The Solemn Joy of a Hundred Years

This was the only thing that Ikhel had wanted: to see his family.

He did not expect America to be a land of plenty. He did not expect American doctors to repair the surgery left half-finished by physicians who operated on him in post-Soviet Russia.

He did not even really expect to see his son Yakov again. Or Joseph, his lost brother.

He boarded a plane in Moscow, suddenly and oddly a refugee fleeing his own country, a country he had fought for as a soldier, that his brother Shimshon

had died for in World War II.

With his wife, Riva, their daughter-in-law and granddaughter, Ikhel braved the spare Moscow airport to board an Aeroflot jet bound for New York, with a connecting flight to Los Angeles.

He was two months shy of his 80th birthday when he landed at Los Angeles International Airport last January; 10 months shy of his 50th wedding anniversary.

*

He was an old man.

He went the very next day to see his brother. He kissed him in a modest house on the Westside of Los Angeles, where Joseph lived with his wife, Pearlie.

In 1913, when Joseph Vodonos left Russia to find a new life and the new last name of Saltsman in America, his brother Ikhel had not been born. There was, on a visit to Israel in 1964, a tearful reunion between Joseph and his brother Shuki in a hotel room crowded with family members, and on a later trip Joseph met his sister Feiga there.

But that was years ago.

So when Joseph and Ikhel met for the first time, Ikhel said it was a miracle. It was, he said in Yiddish, his fondest dream, one he had not dared to believe might come true.

Joseph was nearly 102. His hearing and eyesight often failed him and he had forgotten how to speak Yiddish. But he took his brother’s kisses and took his hands.

It was a fairy tale, Ikhel said, come true.

Yakov, who had emigrated two years earlier with his daughter Irina, made room in the two-bedroom apartment he rented in North Hollywood for his parents, his wife, Lyudmila, and his daughter Sabina.

That Friday night, Ikhel was not feeling well, but Riva went to synagogue with Joseph’s son and daughter-in-law, Sam and Helen Saltsman.

Born after the Russian Revolution, Riva was not familiar with the old ways. She liked the modern touches at Temple Beth Hillel in North Hollywood: Men and women sat together, and the rabbi played a guitar.

When Ikhel joined the family there a few weeks later, he thought these things were very strange. He remembered the lessons his pious brother, Leib, had taught him about Judaism back in Belogorodka, before the old synagogue closed and one could lose one’s job for practicing religion.

In March, Ikhel marked his birthday. It was spring, and time for Passover, the holiday commemorating the Hebrews’ flight to freedom from slavery in Egypt.

Ikhel and Riva were there, with Yakov, Lyudmila and their daughters, and Joseph with descendants all the way down to great-grandchildren.

After the meal, Joseph, who had all day been protesting that he would not preside, that he was too old, stood up.

“Who knows One?” he sang in Hebrew. “One is [to signify] the Eternal, who is above heaven and earth.”

When he had finished, Ikhel stood up.

“Who knows One?” he recited, as Leib had taught him. “Who knows two? There are two tablets of the covenant.”

That night, there were tears on both sides of the family.

The seasons turned. Ikhel’s grandchildren went to school and, in the summer, to the beach.

Ikhel and Riva went for a walk every afternoon.

It was so strange, the way everybody said hello to them as they passed, and how Orthodox Jews in the neighborhood kept their heads covered like they did when Ikhel was a boy: They were so public in their Jewishness. His parents, Yankel and Reizl, who saved their children from pogroms only to be murdered themselves by the Nazis, had risked their lives to practice their faith.

In summer, the family went to the Hollywood Bowl.

Ikhel sat there, lost in the music and the view of the mountains. He was filled with wonder at the place, and at the freedom he felt there.

This sense of freedom stood out against the black days of his past like the sweet-tart taste of lemons and chocolate that had thundered across his palate when he was a boy and the family was fighting hunger under Stalin. His brother Shuki sent a box of sweets and citrus from a farm in Israel, and he remembered their taste all through his life.

He liked America, Ikhel said later, more than he thought he would.

*

In September, Ikhel and Riva went with Sam and Helen Saltsman and their family to celebrate the Jewish High Holy Days at Temple Beth Hillel.

Just once in Moscow, when he was already an old man and had retired from his job, he ventured to the old synagogue on the holy day of Yom Kippur and stood outside in tears.

And when a blast on the long horn of a ram, the shofar, rang out to call the people to prayer at Temple Beth Hillel, Ikhel cried again.

And when the days grew short and it became December, the Vodonos family celebrated Hanukkah, the festival of lights.

They went to synagogue with Sam and Helen Saltsman on the first Friday night of the festival.

How familiar was the biblical text that night! It was the story of an earlier Joseph: How treachery took him away from his father and brothers to a strange land. How his long and painful journey led him to prosperity, and how he saved the ones who had been left behind.

“God sent me before you,” the text said, “to save your lives.”

The next day, the family gathered for a Hanukkah celebration at Sam and Helen’s house in Studio City.

Joseph was there, and all of the Vodonos family, and Sam and Helen’s son Richard and his wife.

Food was plentiful and there were chocolates and cakes and ice cream for dessert.

After dinner, Joseph put his well-worn hands on the soft cheeks of a 2-year-old boy who had sat next to him.

He was exactly 100 years older than the child.

“Do you want to live as long as me?” he asked.

The child nodded solemnly.

“I hope,” Joseph told him, “you live as long as me.

“But I hope you don’t have my troubles.”

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The Next Generation

Joseph and Minnie Saltsman had three boys who grew up and had families of their own. Their children, their spouses and children are:

* Louis Saltsman and Florence Saltsman, nee Baratz, and their sons, Jay, Ralph and Jeffrey.

* Sidney “Sam” Saltsman and Helen Saltsman, nee Glagovsky, and their children, Michael, Jane and Richard.

* Gerald Saltsman and Ann Saltsman, nee Weiler, and their daughters Maria, Susan and Pamela.