For Irina Volodarskaya, 50, the decision to leave her native Moscow was simple, though it was a “very long preparation.”
“To some point it was easy,” Volodarskaya said, because she had the help of Jewish Family Services, who “prepared an apartment” with food and furnishings for the family. Since then, her brother and his family have also moved to Shorewood, as well as her aunt.
“My family is doing well here,” Volodarskaya said.
Before she moved to Shorewood in November 2000, Volodarskaya said she faced anti-Semitism and increasingly difficult economic changes that made it hard to manage her daughter’s diabetes.
Many Jews from the Former Soviet Union moved to the U.S for these and other reasons, beginning about 25 years ago, with another large wave starting in about 1989, after the collapse of communism.
The largest concentrations of these Jews, according to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article by Rachel Pomerance from March 30, 2004, reside in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Madison and Kansas City.
In Milwaukee, JFS has served about 5,000 Jews from the Former Soviet Union, helping them settle and find jobs, over the past 25 years, according to Lena Vusiker, the agency’s resettlement director.
Many of the Jews from the Former Soviet Union left behind careers and relatives when they came to Milwaukee. The following are stories about several of these immigrants who have made the city their home as they have built new lives for themselves and their families.
Irina Volodarskaya
“It’s very difficult,” said Volodarskaya, mother of Maya, now 13, “to raise a child in a country without order, without something to move them forward.
“Some people couldn’t understand [why we left]. We couldn’t move. We couldn’t travel. We had to do something. Life became worse and worse.”
In Moscow, Volodarskaya, 50, worked as a pediatrician, a job that sometimes required her to work 24-hour shifts, but only brought in a salary equivalent to about $50 per month.
She said she had to work an additional “two to three jobs” at a time in order to be able to afford her daughter’s medical supplies, which she had to buy in American dollars
Volodarskaya came to America with only her mother and daughter, knowing only her brother’s old school friend, “who agreed to help us settle.”
Once in Shorewood, Volodarskaya took English classes at Milwaukee Area Technical College and began to ask herself, “What opportunities did I have here?”
She was able to transfer some of her medical education to a nursing program at MATC, from which she graduated in December 2004. As of March 1, Volodarskaya is a registered nurse.
“I can use my previous experience,” she said. “Everyone asks, ‘You were a doctor, why don’t you go back to school?’ I don’t have time for [medical] school” again. “I didn’t want to be a resident. You can only do it one time in your life.”
However, said Volodarskaya, she continues to “work hard — and I take any opportunity to learn and study something new.”
Svetlana Ragozin and Irene Valler
Svetlana Ragozin, 49, and Irene Valler, 54, remember when they opened their store, International Food, in Shorewood 11 years ago.
“We remember how we opened right around [Passover],” Ragozin said.
Ragozin, from Minsk and Valler, from Odessa, met in 1989 in an English class at MATC.
Both decided to move from the former Soviet Union in 1989, because, as Ragozin said, “times were different, they were changing.”
They both first decided to move to Shorewood, because the area had “a lot of Russians,” Ragozin said, as well as “very good schools and stores around.” They have both since moved to Mequon.
The pair, along with their husbands and families, became friends, and began to “spend more time together,” Ragozin said.
Though Ragozin had been a civil engineer and Valler had been a teacher, in America, they had to pursue other work. For their first few years in the country, “we were both manicurists, but at different places,” Valler said.
After a while, after learning about their new home, the pair began to look “to do more,” Valler said.
“I cook a lot,” Valler said. “In Russia, everybody likes to cook and make their own recipes,” Ragozin said.
After talking it over, she said, they “thought about bringing a new store to Milwaukee” that would feature Eastern European food.”
Since the store opened in 1992, it has expanded to offer everything from food, to Russian books, CDs and liquor. Some customer favorites, according to Valler, are Ukrainian borscht, beet salad, cheese pancakes and chicken cutlets.
Ragozin called the store “our small baby who grew up.” Valler agreed. “Now we have a lot of clients, some who stop in every night.”
“Our goal is to get people to try new varieties” of food, added Ragozin. “We like to make people happy.”
Though they spend long hours together at the store, serving customers, baking and cooking, Ragozin and Valler still enjoy doing other things together as well, including shopping, vacations and dinners.
“People see us everywhere together,” Valler said.
Ilya Vernik
Ilya Vernik was hand-chosen to attend military school in the Ukraine so that he could become an officer. In 1939, at age 22, he became an officer and served until 1942, when he lost his right hand in combat.
He also managed a shoe factory in his home city of Odessa from 1932 until he immigrated to Milwaukee in 1979.
Vernik came to the United States with his wife, Gena Vernik, daughter Maya Vernik, son-in-law and grandchildren. Though Ilya and Gena came to Milwaukee to join their son, who had immigrated six months prior, their daughter settled in New York with her children and husband, who had accepted a job offer there.
After arriving, Vernik moved into the Golda Meir House on Prospect Avenue, where he later served as president for two years. He admits that the transition into American life was difficult at first because he was unsuccessful in finding work and his wife was sick.
Seven years after their immigration, Gena Vernik passed away. In an attempt to pass the time, Vernik immersed himself in a multitude of activities, including volunteering at the Mt. Sinai Hospital gift shop for two years, studying English at MATC and eventually teaching English to a group of senior citizens. (“At the same time I was learning the language.”)
He also developed a reputation as a performer, singing solo and participating in many singing and theater groups. Today, at age 87, he performs with a volunteer musical group called Tumbalalayka, which performs songs in Yiddish, Hebrew, English and Russian, many with Jewish and American patriotic content.
For his dedication, Verlik has received the Kesselman Senior Service award six times.
Overall, Verlik is pleased with his present life in Milwaukee, as he maintains a close relationship with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and both American and Russian friends in the Jewish community.
“Everyday I meet so many nice people that are talking to me and asking me questions,” he says, “I feel that I’m not getting older, but that I’m getting younger.”
Svetlana Sherderovich
Although she admits that the language barrier is somewhat of a problem, Sevetlana Sherderovich is “happy we’re in America.”
Sherderovich emigrated from Moscow in November 1991 at age 58 with her husband, Ilya Sherderovich, daughter and grandson.
Sherderovich and her family moved directly to Baltimore, Md., from Moscow, but migrated to Milwaukee to join cousins who had already settled here.
Since then, she has been focused on her family. Sherderovich has helped raise her grandson, now a high school senior. She taught him to speak, read, write and translate Russian.
She is pleased with the way her daughter, son-in-law and grandson have flourished in America. “They find a place in this country. They have friends. They became religious people. It makes them happy and me too.”
Sherderovich is grateful for the help she received from JFS upon her arrival in Milwaukee. The service helped her to “understand many problems” that she encountered in America, she says including prepping her daughter and son-in-law for job interviews, finding living accommodations for the family and assisting with “many meetings with official people.”
“American life was very difficult,” Sherderovich explains, “We did not know about American-style life.”
While they lived in Moscow, Sherderovich was a biologist specializing in the influenza virus and her husband was a scientist concentrating on tsunamis.
When they immigrated, Sherderovich and her husband “were too old to work in America.” So they dedicated time to learning the English language. They began by taking classes at MATC for the first two years and now attend lessons every Friday.
“They are very interesting and useful lessons,” she says, although she admits that her language skills are “not enough.”
Her husband, Ilya, has led about a dozen lectures at the Russian Club, a program that meets regularly at the Jewish Home and care Center.
During these lectures, he talked about Jewish history, immigration history and Israel, Sherderovich explained as she displayed geographical posters of Israel in Russian that her husband had prepared for the club.
After spending several years in America, Sherderovich has gained insight into the contrast between her new and old life.
“I think that in America and the Soviet Union there are many problems, but they are different problems,” she says, although she is thrilled with how the last 14 years have unfolded.
“Very often we say ‘God bless America,’” she says.
Irina Yundov
Irina Yundov remembers being bombarded by “off-the-wall, crazy questions,” by her curious peers at school after she emigrated from Minsk in 1979 at the age of 10.
“Yeah, I’m not a barbarian,” she recalls thinking, and now realizes that there was “a lot of propaganda on both sides,” that lead to “a lot of curiosity and a lot of misunderstanding.”
Yundov left Minsk with her mother, father (who now lives in Bayside), and 18-year old brother (who has since moved to San Diego with his family).
Yundov’s family was sponsored through JFS by Beverly and Norman Schuminsky. “They were so generous and so kind,” Yundov says of the Schuminskys, “It’s really tremendous, that kind of dedication.”
According to Yundov, her family acclimated to Milwaukee fairly rapidly and was quick to return the Schuminsky’s support by sponsoring other families.
In Minsk, both of Yundov’s parents were electrical engineers. Her father, thanks to his accelerated English skills, was soon hired at the Astronautics Corporation. Yundov’s mother accepted a job washing dishes at the Hilton Hotel downtown.
Expressing her admiration that she never heard a complaint uttered, Yundov says of her parents, “They had such a tremendous amount of hope, and they were willing to work at any job.” Besides, there was nowhere to go but up,” she says.
Three months after arriving, Yundov’s mother Simma, who had trained herself to decorate cakes, opened Simma’s Bakery.
“I don’t think she even understood how to balance a checkbook…. It was very gutsy,” Yundov said during an interview at the Wauwatosa bakery, which she has run since her mother’s death 12 years ago.
Yundov also earned a bachelors degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in international relations.
“Hopefully I’m carrying on her tradition,” she says of her mother, who taught her that “there’s nothing you can’t have if you work a lot towards it.” The bakery was recently named one of the top 25 bakeries in America.
In fact, because of her mother’s example, Yundov stresses the importance of participating in charity events, because her mother was “always giving back.”
Although Yundov feels that the anxiety of the immigration “robs a little bit of your childhood,” she admits that it gave her a sense of “character…. In retrospect, it gives you a lot of strength,” she said.
From the hard work of her parents, she has learned that “No matter what, I could deal with it, because my parents had to deal with much bigger issues.”
Yundov is grateful for the life that her parents allowed her to lead. “There’s no place like America. There’s no place like home,” she said.
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