Yuli’s interview with Alyosha Levin on May 27, 2004.

Alyosha was my first Hebrew teacher in Moscow. Although I studied with him for only a month and a half, I will always retain warm feelings towards him. We have not met since the beginning of 1973. I really wanted to locate him several times but the tumult of my immigrant life with a steady stream of events that you do not even have time to comprehend prevented me from finding Alyosha sooner.

Such is the callousness of human nature… I might never have contacted him were it not for my personal interests of collecting materials for my own book. I no longer begrudged spending my time and efforts to find old friends… Suddenly the time became available for these special reunions. Perhaps, this was a subconscious feeling that all other newcomers around me are, also, swept up in this maelstrom of the busy immigrant life. Perhaps, it’s uncomfortable to impose on busy people without a good reason. Alyosha heads a department at the Open University. You can see the reflection of his busy life in his eyes… We met on Friday when I believe he was the only person still in the building. So, 30 years later we finally met, embraced, recalled our mutual friends, talked about this and that… and started our interview.

Yuli: When and where were you born and what is your family background?

Alyosha: I was born in Moscow on December 11th, 1944. My mother was in the army in the Far East and she met my father there. They had an army sort of affair and separated shortly afterwards. I think they were not even officially married. So I grew up alone and I never met my father. But still I was lucky. In 1956 when I was 12, a man called Lev Levin returned from Stalinist prison camps and he became my real father…. He was arrested in 1942 as a Romanian spy. He lived in Bukovina. When the Red Army came there, the small remnants of the family that survived the Nazis were deported to Siberia…

Yuli: Why?

Alyosha: His father had a small shop… and like other bourgeois elements, he was sent to the prison camps. My Grandmother, who was also imprisoned, met him in the camp. She was a physician in the camp. She nursed my future adopted Father back to health. He weighed only 40 kg when he was brought to her. She saved his life. When he came to Moscow after his release to demand rehabilitation and have all prior charges against him dropped, he met my Mother. You may understand that very soon, in 1956 they got married. It is from him that I received all my Yiddishkeit.

Yuli: Was your mother born in Moscow?

Alyosha: Not quite … She was born in Saratov. Her life story is amazing. My Grandfather, whose family name was Kuperman, was a famous Menshevik (the member of Mensheviks party-opposition party to the Bolsheviks which was disolved in 1918), Chairman of the Soviet of Workers- Deputies in the town of Saratov. In 1921 he was deported from Saratov.. Guess where he was deported? To Moscow! Things like that happened too. In this way they wended their way to Moscow. My Mother was then only two years old. In 1937, my Grandfather was executed. My Grandmother was arrested, too, and the kind Soviet authorities deported her to the Far East for 8 years.

My Mother graduated from university just before the war. At the beginning of the war she was mobilized into the army and was sent to the Far East. When she returned to Moscow, she taught math in school. In 1956, a friend of ours helped her find a position with the editorial board of the Foreign Literature Magazine where she was employed in the Biology Department until our emigration. They left even before me – in the autumn of 1972… At that time the authorities introduced the education tax but she appealed to various authorities, arguing that the family had suffered a great deal… Why should the education tax also, be imposed on them? As a result of her protests, they were permitted to immigrate without paying the education tax.

Yuli: When did your mother return from Vladivostok?

Alyosha: She returned to give birth to me. Probably, they let pregnant women go.

Yuli: Which school did you finish in Moscow?

Alyosha: School # 150 near Nikitsky Vorota.

Yuli: Did you attend the Mekhmat (the Mechanical and Mathematical Dept. of the Moscow University)?

Alyosha: Yes, I studied at the University. The Jews made up about 30% of our department at that time. These were wonderful years, 1961- 1963. In 1965 I entered a post-graduate course, and in 1969 they completely stopped admitting Jews to the Mathematics Department.

Yuli: Did you finish your post-graduate course?

Alyosha: Yes. There were some problems with the place of work following graduation because I defended my Ph.D. thesis in the beginning of the 70s. There was a formal invitation for a job but they canceled it. They wanted to send me to the Far East to work but I resisted all their attempts and I won. My father-in-law wanted to get me a job in a “yachik” – a company that belonged to the Defense Industry, but they refused to hire me because my Grandmother’s sister moved to Palestine in 1905 and they knew about it. Therefore, I was not hired by this company, and I thank G-d for that! If I had been employed there, who knows how many years I would have had to spend in refusal? It was a serious place. Instead, I found a job in a research institute and worked there for a total of several months.

Yuli: When did you begin to learn Hebrew?

Alyosha: My father knew Hebrew very well, at “heder plus” level, and he spoke Hebrew … but he lacked the ability to teach me at all. He was such an artistic person. His profession was artistic recitations. Perhaps you have heard of him as he appeared with Nehama Ishikaite often. …Yiddish was his mother tongue. Partly I learned the language from him but primarily through friends who started to study Hebrew before me. …

Yuli: How did you become acquainted with them?

Alyosha: They all studied in the Mathematics Department of Moscow University. There were three of us: Lyonya Yoffe who studied with me and who has recently regretfully passed away, Misha Goldblatt, who to my regret, also, died about 10 years ago… They started learning Hebrew in about 1969. The next group consisted of 5-6 people: Volodya Shakhnovsky, Benya Deborin, Zeev Zolotarevsky, me and Izya Palkhan. We started to study with Moshe Palkhan in the spring of 1970 …or maybe in the end of 1970.

Yuli: Where did Moshe learn Hebrew?

Alyosha: Moshe was a genius. He studied by himself from Kol Israel radio programs… He even developed his own methods for teaching Hebrew… Moshe is a very capable person… although he did not have a formal education. He emigrated early, in about 1971…, but when he left, we all started teaching. We used his teaching methods and his brother Izya used them too. Actually, there were no teaching aids. We preferred to use his teaching methods… Thanks to this approach, Hebrew became the first foreign language I managed to learn reasonably well. I studied English since early childhood but could not speak it, and I studied German in school and could not speak it either. In university, I studied French as a second foreign language with the same results… But Hebrew I succeeded in learning quite well although I spent a lot of time on it… I studied Hebrew day and night because it was interesting for me. There was a general enthusiasm surrounding the study of the Hebrew language.

Yuli: Was the interest in Hebrew connected to your interest in Israel or was the sake of the language itself?

Alyosha: Yes.. maybe not only in terms of my interest in Israel but it was, also, a question of identity… We enjoyed showing off … When we returned home after a lesson or after a party at Volodya Shakhnovsky’s home on the bus or in the metro we spoke Hebrew to each other …People stared at us, but it was OK … We even enjoyed it.

Yuli: The atmosphere at the lesson – was it charged?

Alyosha: Yes. I do not remember how long the lesson lasted. Maybe two hours …At first it was hard for me, precisely because of his teaching methods… It was unusual. We had to consult the dictionary as little as possible. He tried not to translate anything to us and instead he explained the meaning of the words with gestures and grimaces …like children learn a language… You understand and you start learning a language like a child who does not know how to translate words to another child.. He demonstrates the meaning – or explains it with other familiar words. I realized that he was teaching Hebrew in the same manner in which he learned it himself… When we came to Israel, my wife went to ulpan. She also studied some Hebrew in Moscow. I told her then: “Leave the ulpan, turn on the radio or learn songs… and try remembering the words”. Moshe gave us such tasks – listen to Kol Israel in Hebrew, pick up 5 words and find them in the dictionary. It was not immediately clear what was the binyan, the construction of the word, and what was the tense. We spent a lot of time on this but it paid off.

Yuli: This is a very effect method for learning Hebrew.

Alyosha: It was the first language that I learned thanks to this system.

Yuli: What about the grammar?

Alyosha: He gave a lot of verbs.

Yuli: And all those scholastics… minute grammer details that became popular later on and that I detested – the “shva na” and “shva nakh”, did he teach you those?

Alyosha: No, he did not. When he left, Lyonya Yoffe taught us some grammar. Lyonya Yoffe spent three years on that. He did not do anything else except studying Hebrew and he learned it so well that native Israelis envied his Hebrew. He studied grammar very seriously from grammar books, and then he taught us. He, too, was a very good teacher. Grammar is important, of course, but you begin to understand it only after you already speak some Hebrew. An important component of our lessons was working with songs. I remember that I learned a lot of words from songs. You listen to a song, make out the words, memorize them and then they are inside you.

Yuli: Did you only study Hebrew at your lessons?

Alyosha: Yiddishkeit! When a holiday came, everything was explained..…

Yuli: Who made textbooks for you?

Alyosha: I know that Vitya Yakhot was involved in it. He knew Hebrew, and he was also involved with “Jews in the USSR” … He lives in the US now for 6 years already but he often comes here.

Yuli: Actually, the best way of learning a language is by teaching it.

Alyosha: Definitely.

Yuli: During your time, was there a great demand for studying Hebrew?

Alyosha: Yes, I had several groups of students; my friends had students, too, and this was not yet the peak of the demand.

Yuli: When did you start teaching?

Alyosha: My first two students, – I am not sure now whether they were really the first or they were just the best, because they made quick progress – Ilya Essas and Lev Glozman started to study Hebrew in the beginning of 1971. In 1972 I, also, conducted a Passover Seder for them. I became interested in the Jewish holidays, such as, Simchat Torah, as early as in mid 60s, but at that time I was not considering aliya. Even when I started learning Hebrew I was not considering it. I started learning Hebrew from a different perspective. From I would say “cultural” as I was searching for my Jewish identity.

Yuli: As a counter-balance to the official anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda?

Alyosha: Yes, this undoubtedly had its effect, too, especially after 1967.

Yuli: Did 1967 affect you personally?

Alyosha: Of course, I was 23…I did not speak Hebrew then. My English was poor… I learned all news from friends who had better radios than I.

Yuli: You have a sister…

Alyosha: Yes, in 1958 my sister was born, Rut Levin. She lives in Jerusalem now.

Yuli: She gave me your telephone number.

Alyosha: She came to Israel in 1972. She was only 14.

Yuli: She is a wonderful singer. And when did you receive the exit permit?

Alyosha: In April 1973.

Yuli: Do you maintain contacts with the group of the first Hebrew teachers?

Alyosha: We knew each other long before we became teachers through the Mathematics Department of the University since the early 60s. …Of course, I stay in touch with them… but Misha and Lyonya died, unfortunately.

Yuli: Do you stay in touch with Volodya Shakhnovsky?

Alyosha: A little bit less, but I am still in touch with him.

Yuli: You spoke Hebrew when you came to Israel. How was your life in Israel?

Alyosha: It was OK. I received a position at the Technion immediately upon my arrival. Later I began to work here at the Open University.

Yuli: What is the homespun truth of the Open University?

Alyosha: There were distant learning departments at every university, but there were no special manuals. At the Open University we tried to write special textbooks for distant learning.

Yuli: Does your work consist of creating teaching aids?

Alyosha: Yes. When we write these teaching aids, we put in various questions, problems, because we think that if it were a lecture, students would raise questions.

Yuli: Do you have many students at the University?

Alyosha: In general, approximately 3000 students are enrolled in the Math Department in one semester. The actual number of students is smaller because one student often enrolls in more than one course. Therefore, I believe that there are about 2000 students in our department. Not all of them become mathematicians. We serve other departments as well. Of our student population, probably two thirds major in social science, economics, etc.

Yuli: Do you prepare less intensive courses for such students?

Alyosha: Yes, their programs are a little easier. I believe there is a maximum of 20 people who study pure Mathematics. This means that we live at the expense of other students, those who study Math to master other professions.

Yuli: Do they mail you their work and do you examine the work and send it back?

Alyosha: Naturally, this is the rule…

Yuli: This is a lot of work…

Alyosha: Not that much work … We have groups scattered throughout the country, and each group has its assistant in charge. He examines all the current work, and on the final exams we examine half of the work… and it is good because we are paid for it.

Yuli: Are you satisfied with your life?

Alyosha: Yes, I believe so. I never regretted having left Russia.

Yuli: Did you serve in the IDF, the army in Israel?

Alyosha: Yes…not very successfully in the sense that when I made Aliya I was already 28, and, therefore, I only served for two months. I wasn’t lucky because I had my basic army training near Ramallah, at a military base in Beit El. At that time I performed a terrible task. We re-buried soldiers killed in the Yom Kipur War who were buried in temporary graves. We moved the bodies to conventional cemeteries at their former residences. Since there were several thousands bodies, and not enough people, we accompanied the bodies to the cemeteries and stood in the Honor Guard. Later I was sent to an artillerary course. We were not lucky. We were all reserve soldiers, and the course was at Egged, and Egged was regular army… and then I was treated as a regular soldier and drank it to the brim… I have never served in “miluim” less than 35 days per year ever since…and there were “Miluim” all the time… At that time, we still had Sinai… We had to ride there on self-propelled guns for 20 days… I was, also, sent to Lebanon on the first day of the war …and all this took a lot of time. I was transferred to reserves pretty late… Only in 1993, I was already over 48… but I did not serve the regular 2-year term.

Yuli: Thanks Alyosha.