First Home in the Homeland: Break the silence
Dmitri, Ekaterina and Sasha Tomin made Aliyah from Russia, Moscow, on 23/07/2018 with help of Christians for Israel. They will participate in the program ‘First Home in the Homeland’ in kibbutz Merhavia, which is also supported by Christians for Israel.
-There is absolutely nothing that I could tell you about my Jewishness, – confesses Dmitry. – in my family it was always a taboo-topic. Both of my parents are Jewish, but I never felt confident to ask anything about it. When I went to the first grade, my family changed our name from Gosfeld to Tomin. I didn’t receive any explanation, my Mom only said: “we don’t want to destroy your life, ours is already ruined”.
I don’t know anything about my grandparents from both sides, I never had a chance to ask them how they survived Holocaust, I knew that my task was to be silent “not to destroy my life”. All of my parents passed away, as well as their stories, which are also my stories that I lost forever. I feel so sorry that I was not courageous enough to break this silence.
About my family – I’m very a direct and decisive person. 19 days after I met my future wife, I made her a marriage proposal – she was very surprised – but she said yes! Now we are already five years together and have a wonderful daughter Sasha, she’s three years old now, she’s so similar to me – the same direct and stubborn character! This is my strategy for life, to decide quickly and to listen to my heart! The same happened with our decision to make Aliyah.
Dmitri, Ekaterina and Sasha Tomin from Moscow, Russia
It’s funny that after we received our plane tickets, Israel started to pop up everywhere in our life. I work as taxi driver, and on one day I brought three Israelis to the airport, we opened a newspaper and saw an article about Israel on the first page. Coincidences? I don’t think so!
Please support the “First Home in the Homeland” Project.
Assisting a family in the “First Home” program costs € 230 euro / US $ 250 a month.
