From Russia, With Hope

“My dear brother Joseph,” the letter began, “this letter is written by your youngest brother, Ikhel, from Moscow, Russia. . . . I have looked for you for a long time.”

Seventy-eight years had passed since Joseph Vodonos left his family behind in Belogorodka, a predominantly Jewish town in the Ukraine region of pre-revolutionary Russia, coming to America with the new last name of Saltsman and all the promise of the land of liberty still ahead of him.

His brother Ikhel, born into the ferment that preceded the revolution and fated to live through the strife that came after, made his life in the old country. When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 and his brother Isaak was granted permission to emigrate to Israel, only Ikhel and his sister Sheintsi--of 13 Vodonos brothers and sisters--remained there.

With the others either deceased or living in Israel, Ikhel felt all the more keenly the desire to get out. He had fought for the Soviet state in the Great Patriotic War against Nazi fascism--and had lost parents, two brothers and a sister.

But now, strange as it was, Ikhel wanted to escape from his own country.

His son Yakov, now a grown man, was faced with raising his own two daughters in an apartment where “Jews Go Home” and “Russia Is Not for Jews” had been painted on the door and walls.

A brilliant student, Yakov had been refused entry into the country’s top universities because he was Jewish. His doctoral thesis in plasma physics was not published until the Soviet Union fell. He could not hold certain jobs or look forward to promotions.

One freezing winter morning, Yakov took the subway to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to get the papers he needed to make an application to emigrate.

But even at 7 a.m., he was too late. The line for applications had begun forming at 5, and although he waited in the cold until the embassy closed at 6 p.m., he did not get to the front of the queue.

Yakov tried again the next day, also with no luck. He would have come at 5 a.m., like the others, but the subway didn’t run that early and he didn’t own a car.

Finally, after several tries, he got the papers.

It would take two years and several tries before permission came from the United States. And two more years, until 1994, before the Russians agreed to let Yakov go.

During the long wait, Ikhel received a letter from Isaak in Israel.

“Joseph,” wrote his brother Isaak, “is still alive.”

A miracle. Ikhel wrote to Joseph right away. The two had not corresponded since 1930, when Josef Stalin restricted correspondence with the capitalist West.

“We want to leave Russia,” Ikhel wrote.

The Saltsmans, led by Joseph’s daughter-in-law Helen and his son Sam, swung into action.

Immigration officials said that the Saltsmans needed to sign affidavits swearing that the Vodonos family were relatives. But because Joseph’s name had been changed to Saltsman when he entered the United States, officials would not accept the affidavits.

Instead, they said, someone who knew both Joseph and Ikhel would have to confirm that they were brothers. Helen wrote to Isaak, who agreed to sign.

But before the papers could be filed, Yakov and his daughter Irina were declared refugees by the U.S. government.

When the Russian government finally reciprocated, Yakov hesitated. He did not want to leave the others behind. His parents had already lost so much--parents, cousins, siblings to the Nazis and a younger son to a car accident.

What if they lost him too?

But U.S. officials assured Yakov that as soon as he arrived, he could apply to bring the others over as family members.

Joseph and his three sons and their families contributed for the plane tickets and other resettlement costs, working through the Jewish Federation and the Saltsmans’ synagogue.

“You’re lucky,” said Yakov’s co-workers. “You are leaving this country at a bad time.”

They celebrated. Yakov and Irina began to pack. They would depart on Aug. 9, 1994.

But a week before they were scheduled to leave, Ikhel fell ill.

He was hospitalized and needed surgery. Yakov would not leave him. He canceled the trip and moved into the hospital with his father, bringing him food and overseeing his treatment in the overtaxed Russian medical system.

He called Helen, and said only two words in English, which he had rehearsed: “Cannot come.”

Then, a few months later, shortly before Joseph’s 100th birthday, he called again. They would arrive Oct. 20, after a stopover in New York to pass through customs. They were greeted and debriefed there by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the same organization that had greeted Joseph 82 years earlier.

In Los Angeles, Helen spent the day preparing for Yakov and Irina’s arrival. She cleaned the house and cooked and made phone calls to the temple. When it was time to leave for Los Angeles International Airport, she was in such a rush that she forgot to bring a sign, and she was worried that Yakov and Irina would not recognize her and Sam.

But as Yakov and Irina struggled down the jetway, weighted down with bags and heavy winter clothes, it was obvious who they were.

“We said hello,” Helen said later. “And then we went home.”

Two days later, Yakov filed papers to bring over his parents, his wife and his other daughter. Fifteen months after that, the family returned to LAX.

In the terminal stood Sam and Helen Saltsman, their sons Michael and Richard, and Yakov and Irina. Toward them, from the plane, came Ikhel and his wife Riva, wearing Russian fur hats and coats, with Yakov’s wife, Lyudmila, and daughter Sabina.

They had even managed to bring the family dog.

Time got stuck for just a moment.

Helen found herself face to face with Riva. She reached out, expecting a handshake. But Riva, surrounded by her husband and son and all these new relations, took Helen in her arms.

“Thank you,” she said in English, holding Helen close and saying the only words she knew in that strange tongue. “Thank you. Thank you.”