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At the Maltz Museum, 12,000 Russian émigrés are never mentioned
By: TAMARA MAYSKAJA Special to the CJN
I had the opportunity to attend the opening ceremonies at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.
It was a grand affair with wonderful speeches, music, and an amazing font from which multicolored paper ribbons spewed forth.
Because of the museum, it will be possible to have shows in Cleveland that would otherwise be impossible to arrange. However, one thing perplexed me and my friends after our visit.
As I scanned the final section, “From Generation to Generation,” it occurred to me that something was missing: There was absolutely no mention of the lives of (relatively recent) Jewish émigrés from the Soviet Union. Some 12,000 of us are living here now. We have been a part of the community for 35 years.
It was specifically in Cleveland in the 1960s and 1970s that the movement “Let My People Go” originated. Later, the movement would spread to New York and other Jewish communities in the United States. Clevelanders Louis Rosenblum, Herbert Caron, Daniel Litt, and their wives and others whom they brought into the movement n selflessly fought for our release from the Soviet Union. The television documentary “Hear the Cry” was made about them. (See “Cavalcade,” page 53.)
It seems strange, therefore, that there is nothing about that group in the Maltz Museum.
From the moment of our arrival in Cleveland, Rabbi Zalman Kazen of Semeach Sedek Synagogue helped us. Torn from our Jewish roots for three generations in the atheist Soviet Union, he made us conscious of being Jewish.
For many years the former Leningrad resident and Jewish activist Isaac Furshtein conducted a seminar on Judaica for Russian-speaking Jews in that synagogue. Since that time, his students have carried on the tradition.
In the Maltz Museum, there is no mention of Semach Sedek.
Among us there are physicians, lawyers, computer experts, business owners, artists and professional musicians, including members of The Cleveland Orchestra. Why are our businessmen and professionals less worthy of attention than the owners of sweatshops, whose employees have participated in work stoppages and strikes? The museum even includes a photograph of a Jewish thief who robbed women of their pocketbooks. We were not deemed worthy of having our photographs displayed.
The museum tells the story of Cleveland Jews not in isolation, but against the background of world affairs. Within the section on World War II, it would have been nice to see at least one photograph of our veterans, who saved the world from fascism.
Although the museum depicts in photographs and videos the persecution of Jews from the local Ku Klux Klan to the Holocaust, it provides no material about the barbaric Jewish pogroms in czarist Russia, the birthplace of most of the émigrés, or the discrimination against Jews in the USSR.
There have been four Russian-language newspapers in Cleveland. Two n Russky magazin (Russian Magazine) and Prospekt (Prospect) are still being published. Neither is displayed in the museum. Each includes news about Jewish Cleveland. (Neither is the 41-year-old CJN! n Editor.) We also have a Russian television program “RMTV.” No representatives from either Russian paper nor the TV program was invited to the museum’s opening ceremonies.
We have so much to offer. But in the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, there is absolutely no mention of us. We can only ask, “Why?”
We have played a major role in the history of Jews in Cleveland, and we have a right to have a section of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage devoted to our experience. Such an addition would only enhance the museum.
Tamara Mayskaja is a Russian-language writer and Jewish émigré in Cleveland.
It was a grand affair with wonderful speeches, music, and an amazing font from which multicolored paper ribbons spewed forth.
Because of the museum, it will be possible to have shows in Cleveland that would otherwise be impossible to arrange. However, one thing perplexed me and my friends after our visit.
As I scanned the final section, “From Generation to Generation,” it occurred to me that something was missing: There was absolutely no mention of the lives of (relatively recent) Jewish émigrés from the Soviet Union. Some 12,000 of us are living here now. We have been a part of the community for 35 years.
It was specifically in Cleveland in the 1960s and 1970s that the movement “Let My People Go” originated. Later, the movement would spread to New York and other Jewish communities in the United States. Clevelanders Louis Rosenblum, Herbert Caron, Daniel Litt, and their wives and others whom they brought into the movement n selflessly fought for our release from the Soviet Union. The television documentary “Hear the Cry” was made about them. (See “Cavalcade,” page 53.)
It seems strange, therefore, that there is nothing about that group in the Maltz Museum.
From the moment of our arrival in Cleveland, Rabbi Zalman Kazen of Semeach Sedek Synagogue helped us. Torn from our Jewish roots for three generations in the atheist Soviet Union, he made us conscious of being Jewish.
For many years the former Leningrad resident and Jewish activist Isaac Furshtein conducted a seminar on Judaica for Russian-speaking Jews in that synagogue. Since that time, his students have carried on the tradition.
In the Maltz Museum, there is no mention of Semach Sedek.
Among us there are physicians, lawyers, computer experts, business owners, artists and professional musicians, including members of The Cleveland Orchestra. Why are our businessmen and professionals less worthy of attention than the owners of sweatshops, whose employees have participated in work stoppages and strikes? The museum even includes a photograph of a Jewish thief who robbed women of their pocketbooks. We were not deemed worthy of having our photographs displayed.
The museum tells the story of Cleveland Jews not in isolation, but against the background of world affairs. Within the section on World War II, it would have been nice to see at least one photograph of our veterans, who saved the world from fascism.
Although the museum depicts in photographs and videos the persecution of Jews from the local Ku Klux Klan to the Holocaust, it provides no material about the barbaric Jewish pogroms in czarist Russia, the birthplace of most of the émigrés, or the discrimination against Jews in the USSR.
There have been four Russian-language newspapers in Cleveland. Two n Russky magazin (Russian Magazine) and Prospekt (Prospect) are still being published. Neither is displayed in the museum. Each includes news about Jewish Cleveland. (Neither is the 41-year-old CJN! n Editor.) We also have a Russian television program “RMTV.” No representatives from either Russian paper nor the TV program was invited to the museum’s opening ceremonies.
We have so much to offer. But in the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, there is absolutely no mention of us. We can only ask, “Why?”
We have played a major role in the history of Jews in Cleveland, and we have a right to have a section of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage devoted to our experience. Such an addition would only enhance the museum.
Tamara Mayskaja is a Russian-language writer and Jewish émigré in Cleveland.
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