Subbotniks: Personal Stories

Shavei Israel: Here’s the latest installment of our historical and ethnographic report about the history of Vysoki, Russia’s biggest location of the community of the Subbotnik Jews who embraced Judaism several centuries ago and continued to keep their Jewish identity during all these years in the...

02 May, 2019

Our first meeting with Reuven Yaari took place in the 'Shavei Israel' office shortly after he arrived in Israel from the small town of Reni in the Odessa province of southern Ukraine and settled here with his uncle's family. Since then several years have passed. Today,...

21 February, 2018

Tuesday, August 22 is a date that Tamara Sobyleva will never forget. That’s the day she received her teudat zehut – her Israeli identification card – ending a decade-long process that has been both joyous and bittersweet for the 57-year-old former resident of Vysoki, Russia....

30 August, 2017

Perhaps more than any other holiday on the Jewish calendar, Hanukah celebrates the determined survival of the Jewish people. Over two millennia ago a small band of fighters, led by Judah the Maccabee, fought against the Hellenist rulers of ancient Israel who sought to assimilate...

13 December, 2012
Back in Israel, the Subbotniks' history is known, but here in this place, this knowledge is a very important matter as the Subbotniks' history is almost completely unknown. Welcome Galina Ivanov! Our friends in Jerusalem requested of me to ask you about your family's history, about your father and your grandfather. Where were they from before coming to Zima? How did they begin their lives here, in this place? Just what did they do? Back in Israel, the Subbotniks’ history is known, but here in this place, this knowledge is a very important matter as the Subbotniks’ history is almost completely unknown.
21 December, 2010
Rabbi David Winitz Interviews Tatiana Resnikov We are interviewing Tatiana Resnikov. She and her family live in the city of Sajansk, near Zima. I ask her, “Tell me your history and your family’s, here in this place. And if you know, where did they come from?” Tatiana says, “My grandmother told me that in 1860, they sent her from the village in the middle of Russia, near Veroniz. The names of the Subbotnik families were:  Proligma, Maslava and Shashalnikov. Some of them lived in a part of Zima, called Old Zima and some lived in the area near here, in a village called Plavina. The grandfather’s family name was Maslov. He lived in “Zajinka” under the name Maslavoi. That is to say, only Subbotniks lived there and all of them had the family name of Maslov. The grandfather’s father was called Abraham Maslov.”  
21 December, 2010
Rabbi David Winitz Interviews Pavel Kzanichev (Zanin) “Welcome everybody!” “We are speaking with Pavel Kzanichev (Zanin) who is also a Subbotnik and lives in Zima.  
21 December, 2010