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The First Russian-Hebrew Dictionary

Object Day Berlin: Anatol Benjamin Schapiro

“Show us your story!” – Beginning in 2017, the Jewish participants in the Object Days project have answered this invitation by recounting their migration stories.

a young man holding a blue Russian-Hebrew dictionary.

Anatol Benjamin Schapiro, born 19 June 1994, in Dillenburg, Hesse.
Parents emigrated from Moscow in 1992.
Studies social sciences at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme

My great-grandfather was a general in the Red Army. When the war started, he was assigned to evacuate military factories and rebuild them in Siberia. This allowed him to take his whole family there to safety. His daughter, my grandmother, gave me the first Hebrew-Russian dictionary, published in 1963. It was written by my great-grandfather and dedicated by him to my grandfather. I learned Hebrew with this dictionary. In 2013 I went to Russia for a year to study Talmud at the Yezhiva. The book has served me well there.

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