20 years later, the Cold War is really over

Last night was a unique experience at Emet V'Shalom, our Reform congregation in Nahariya. As you may recall, our rabbi, Israel Horovitz, is on a 6-month sabbatical. So, very lay congregants and visiting rabbis have been leading the prayers. Last night, Mark Sirontinski had volunteered to lead. As he explained at the beginning, he had led services many times in Russian, but this was his first time in Hebrew, and he was doing it in memory of his father, who was a captain in the Red Army but was killed in battle (along with many thousands of other Russians) in 1942.

Mark is a retiree from Russia and one of the very few Russians who regularly attends our synagogue regularly. His Hebrew is perhaps not even quite at the level of mine, and his English is only a little better. But we do manage to communicate.

Normally at EVS, just one person leads, but Mark wanted a khazzan (cantor) to assist him, so Norm, the chair of the ritual committee, ask me if I would help him. Of course I agreed. Mark and I communicated a bit by e-mail, and then we met 45 minutes before the start time to do our final coordination.

Mark made a few brief remarks at various times before and between the prayers, he led a few of the songs, and he did some of the readings. I led most of the songs, and we recruited the Shchorry kids, Odelia and Eyal (native Hebrew speakers), to do other readings that neither Mark nor I were prepared to attempt in public. I noticed that Mark used transliterated Hebrew (i.e. Hebrew written with Cyrillic letters -- the alphabet used for Russian and a few other languages). It was a little strange watching him read letters which I don't completely know but hearing Hebrew come out that I do know and understand!

Who of us would have thought, at the height of the Cold War, that someday an American and a Russian would stand together side by side to lead Friday night prayers in Nahariya, Israel? But, in fact, the story is even more interesting. Mark used to work for the U.S.S.R. missile program, and I used to work for the U.S. ballistic missile program!