Why Doesn’t Mama Love Me?

An hour and a half before Shabbat, Natasha and her friends arrived at my door.

My husband was away for the weekend, and I wanted to make sure my children and I would have some company and a proper Shabbat meal here in Ulyanovsk, Russia. So I invited Natasha—the woman who helps us around the house (who isn’t Jewish)—along with three of her friends, two Jewish and one non-Jewish.

I showed our guests to the living room, brought them some tea and joined them in their conversation. The atmosphere was pleasant; the women were very happy to be there. Yet Rima, one of the non-Jewish women, stared at me constantly with wide open eyes, as if inspecting me.

After twenty minutes of her being in a daze, just staring at me and not participating in the conversation, she cleared her throat and said in a shaky voice, “You know something?”

We turned to her expectantly.

“My mother was Jewish,” she said.

We were all stunned.

“Your mother was Jewish?”

She took a deep breath and told us the story in a voice filled with tears.

Rima was born in the 1930s in Odessa, Ukraine, and was raised together with her four younger siblings. From a very young age, Rima noticed that her mother treated her differently than the rest of her siblings, giving her less attention and care. Rima was always served last, which meant that she got the leftovers. When there was an opportunity for education or a trip to the grandparents, Rima was always the last choice. Eventually, Rima realized that this behavior was intentional. Her mother clearly loved all the younger children and didn’t show the same love to Rima.

Rima’s mother made her take care of her younger siblings; she was responsible to cook food, to clean up, wash the laundry and babysit. But for some reason, no matter how much she helped and worked, her mother did not love her—of this Rima was certain.

When Rima became old enough to verbalize her feelings, she began asking her father, “Why can Mama be a good mother for everyone, and not for me?”

Rima asked this question many times, and at many different opportunities. Her father would answer her, “You’re the oldest in the family; you can tolerate more work.”

Even as a child, Rima understood that such answers were just a cover-up for something her parents did not want to reveal to her.

In the 1970s, when Rima was 42 years old and married with two children, her father was diagnosed with a severe case of tuberculosis. The doctors could do nothing for him, so they sent him home to spend whatever time he had left with family. For the next two months he lay in bed, surrounded by immediate family and close friends. Everyone knew that he was about to leave forever. He, too, knew exactly what was going on, and prepared for his death.

One day, Rima was sitting with her father. It was just the two of them, alone in his room. “Please lock the door,” he requested. “I’m about to die, and I want you to know who you really are. I want to answer your question that I never answered truthfully.

“In 1933, when I was a young man, I married a beautiful Jewish girl. We were very happily married. After about a year, she became pregnant. Her parents both worked in the main theater of Odessa, and I worked for the NKVD. Those years weren’t easy for Jews. One day, my wife heard that a number of Jews had been arrested. My wife, late in her pregnancy, ran quickly to the theater to check up on her parents. Unfortunately, when she got there, she found out that it was too late; both her parents had been taken away. Out of shock from the devastating blow, she went into labor and gave birth to a sweet baby girl right there in the theater. That adorable baby girl was you, Rima. I received word from the theater that my wife had given birth and then fled. The baby was there, waiting for me to come pick her up.

“I went to fetch you. As an inexperienced father without a wife, I felt that I did not have the ability to take care of you. I tried to find out what happened to your mother, but I never saw or heard from her again.

“I set you up in an orphanage on the condition that when I would marry again, I would come and take you back home with me. And so I did. I asked my second wife to adopt you and treat you like her own. I thought that if we didn’t tell you she wasn’t your real mother, it would work out better for you . . . but it didn’t . . .”

Shortly thereafter, Rima’s father passed away.

At the next available opportunity, Rima traveled to Odessa to see for herself the theater where she was born. When she got there, she was amazed to see the theater still in existence, exactly the way her father had described it. Inside, Rima found a bench and sat down. From the emotion that had built up inside, Rima dropped her face into her hands and burst into sobs. She cried bitter tears for the mother she had never known, for the void she had always felt, and for the truth that she finally now knew.

From a distance, an elderly woman, the keeper of the theater, had been watching Rima. When she saw that Rima was unable to calm down, she went over to her to ask if she could be of any assistance. Rima’s tears kept rolling down her cheeks. Finally, she told the keeper the reason for her visit. The keeper looked at Rima for a long moment, then said, “What—it’s really you?! I was there when your mother found out that her parents were taken away. I was the one who helped your mother through her emergency delivery here in the theater. I was there when your mother fled, and I took care of you until your father came to get you.” The two women embraced with great emotion. The theater keeper held Rima tight, just as she had 42 years earlier, until Rima was able to compose herself.

Thirty years passed. During that time, Rima knew only that her mother had been Jewish. She knew nothing else about Judaism, nor did she admit her Jewish identity to anyone else.

After hearing Rima’s story, we all sat in our chairs, unable to speak. I finally broke the silence. “Rima, it’s time for us to light the Shabbat candles. Would you please join us?”

At age 76, Rima lit the Shabbat candles for the first time in her life.

Adapted from an article in the N’shei Chabad Newsletter.