Class Reunion

Liza Koiman and Nina Pinskaya were students at a Ukrainian school and hadn’t seen one another since 1953--until the two recently bumped into each other in English lessons at Temple Judea in Tarzana.

Pinskaya, 63, and Koiman, 66, are students in the Temple Judea English Program, but in different classes. At the end of April, when one of their teachers was absent and the two classes combined for the day, Koiman recognized Pinskaya.

“Liza was new to my conversation class when she looked at Nina and said, ‘I know you. Remember we are both from Kiev,’ ” said Hilda Fogelson, a volunteer teacher in the temple program. “They couldn’t stop talking.”

Koiman, a retired accountant, lives in Winnetka with her husband, Sergey. The couple moved here from Israel four years ago.

Pinskaya, a retired civil engineer, moved here six years ago with her husband, Sam, following their two sons, who emigrated earlier. The couple, who live in Tarzana, are now American citizens.

Koiman said she knows few people here and was thrilled to find Pinskaya. Their meeting was an amazing coincidence, she said, because Kiev is such a large city.

“We were friends, but we didn’t see each other for more than 45 years,” Koiman said. “To see old friends from our country is very special. I have not words.”

Pinskaya said while Koiman is older by three years, all the students in the small all-girls school they attended knew each other and had many common experiences.

“In our age, the best thing is to remember something good,” Pinskaya said. “We were happy and we were children. Talking about those times, in our soul we became young again.”

Since their surprise reunion in April, the Pinskayas have gone to the Koiman home for coffee and reminiscing and the two women look forward to seeing each other regularly in classes at Temple Judea.

They also enjoy having someone to speak Russian with, Koiman said.

And they have a lifetime to catch up on.

Both Koiman and Pinskaya, who are Jewish, cite anti-Semitism as the reason they left Ukraine. Koiman and her husband moved first to Israel in 1972 and then came to the United States in 1996 to join their two sons, who emigrated more than a decade ago.

Pinskaya and her husband lived in Kiev until 1994, when, she said, a surge of anti-Semitic feeling made them fear for their lives.

“Before [World War II], all people were the same,” said Pinskaya, who was forced to leave Kiev from 1942-44 to escape the Nazis. After the war they returned and lived a normal life for a while.

Then, she said, “I don’t know why and when it was that they began to think that Jewish people are not the same culture as Ukrainians and Russians.”

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When she and her husband began receiving hate mail, they decided to leave their Ukraine home.

“We heard many Ukrainians say that Ukraine should be only for Ukrainians,” Pinskaya said. “There were letters in our mailbox. It was the last drop in our patience.”

Koiman said her own patience had run out more than 20 years before.

“All the time people say, ‘You’re Jewish. Your place [is] in Israel, not here,’ ” Koiman said. “This is hard for me, because I was born in Ukraine and same with my grandmother.

“I think this my place, but they all time they say, ‘No, you need go, you go,’ ” Koiman said.

Despite this, both Pinskaya and Koiman grow nostalgic thinking of their lives and school days in Kiev.

Koiman said she was surprised to learn Pinskaya still writes to one of their former teachers--a woman now in her 90s--at their Kiev school.

One of their fondest memories is their school graduation.

“I had a white dress from silk, and we all had flowers,” Pinskaya said. “We invited boys from a neighborhood school and we danced.

“From the hill we met the sun,” she recalled. “We cannot forget this day because on this day we are grown up.”

Koiman also recalled watching the sunrise the morning after graduation, as part of a local tradition.

“It was the first beautiful dress in my life,” Koiman said. “All the girls in white dresses go to the hills and see the sunrise.”

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Their coincidental meeting in language class has made Koiman and Pinskaya feel the world is a smaller place than they once thought. They believe it is possible that others from their school days may be living locally.

“We studied in Kiev School No. 124, then we were transferred to No. 143,” Pinskaya said. “We would like to meet our classmates and schoolmates.”

Temple Judea has provided classroom space for English classes for 10 years, but teachers said the reunion of Pinskaya and Koiman is the program’s most serendipitous event.

“This could only happen in America, that two people like that could meet,” Fogelson said.