by
the rules of the game, but I
was later released."
Starting over as a simple
metal worker in a factory,
Abramovich, with his in-
genuity and intelligence, was
soon promoted to department
head.
In 1970, however, he left his
job and devoted himself to the
study of yoga, reading
numerous books about
spiritualism and mysticism.
He himself wrote a samizdat
volume entitled The Book of
Self-Regulation about energy
— the channels through
which energy travels (meri-
dians) and the centers of
energy (chakras) in the body.
An incident at home was to
once again change the direc-
tion of Abramovich's life. "My
wife opened the refrigerator
and cut her leg on the corner
of the door. I automatically
jumped up and put my hands
over her leg. The bleeding
stopped, right before my eyes.
Two days later there was not
even a scar. It was then I
realized I had other unusual
powers."
By 1982 Abramovich was so
renowned that he was the
first person • in the Soviet
Union to be given a license to
heal. This was revoked two
years later however. "One
hand gives, another takes
away," he says, laughing. "A
new, skeptical official had
concluded that healing was
opposed to the ideals of Marx
and Lenin and instigated a
campaign against me. I kept
a detailed journal of my pa-
tients, which had 15,000
Maxim Abramovich seeks out disturbances in the energy fields of a patient.
names in it, but the KGB in-
vestigation couldn't - find a
single case in which I had
done any harm. My patients
began sending letters of pro-
test and the harassment
stopped.
"Because of the nature of
the work I had done for the
Communist party, I never
dreamed I would be able to
emigrate. But having made
the decision to come to Israel,
a Jewish patient of mine then
arranged a permit for me and
my wife with no difficulty.
Our two sons and four grand-
sons are planning to join us
here in the near future."
Now a resident of Haifa,
Abramovich is treating
Israelis and Russian im-
migrants and is being besieg-
ed by letters from the USSR
with urgent requests to heal
people via enclosed photo-
graphs. Although he has been
giving lectures on healing
and is planning a training
course for doctors, he con-
siders diagnosis his strongest
skill. He passes his slender
hands, like those of an artist
or a musician, slowly over the
body, seeking out distur-
bances in the energy fields.
"Disease is a collection of ten-
sions in the body," he ex-
plains. "These produce
changes in the cells, then in
the internal organs. Orthodox
medicine only recognizes this
as disease when it has
damaged the organs.
"I treat a person's energy
fields. This in turn effects the
functioning of the internal
organs. Then I instruct the
patient in additional techni-
ques for the maintenance of
health," he says, stressing the
importance of meditation,
proper nutrition, and positive
thinking. "If people simply
return to their old habits,
their symptoms will eventual-
ly return."
In the Soviet Union one had
to wait a year for an appoint-
ment with Maxim
Abramovich. Israelis are
rushing to be healed before he
achieves similar renown in
Israel. ❑
World Zionist Press Service
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
107