From Moscow to Rehovot

Could it be? Earlier this week I was proofreading a report that one of our senior staff people had prepared for a client in Ireland when I saw the name Alex Pinarov. A unique name to be sure but down deep I felt that years ago, in another life, in another place, I had seen a variation of that name.

The date was June 15, 1988 and the place was a Moscow apartment on Znamenskaya Street where I met someone named Moshe Finarov on my first day in the former Soviet Union. Remember this was before Glasnost and Moscow was a place full of secret meetings, clandestinely made appointments and underground Jewish activity.

Two of us who had both US and Israeli passports were sent there by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to meet with refuseniks, Jews who had applied for permission to emigrate but who were “refused,” who had lost their jobs and were waiting for the day when they would be allowed to leave that place where fear and uncertainty were the hallmarks of life.

Moshe managed an underground Jewish school which today sounds more than a bit strange but in those days was relatively commonplace among the refusenik community throughout the country. His name was intriguing because it was very close to the Yiddish expression “fun a Rov” which meant “from a Rabbi.” I remember asking him if he had rabbinic ancestors and he said that indeed he did and his family name most probably described his lineage. We spoke in Hebrew and as I was to find out later his reaction to the visit was, in his words, “you came from a different world, from the Holy Land.” To him and his family we represented his dream.

Well, two weeks later and after many meetings with other refuseniks in Kiev and St Petersburg (then Leningrad) as well, it was back to Israel, and back to daily life. There was, of course, no internet, no e mail, and very few refuseniks had phones so making contact was spotty at best and I basically lost contact with everyone that I met during that visit.

Until this week! Until I saw the name Alex Pinarov and it rang a bell. I checked my notes from those two weeks in the former Soviet Union and saw that Moshe Finarov told me that he had a brother living in Israel who had immigrated to here a year earlier and was living in Rehovot. So I called Alex on Wednesday night, introduced myself and started asking questions. Well, as one can expect, the old fears of being questioned surfaced pretty quickly and before Alex would respond he questioned me as to why I wanted to know this information. Of course, when I started reading from my notes of the visit to the apartment on Znamenskaya Street, he realized it was safe to speak with me and it all came out.

Yes, he is the brother who came in 1987. Yes Moshe Finarov (Hebrew tends to mix up Ps and Fs) was the brother I met in Moscow 22 years ago. Yes, the children I met there are indeed his niece and nephew. And where is Moshe Finarov, of the rabbinic lineage? Also in Israel, also in Rehovot officing just a few blocks from Alex in the Weizmann Science Park.

I contacted Moshe after my exchange with Alex. All of his family is now here and he speaks with his sons mainly in Hebrew. Both have served in the Israel Defense Forces and graduated from Israeli universities, one from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the other from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His wife is a doctor at the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, specializing in X-ray diagnostics. Moshe himself has developed a satisfactory career in Israel in the high-tech industry having founded several start-up companies in the microelectronics and solar industries.

What does one say when one hears such a wonderful story? What blessing does one pronounce when seeing such a miracle? I’ll leave the blessings to the rabbis, but one thing I know. The Finarov family, formerly of the Soviet Union and now proud citizens of the State of Israel epitomizes the Hebrew expression, Am Yisrael Chai……The People of Israel Live. And the miracles continue as long as we are prepared to acknowledge them. Shabbat shalom!