My Beloved Jewish Grandmother.

Hello everyone, my fellow Jewish folks! Today I want to tell you the story about my Jewish roots that tracing back to my maternal grandmother whose name was Feyga Altman (עליו השלום).

Feyga Altman and her close friends.

You can see her in close-up portrait, she is pictured center with her close friends.

She was born in August 11, 1932 in Skidel, Poland, in the Hassidic Pious family of Yosef and Perl (nee Michelson) Altman. She had three siblings: Bella, Yenta and Chava.

In 1940 Perl Altman, my grand-grandmother died of natural causes. Little Feyga was taken in by her maternal aunt who lived in Gomel, near Minsk. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Feyga and her aunt were evacuated to Almaty city in Kazakh SSR in Central Asia. Her father and all sisters survived in the Kazakh Central Asia as well. Here she had growned and matured, and when she reached 20 years old in 1952 she met my future grandfather – young Kazakh lad. Rapidly they have fell in love and married each other. Together they have managed to bring into this world six beautiful Jewish children – my future aunts and uncles called Rivka (b. 1953), Chaya (b. 1955), Leah (b. 1957), Moshe (b. 1959) and Shmuel (b. 1963), and of course my dear mother Rahel (b. 1960).

Even more, they managed to raise them fully Jewish according to Jewish customs and traditions, despite the fact that my grandmother’s father and aunt were initially categorically against her marriage to a Gentile man. They retreated only after taking promises from my Kazakh grandfather that he would give his future children truly Jewish names and would raise them as real Jews, starting from observance of kashrut and ending with Shabbos.

All their children, my aunts and uncles connected their lives with Jews and now live in Israel and observes religious Haredi lifestyle.

I want you to pray for the repose of the soul of my grandmother – Feyga bas Yosef as she passed away only a year ago. May her soul rest in Gan Eden!

שתנוח נשמתה בגן עדן!