Diana Linetsky’s recent bat mitzvah at Alameda’s Temple Israel is a story of firsts.
She is the first in her family to be born on American soil and the first in her family’s recollection to celebrate a bar or bat mitzvah. It was also the first time the entire congregation used a trilingual siddur.
“I mentioned that my parents don’t understand English so well,” said Linetsky’s mother, Anna. She and husband Mikhail, their extended family and many of their close friends were born in Russia. “I asked, was it OK to address my daughter in Russian?”
That small request, the desire of a mother to include her parents in their granddaughter’s lifecycle event, touched something in Rabbi Allen Bennett. The rabbi knew the family, their history and what they had gone through to arrive at that time of celebration.
“I wanted the people who were here to be able to participate in the service,” Bennett said. “I knew that most of the people who didn’t speak English or Hebrew couldn’t do that.”
So Bennett undertook the daunting task of translating the entire Saturday morning Shabbat service — English and Hebrew — into Russian. Quite an undertaking considering that Bennett doesn’t speak Russian.
“He just took it over,” said Anna, adding that Bennett told her to “leave it to me. I’ll take care of it.”
He collected prayerbooks with Russian translations. He found a Russian translation of the Bible for the Torah portion. On those parts of the service for which no translation existed, he used a Russian dictionary and got help from Anna.
“It took months to do,” said Bennett, who used a computer program with a Russian alphabet. Since Russian uses different characters from English, it was not just a simple matter of transcribing. Bennett had to point and click on one letter at a time.
When the siddur was done, every page had all three languages on it. Then Bennett made another decision.
“I did not want a separate prayerbook for the 60 guests who did not speak Hebrew,” he said. “I printed up prayerbooks for everyone. Literally, everyone was on the same page.”
Although none of the service was read in Russian, everyone could follow along. When it came time for Diana’s parents to address her, her mother spoke in English and her father spoke in Russian.
Diana, who speaks Russian fluently, said it meant a lot to her knowing that her grandparents and other family members could understand the service.
“I am proud of all the people at my temple who spent hours putting this together, ” she said of the siddur.
But the greatest gift was the one she got from her parents 14 years ago.
“My parents were very courageous to have gone through eveything to come to America to raise a family to be free.”
Anna, too, felt the significance of the day. “It was so big for us to have this daughter on American soil and to have her bat mitzvah. No one ever in both families was bar or bat mitzvahed. It never happened…because it couldn’t.”
Prior to the break up of the Soviet Union, practicing one’s religion was almost impossible. Jews were imprisoned for teaching Hebrew, and b’nai mitzvah were prohibited.
For the Linetskys, the bat mitzvah is also the epilogue to very long story of struggle.
Anna and Mikhail, who live in Alameda, met in their native Russia in 1980, 11 years before the break up of the Soviet Union. It was a difficult time for Jews.
“We decided to get married after three hours of knowing each other,” said Anna. But before taking any steps, they consulted the Russian immigration service to see if their marriage would impede the application of Mikhail’s family to immigrate to the United States.
Anna and Mikhail were told if they applied to emigrateas a married couple, they would be turned down and his whole family would have to stay in Russia. They postponed wedding plans and Anna applied to immigrate.
Two years later, Mikhail’s family got official approval and left Russia. As soon as his feet hit American soil, Mikhail began a campaign to get Anna out of Russia.
For the next 3-1/2 years, Anna’s life was a nightmare. She was under constant surveillance. Neither she nor Mikhail could write to each other at their home addresses. They used false names and addresses with third-party intermediaries receiving mail for them. Even then, many letters never got through. Phone calls were infrequent, at best.
Mikhail garnered publicity for Anna’s plight and her case became a cause célèbre.
Finally the Linetskys learned that if Anna married a man from a neutral country, she would be given permission to immigrate to that country.
They found a man from Vienna who was willing to go to Russia and become Anna’s stand-in husband. When she got to Austria, Anna immediately went to the U.S. Embassy. She told them the marriage was a sham and asked for a visa to go to the United States.
The Viennese authorities were notified, and they agreed to let her go to the United States on the condition that she never ask for Austrian citizenship.
Anna arrived in San Francisco in March 1985 and married Mikhail. In February 1986, Diana was born. Two years later Anna’s parents immigrated to America.
“It’s a miracle child we thought we’d never have,” said Anna of her daughter. Later they repeated the miracle and had a son Benjamin, now 2.
Looking back on the difficult years, she said: “We thought we’d never see each other. There are so many Jewish people who helped us. Everyone was so good to us.”
Anna got her first job through the S.F.-based Jewish Vocational Service, working for the late state Sen. Milton Marks. Marks’ family took an interest in her and when Anna learned she was pregnant, they referred her to a doctor. After hearing her story and finding out that the Linetskys had no medical insurance, the doctor said he would see Anna through pregnancy and delivery free of charge.
When Marks left office, Anna needed another job and fate intervened again.
Mikhail, who was then driving a cab, mentioned to a passenger that his wife needed a job. The passenger, a Jewish lawyer, hired her.
“I’ve been there for 11 years,” said Anna of Berman, Berkley and Lasky, the law firm where she is now the office administrator.
The tallit that Diana wore was a gift from Dan Berkley, bought in Jerusalem.
But, as Diana said in her speech, she got the greatest gift from her parents. Freedom.