Soviet Jewish Oral History Project Western Reserve Historical Society Interviewee: Misha Pisman Interviewer: Ken Bravo Date of interview: May 5, 2015 Location of interview: Park Synagogue East KEN BRAVO: My name is Ken Bravo. Today is Tuesday, May 5, 2015. I’m at Park Synagogue East interviewing Cantor Misha Pisman. First of all, Cantor Pisman, thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed today. As I mentioned to you today before we started recording, the Jewish Archives of the Western Reserve Historical Society has a project, and we are interviewing people who came from the former Soviet Union and who have settled in Cleveland, Ohio. So thank you again. When and where were you born? MISHA PISMAN: I was born on July 28, 1953, in Moscow to a family of simple people. My parents were factory workers in Moscow. I was the first born, and then nine years later my sister was born. She lives in Israel now with her family. KB: And tell me a little bit about life growing up in Moscow when you were there, particularly about whether it relates to your knowing that you were Jewish and whether that was a part of your life growing up. MP: Well, I was born in July of 1953 as I said, and a few months before, in March 1953, Stalin died. And the reason I’m mentioning that is because shortly before Stalin died, he initiated that so-called case of Jewish doctors that were accused of trying to poison the top leaders of the Soviet government. So obviously, that time in Russia was (even though I was just born, I didn’t know and didn’t experience it), the atmosphere was very anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish. But luckily Stalin died, and the new government of Nikita Khrushchev, who came into power, tried to liberalize the country a little bit. And so from what I know, the anti-Semitism subsided, and the political atmosphere became more liberal. Growing up in Moscow, because it was the capital, obviously the government tried to portray the capital as cosmopolitan, as a city where people can enjoy the modern way of life. So growing up, I didn’t experience much anti-Semitism. Of course it was present, but not on an official level, more everyday level or street level depending on where you lived, who were your neighbors, etc. etc. KB: So when you started going to school, did you experience any anti-Semitism in the school system? MP: No. As I said, I went to a normal public school, and growing up and being in school, I honestly can say I never experienced any anti-Semitism. Of course, kids could say something, but as I said, I don’t remember much that I was teased, that I was bullied as I Jew. I personally didn’t have that experience in my life. 1 KB: Was Judaism part of your life growing up? MP: No, Judaism wasn’t part of my life obviously because as I said, I was born in the early ‘50’s. At that time, everything Jewish practically disappeared from everyday life. There were no Jewish schools, especially in Moscow which was the capital of the country. There were no Jewish newspapers, no Jewish theater that used to be in the ‘30’s in Moscow, a very famous Jewish theater. There really wasn’t any presence of the Jewish culture. KB: Was there any place to pray? Were there any synagogues? MP: There was one synagogue which was called Moscow Choral [05:00] Synagogue. But growing up, I don’t remember ever going there. I didn’t know anything about Judaism. My family was not observant. My family – both of my families: my father’s family and my mother’s family are coming from a little Jewish shtetl named Berdichev. But they escaped the famine that Stalin organized in Ukraine. KB: How do you spell the name of that shtetl? MP: It’s B-E-R-D-I-C-H-E-V probably. It’s actually a famous shtetl. We might think that a shtetl is kind of small and uninteresting place, but from what I read about Berdichev, it was a very famous and cultured Jewish shtetl. There were many synagogues, there were houses of worship, there were schools. But as I said, my families, both of them, my mother’s and my father’s families – they left Berdichev in late ‘20’s, early ‘30’s because Stalin organized a famine; he collected all the food and people didn’t have anything to eat. And how they managed to escape – I don’t know how they even got permission to go out of the town – but they left the town and they came to Moscow, and that’s where we settled. But as I said, growing up I knew that I was Jewish, but that was the extent of my Jewishness. KB: I’ve heard from others that there were identity cards that identified you as Jewish. Do you recall that? MP: That’s correct. Actually every citizen in Russia had a passport, and line 5 indicated your nationality. But if you were below eighteen years old, your school card , every official piece of paper in Russia indicated your nationality. I don’t know why they put so much emphasis on that, why it was required for people in Russia to have that kind of national identity present with you all the time, but that’s correct. I knew that I was Jewish and everybody else knew you were Jewish because it was on every piece of paper, on every official document, indicated your nationality. KB: I’ve also heard elsewhere that for example the teachers had a list of students in their class that showed nationality. 2 MP: Yes, as I said, every official piece of paper indicated your nationality. KB: Now how about holidays growing up. Did your family celebrate any Jewish holidays or do anything at that time of year? MP: As I said, my family was not observant. But the only holiday that we always observed, that was Passover. Pascha, as we say in Russia. And growing up, we always lived with my father’s mother, my grandmother. And she would go to the synagogue, buy matzah, and she would cook for days to prepare the meal. And what that meal was – it wasn’t a seder in the religious sense because we didn’t have a haggadah, we didn’t know Hebrew; we didn’t even know the story of the Passover. For us, Passover was a time for family to come together and share a meal and talk about life and sing Yiddish songs. And I remember vividly of those times when the whole family – all of the cousins – we all would come together. And we would rotate the houses obviously. My grandmother – she would cook and she would make gefilte fish from scratch, and buy carp alive. And she would boil it and cook it. And she would make matzah, kugel, and other wonderful foods – chicken and white beans. It was really a wonderful feast and wonderful time for family to come together and experience it. But that was the only holiday that I remember that we were kind of celebrating and observing. KB: Now, as you were growing up in Moscow, did you start singing there? MP: Yeah, [10:00] what happened – I discovered that I have a voice from early on. And growing up, I was singing at every family gathering. My parents would kind of proudly display me in front of the entire family, and I would sing Russian folksongs and Russian popular songs. When I went to Russian summer camps, I would sing there. Really, I always, always sang for as far back as I remember myself. But as I said, my parents, they were simple people. They didn’t even think about giving me a musical education until it was very late. I was fourteen years old when one morning we were sitting in the kitchen having breakfast, and on the radio we heard an advertisement about Moscow Choral School for Boys. They were advertising the school with boys with voices to come sing in a choir and study music. So, as I said, I was fourteen years old when my dad said, “Let’s try.” So we went to that school for the audition, and they accepted me. So I started to study music professionally when I was fourteen years old. And from that time, it kind of became my vocation. KB: This was actually formal voice training at that time? MP: Yes. It was a music school where boys would get not only music education at that time but a general education as well. So I was accepted to that school; I entered the seventh grade (and in Russia high school goes through the tenth grade). So I studied for four years in that school. I graduated from that school. And I sang in the choir, and at that time my voice started changing. We had a teenager addition to the choir, so it was 3 a mixed choir of boys and young men. And then what happened, because I started my musical training kind of late, I wasn’t sure if four years of studying music was long enough for me to continue my musical education. And I loved math all the time, and I did well in it in school all the time. So I was trying to figure it out what I loved more: singing or math.