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COLORWORKS STUDIO OF INTERIOR DESIGN

LONGING page 14

Never too old
to learn: Mr.
Sobolnitsky
discusses
Talmud.

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IIMIN•1 ■■

Until age 13, Mr.
Sobolnitsky stud-
ied Talmud in the
cheder. Then the
Communists took
over.
Unable to continue a formal
Jewish education, the boy joined
his father in the shoe-making
business. They remained obser-
vant Jews, but not without risk.
Once, after his father died, Mr.
Sobolnitsky was put out of busi-
ness for refusing to work on Sat-
urdays. Unemployment seemed
like the moral — and logical —
thing for him.
"I was happy," he says with a
shrug. "I didn't have to work on
Shabbat, and the government
didn't pay us enough to live on
anyway.
Mr. Sobolnitsky didn't eat
meat for several years in Soviet
Russia because kosher food was
hard to find. Secretly, he opened
his home to men who wanted to
daven. The KGB knew about it,
but they looked the other way fig-
uring these old Jews were a dy-
ing breed.
The KGB wasn't as lenient
when it came to matzah-mak-
ing. One of Mr. Sobolnitsky's
neighbors found trouble when
he stayed awake at night
preparing for Passover and dis-
tributed unleavened bread to fel-
low Jews.
When that man, out of fear,
discontinued the risky endeav-
or, Mr. Sobolnitsky took over
with a friend, Avraham Abba, in
St. Petersburg, where Jews en-
joyed a bit more freedom. The
two men oversaw matzah pro-
duction each year. They dis-
guised the boxes in brown paper
and delivered them to people
many miles away.
Through it all, Mr. Sobolnit-
sky held out hope for a trip to Is-
rael. So did his friend, Mr. Abba.
People told them to forget their
dream. The government, they
said, would never allow it.
Then the Communists fell
from power. Mr. Sobolnitsky
three years ago came to the Unit-
ed States to be with his two sons
and daughter-in-law. Mr. Abba,
95, moved to Israel.
They reunited in Jerusalem

during Mr. Sobolnitsky's trip in
May. The sight brought Mr. Mill-
man to tears.
"They never expected to see
each other again — certainly not
in Israel," he says. "They danced
and sang. They couldn't believe
it."
In six days, Mr. Sobolnitsky
prayed at the Wall and at the
tomb of King David. Fond of de-
livering blessings, he gave them
to acquaintances and passers-
by.
"I can't imagine anyone being
happier any place, any time. I
seriously can't. He was even
happy at a red light, stuck in
traffic in Jerusalem," Mr. Mill-
man says.
Sunday, May 21, marked the
date of their return flight. On the
plane, Mr. Sobolnitsky didn't
speak for the first five hours.

"It was a mitzvah
that had to be."

— Reuven Millman

"He didn't want to come back.
It's like a man who has been in
an oxygen-deprived tunnel for 90
years. You bring him suddenly to
a place where he can breathe,
and then suddenly he has to re-
turn into the tunnel," Mr. Mill-
man says.
Ninety years. Ninety years.
The yeshiva boys, during that
Shabbat in Jerusalem, began
crying when they heard Mr.
Sobolnitsky's story. But at
Darchei Torah, elder yeshiva
students are happy to have him
back. Every day, Mr. Sobolnit-
sky awakes at 5 a.m., davens
and then helps them with their
Yiddish lessons. Through garage
sales and other fund-raisers, the
boys raised $300 toward their
92-year-old teacher's trip. Oth-
er people, Jews and gentiles,
chipped in, too.
Back in Oak Park, Mr. Sobol-
nitsky says he feels grateful
for the chance to see Israel, but
he says, "I realize that it also
is a great miracle that I'm
here." I I

