Invitation Community Library Letter: Fill & Download for Free

My mother had loved one man (pictured above) all her life. I guess some women simply do.Ufa, Soviet UnionMy parents met in Ufa State Aviation Technical University. My father Vladimir (now known as Vlad) enrolled there, because being Jewish, he had been denied entrance to the vast majority of universities, while this particular one willingly accepted Jews.My Russian mother, Elena, finished high school with a gold medal and could pick and choose any university in the Soviet Union. However, she wasn’t confident in her abilities. He mother suggested Moscow but she, she wound up taking entrance exams in Ufa, Bashkiriya.Vladimir was a year younger Elena. She felt pretty helpless on her own, in another town, without parents, and Vladimir arranged everything for her. For the purpose, he engaged help from his local friends who would get him tickets to concerts, fetch delicatessen and fix him up with a car.Strange as it may sound, I met one of my father’s Ufa friends a few years ago in Forte De Marmi, Italy.At the time, I was tutoring his godson - whose father Iskander was his best friend and helped Iskander financially to launch his business, which eventually made him rich.Iskander’s father taught economics in the same university where my parents studied at, and helped open doors for Jewish students, including my father.Perhaps this is just a coincidence.My parents’ love affair continued after they graduated from the university. My father moved back to his native Crimea, and during their summer vacation in Yalta my mother became pregnant with me.When she found out, she tried to get in touch with Vladimir, but he was unavailable. She flew to his hometown, Simferopol, where she was confronted by his mother, Bronya.“Go away, Chiksa,” she said. “My son’s not interested in you. He’s a romantic man and now on a merchant ship in the Black Sea.”This encounter haunted my mother for the rest of her life. And possibly not only hers…Ulyanovsk, Soviet Union/RussiaMy mother returned to Ulyanovsk where her father, lieutenant colonel in the Red Army, was just given a one-bedroom apartment by the state. My mother was very upset and was heading for a hospital to do an abortion, but my grandmother, Alexandra, talked her into keeping the child.There had been this invisible, strong connection between my grandmother and me until she passed away in 2009. She felt responsible for me and I felt that I owed her my life.A few months after my mother gave birth to me, my father showed up. He wanted to see his son, but my mother told him, “don’t come back, don’t try to contact us, don’t try to see us.”Coincidentally, my father’s cousin Boris lived in the same town and was the head of the engineering department in the Interregional center of Microelectronics. Boris was angry with his cousin for what he had done to my mother and stopped communicating with him. He hired my mother right away.My grandmother told me the whole story. She loathed my father and became quite an anti-Semite.In 1994, my mother learned she had stomach cancer. Eight months later she was dead. In her painkillers’ induced delirium, she kept returning to the scene in Simferopol when my father’s mother told her off. What kind of family is that? This is what she really wanted to know. I vowed to find out.My grandmother realized she didn’t have money to bury her daughter - her pension and my granddad’s pension were barely enough to buy basic food for the three of us. This was a very dark day for her, as she lost her only daughter and the state she had worked for all her life couldn’t provide for the funeral. She was sitting on the couch and weeping, when the doorbell rang.She opened the door and saw a delegation of Jews headed by Boris.“Alexandra, I told folks in the Jewish community center that Elena was a wonderful person who helped everyone around her, and now we want to help you,” said Boris.He promised they would cover all the expenses with the funerals. They did, and also booked one of the largest restaurants in the city so there was a nice wake, and would bring food for us free of charge.After this incident, from being an anti-Semite my grandmother became a die-hard Judeophile. Whenever I’d have conflicts with Jews, she’d always take their side and scold me to tell me I was wrong and “don’t be like your father; he is a bad person.”A couple years later, I met Boris (he lives in Israel now) and told him I was going to meet my father. Prior to that, I found in my mother’s address book my father’s address in San Francisco, which was provided to her by Boris. She wrote to him asking to take care of me when she found out she had cancer, but he never answered. Maybe he didn’t get the letter. Maybe he did.Boris filled me in on what transpired in my father’s life, which he learned from his relatives who were still in touch with him.A few years after visiting paying a visit in Ulyanovsk, Vladimir married a woman, a singer, and they had a son, Stanislav. The singer was not Jewish, but this time his mother accepted him into the family, and helped bring him up.In the meantime, Vladimir did a PhD, and launched a business importing computers to the Soviet Union. He became rich, bought a yacht, hired a crew and was the first citizen of the Soviet Union who docked on a private yacht in Israel.Later his business was raided and he decided to leave the country, which was now Ukraine.In order to immigrate to the United States as a Jewish refugee he needed to bring in a family. Two persons qualified as family.He paid his ex-wife eighteen years worth of child support and took his son with him to San Francisco, California. There was a sponsor in California, who financed their first steps in the new country.Next, Vladimir’s mother, his sister, her husband and their two sons followed.Boris hadn’t heard from him in three years, so he didn’t know for sure Vladimir’s current address.And then he gave me a piece of advice. “Your father is a hard man. He’s not going to accept you. You’d be bitterly disappointed. Don’t go looking for him.”But I remembered my mother, who till her dying day wanted to know what was wrong with my father’s family, and so I decided to disregard his advice.Bay Area, California (1)It took me years to get to the United States, until I finally did in 2001. Once there, I found out that my father changed his address.I headed for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. After three hours in line, I was told that they can’t provide the address of my father because they had to protect his privacy.Next, I went to a Jewish Community Library. A librarian listened to my story, and was sympathetic to me. She gave me my father’s address. I took the BART to Millbrae and walked down El Camino Real to Burlingame. I rang the bell at a dingbat apartment building. Nobody answered, but I already somehow knew he did not live there.I walked out and saw a public phone. On the spur of the moment, I opened the phone book and found my father’s family name. There was a new address, in the same town, Burlingame.It was a short walk, and when I reached the house, I felt I was at the end of a long journey. I sat on the porch of a single-family house, and watched a plane slowly move across the sky. I remembered what Boris told me that I shouldn’t look for my father. There was still time to get up and leave and never come back.I stood up and pressed the bell.A young woman opened the front door. She looked Russian, but just to be on the safe side I said, “Hello.” “Who are you?” “I’m Misha. Vladimir’s son.”She shut the door in my face. I sat on the porch and waited. It was too late to run away. About five minutes the young lady opened the door again and let me in. She was Russian. She and her ten-year old son lived with my father. “Vladimir is coming”, she said.About fifteen minutes later there came my father. He was a tall, burly man with a beard and black hair. He spoke in a monotonous, trembling voice. He didn’t look directly at me, but sort of circled around the living room like a bull around a toreador.“Are you Elena’s son?” he asked from a safe distance.“Yes.”“Where’s Elena?”“She passed away.”He stopped and stared me. I wondered if it came as a surprise or he knew. I couldn't tell.“There is no Elena…things would have been so different. No Elena,” he mumbled. “Mind coming with me for a ride?”I nodded. He drove me in his Lexus to a park by the San Francisco Bay.“I’m going to ask you a direct question,” my father said, not looking at me again. And then after a pause, said, “What do you want from me?”There were many things that I could tell him - that I wanted to be part of his family.That I wanted to get to know him.But I just felt he didn’t want to hear it and so all I managed was “Help me with getting a US citizenship.”“All right,” he breathed a sigh of relief, “and please call me Vladimir. Don’t call me “dad” or “father.””Vladimir let me stay in his house, while he was sorting out my request. I somehow knew he wouldn’t help me “adjust my status” but I also felt that he wouldn’t kick me out, not while his girlfriend was watching, and introduce me to his family.Only Vladimir didn’t, although they all lived nearby. While he was at work in Silicon Valley, where he was employed as a coder, I became friends with his girlfriend and told her the whole story. Stressed out, she kept borrowing cigarettes from me, and I could hear them argue in the evening. They would break up after I left.Vladimir took me to see his lawyer and she dutifully announced that my status couldn't be adjusted, and Vladimir said he wouldn’t pay for my college studies.When we left his lawyer’s office, Vladimir said, “That’s it. Now you can see that I can’t help you in your request.”Next morning, he woke me up and said it’s time for me to leave California. He handed me a one-way train ticket to New York. He took me to the train station and stood on the platform to make sure I didn’t get off the train.I spent four and a half days on that train smoking weed with some students from Boston. They wanted to take me with them to their campus, but I decided to get off in New York.Vladimir didn’t inquire if I had any money, and I’d given my last hundred dollars to a French guy in the hostel where I was staying before I found my father. The French guy was looking for the girl he was in love with, so I really wanted to help him out.New York, NYI had thirty five bucks on me, but even half of a Jew would never go hungry or sleep on the street in New York. I went to a random Orthodox community in Brooklyn, and they gave me money and a job taking care of a rabbi with Parkinson's disease in Manhattan hospital.The rabbi’s brother took me late in the evening across the Brooklyn Bridge. As I watched the wall of lights, mesmerized, he said, “G-d gives, G-d takes.”A few days later, I woke up to the smell of smoke in the air and breaking news on the TV. My new roommates were shouting “the twins have fallen.” I went outside and watched half-burned scraps of paper fall from the sky. People were numb, silent. I took a bus and got off by the Brooklyn Bridge.Smoke was billowing from where the Twin Towers used to stand. Five days prior, I was in the lobby of one of the towers, and was told by the security the day was too cloudy and the observation deck was closed. Office workers covered in soot were walking from the bridge like zombies, their eyes blank.I didn’t give up and decided to stay put. I got a job in a laundromat, and rented a room. My neighbor had a famous guest staying over at his place, the Uzbek-Russian singer Aziza.Aziza toured Brooklyn and spent afternoons sitting with me and my other roommates in the backyard. She told us stories and sang songs. It turned out she met my father’s ex-wife.“She was an alcoholic. Slept with every man in town. Your silly father needs to do DNA test and see if his son is actually his, you know, biologically speaking.”And then suddenly, out of the blue, Vladimir called on my cell.“My mother wants to meet you,” he said. “I’ll buy you a flight ticket.”Bay Area, California (2)I flew to San Francisco the very next day, and my half-brother picked me up in the airport. Stas smoked the same brand of cigarettes, and that’s all the things we had in common. He was out of the army, working as a bank teller. His car was his pride. He took me to meet his Russian friends. They drove around a Starbucks in a circle, showing off their cars and their choice of music blaring from the speakers.I stayed at Vladimir’s house in San Mateo, where he lived with Stas. Next, I met my two cousins, Misha and Sasha. They were both coders. Sasha lived with his mother and grandmother. I think my grandmother changed her mind, because I wasn’t being invited over, and continued to stay at Vladimir’s place waiting for the meet.On the spur of the moment, Sasha, with whom I was now spending most of the time, as I had more in common with him than with my brother, took me to his place. I sat in the living room when his - our - grandmother showed up.“This is Misha, my cousin,” said Sasha.My grandmother stood in the doorway, not sure what to do. She was befuddled, completely taken aback. She hesitated - I could see she was fighting with herself. Finally, she turned away and went upstairs without even saying hello to me. That meeting, too, was anti-climactic.Next day, Vladimir introduced me to his former girlfriend and tutor, Della Peretti. She invited me over to her house in Oakland. Her children, Jonah and Chelsea, lived in New York. We spent a nice time chatting and I told her that I write short stories in English, but I can’t get them published.I flew back to New York the next day, again, without any money. I found another Jewish employer to give me a job. I felt morally exhausted and really wanted to leave the United States once I earned enough money for a flight ticket. Boris was right - my father didn’t need me. There was nothing wrong with their family - I was just not part of it nor would ever be.Vladimir called me up and said, “My mother passed away…I think it’s time for you to leave America.”My grandmother didn’t get a chance to speak with me. I was there, in her living room, all smiles. She could have come over and said what was in her heart and mind.My mother lived with her pain of a broken heart, and the pain killed her. Or perhaps it was just a coincidence?I was exchanging emails with Della, and then out of the blue she invited me over to California. Instead of flying home (and where was my home anyways?), I bought a bus ticket and crossed America from coast to coast.With other passengers, I applauded a man who saw snow for the first time in his life as he caught snowflakes with his open palms.I saw a boy slowly walk around the bus station with a golden belt of a wrestling champion in his outstretched hands.I watched sunrise over the desert with a black woman who was on her way to visit her children.I played snowballs in the mountains with passengers.In Oakland, I stayed at Della’s house. We hit it off. She drove me around North California in her PT Cruiser visiting coastal towns. Della had a career of teaching English at school, then earned a PhD and became a deputy head of the teacher training program at UC Berkeley. I wrote short stories and Della helped me edit them, as we sat together behind her Mac. She said I’m a fast learner.In a matter of weeks, I began to get published in electronic magazines. But I wasn’t good enough to get published in reputable publications. I gave up on writing believing I wasn’t good enough.In the meantime, I tried to establish a connection with Vladimir, but all my efforts were in vain. He was irritated that I didn’t get lost, and tried to talk Della into kicking me out. In one comical episode, he found a distant relative in Canada and flew to visit him.Della also told me that she suspected that Stas wasn’t Vlad’s son, as he didn’t look a bit like him, not physically, nor behavior or character-wise.Her son, Jonah, who'd soon launch HuffPost and BuzzFeed, came over. He was getting married. I attended his reception. As I mixed with the guests, I managed to speak with him for five whole minutes. Della’s daughter, comedian Chelsea (Brooklyn 99) also came over, but she just ignored me. They were both mildly irritated by my presence in the house where they grew up, but I guess they were just used to their mother’s antics.I had a crush on this girl, Rebecca. Della was the one who hooked me with her. We spent three or four days together, visiting her mother in San Francisco and her father in Los Angeles, and then I received a weird email from Della.She confessed that she loved me and begged me to abandon Rebecca. Rebecca was in a relationship, and she promptly kicked me over to Della, “go to your sugar mama.”Della suggested that we should get married, so that I could get a green card and study in UC Berkeley. She would pay for my studies. However, I wasn’t allowed to have any girlfriend. That was the deal.“Take your time, think it over” she said and to persuade me, she took me back to LA.At the end of the trip, we sat at this fancy restaurant in Beverly Hills Hotel, eating crème brûlée. Della’s old mother was there, too. She looked like she just stepped from a black and white silent movie with her high brow, a pre-Revolutionary Russian.She was nobility in Russia before Bolsheviks kicked them out. I was a grandson of peasants. It seemed like Della’s offer was a fair deal. A serf will always be a serf.When we returned to Oakland, I packed my bag and left Della’s house.About two years later I was planning to take a month-long course in teacher training and asked Della for a $1,500 loan. After all, Della was a teacher, too, and I thought she would want to assist me. But she refused outright.I realized that she had just used me and told her so. She took offense and wouldn’t speak with me again. My grandmother gave me the money, which she had methodically put aside from her small pensions. I did the course and became a tutor.I haven’t been in contact with Della for 12 years.Moscow, RussiaI continued to be in touch with Vladimir for some time, on his condition: “I can give you advice, but I can’t do anything for you.” I met him in Moscow, when he came to visit his new girlfriend and partner.My wife had just given birth to our daughter, and Vladimir was flying in to Moscow to meet his new business partner. “Would you like to see your granddaughter?” I asked him.“Only if I have time.”Vladimir spent three days in Moscow, but he didn’t find time to meet his granddaughter. He never came to see her.This is when I finally realized it was pointless to pretend to have a relationship with him.I haven’t been in contact with my father for 6 years.__Here’s my take from the story. Everyone made a choice and then paid the price. I think it’s a fair game.My mother chose a life of martyr, and martyrs die young.My father chose to adopt another man’s son and abandon his biological son, his flesh and blood. I didn’t know these things happen, but apparently they do.My Jewish grandmother chose to protect her son once, but not twice. She learned from her mistake.Della chose to push her children away only to fill the void in her heart (and house) with someone who could never be her son. I sincerely hope she has a better relationship with her children these days.I have a daughter now. She needs me. If I’d had a daughter then, I wouldn’t have gone looking for my father.There’s one good thing for me that came out of it though.All my childhood I had to listen to my mother and grandmother telling me how I look like my evil father. Finally, I could find peace to live my life like a normal person without looking for demons inside of me.

Question: “How did Ottoman empire treat the Jews”?Jews from all over Europe escaped and found refugee under Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Empire were very tolerant of other faiths. A lot of people brings in “Young Turks” which was a Nationalistic movement in 20th century, while ignoring past 500+ yrs of history.Lets look at the past history:Jewish communities in Anatolia flourished and continued to prosper under Ottomans. When the Ottomans captured Bursa in 1324 and made it their capital, they found a Jewish community oppressed under Byzantine rule. The Jews welcomed the Ottomans as saviors. Sultan Orhan gave them permission to build the Etz ha-Hayyim (Tree of Life) synagogue which remained in service until 50 years ago.Early in the 14th century, when the Ottomans had established their capital at Edirne, Jews from Europe, including Karaites, migrated there.Jews expelled from Hungary in 1376, from France by Charles VI in September 1394, and from Sicily early in the 15th century found refuge in the Ottoman Empire.In the 1420s, Jews from Salonika control fled to Edirne under OttomansFrom the early 15th century, Ottomans actively encouraged Jewish immigration. Western European Jews received three invitations to settle in the Ottoman Empire. Two were from Muslim sultans, Muhammad (Mehmet) II in the middle of the 15th century and Bayazid II in 1492. The third came in a letter sent by Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati (from Edirne) in 1454 to Jewish communities in Europe in the first part of the century that "invited his coreligionists to leave the torments they were enduring in Christiandom and to seek safety and prosperity in Ottomans."In 1492, Sephardic Jews fled Spanish Inquisition and found refuge under Ottomans.In 1537 the Jews expelled from Apulia (Italy) after the city fell under Papal control, in 1542 those expelled from Bohemia by King Ferdinand found a safe haven in the Ottoman Empire.In March of 1556, Sultan Suleyman "the Magnificent" wrote a letter to Pope Paul IV asking for the immediate release of the Ancona Marranos, which he declared to be Ottoman citizens. The Pope had no other alternative than to release them, the Ottoman Empire being the "Super Power" of those days.By 1477, Jewish households in Istanbul numbered 1,647 or 11% of the total. Half a century later, 8,070 Jewish houses were listed in the city.Read the source (Jewish Virtual Library):Virtual Jewish History

To be accepted? Probably similar in many ways to many American universities, particularly well-off private ones.You log into your Yale Eli account to check on the status of your admission.You see a cute little animation involving bulldogs on an appropriately Yale blue background.You read a congratulatory letter.You’re invited to Bulldog Days - Yale’s visit weekend, but not given a huge amount of information about it immediately.You receive several emails over the next few weeks working out the logistics of your travel to the visit weekend and your stay there.You receive a physical letter in the mail, along with a Yale T-shirt. (They must’ve collected a shirt size at some point, but I don’t remember when that was.)You’re invited to local events for admitted students (more so if you’re in or near a metropolitan area), where you get free food and hear about all the wonderful things Yale is/was/has.You visit New Haven and meet potential classmates, tour the campus, admire the libraries, dorms, trees, dining halls, etc. Like those of many older colleges in the northeast US, the dining halls do, in fact, look Harry Potter-ish, as claimed.You hopefully get a sense of what the academics, student groups, and the Yale community are like.You go home, and decide in a week or so whether or not you want to actually enroll (if you haven’t already).It’s a nice process. Pretty straightforward. I don’t really recall being terribly emotional about it, but that’s pretty similar to all of my other college admissions decisions.As I recall, they really do try to get you to go to the visit weekend, and will work with you if that’s financially difficult. I rather liked Yale’s campus, and thought its libraries in particular were very beautiful. I think Bulldog Days was my first experience with a gender-neutral public bathroom (in the chapel, no less), which was a bit strange, and made a bit stranger when a bunch of us (guys and girls) were all waiting there.I must also confess (with no offense at all meant to Yale) that my friend and I decided that Yale wasn’t quite the right place for us towards the end of Bulldog Days, and were quietly singing the Engineer’s Drinking Song in the back of the room during one of the last events of the weekend.