By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives
When Malka married Rabbi Nochum Sossonkin, he was 40 and a widower with children. Despite the harsh conditions of Soviet life in the 1940s, Malka helped raise and marry off not only her husband’s children, but also several of his grandchildren and relatives who were orphaned by the religious persecution, famine, epidemics, and war of the period.
Rochel Kleinman, Rabbi Sassonkin’s niece, recalled how Malka welcomed her with open arms when she arrived at the Sossonkin home after her parents’ death.
After the war, in 1946, the Sossonkins and their brood smuggled across the border into Poland. There, they learned that another relative whose husband had died in the Soviet Union had been murdered by a Polish soldier, leaving two young orphans. These two also joined the extended Sossonkin family.
After traveling from country to country, they arrived in Israel four years later. While they were now free to practice their religion, there was not much to eat. “In Paris, we had plenty of food,” Rochel recalled. “In Israel, everything was rationed and limited according to food cards.”
The new immigrants lived in tiny quarters, with the “parents” sharing the little space they had with their adopted children. Despite the lack of privacy, Rochel said, a feeling of calm civility and respect for the elderly Sossonkins permeated the home.
“We may have been young on the passports, but we were much more mature at heart. We knew that these two righteous people were taking care of us the best that they could.”
Rabbi Sossonkin was very thoughtful and calculated in his personal life. Whenever he was served food, he would wait several minutes before beginning to eat, explaining, “When you want to eat a particular food, you need to stop for a moment and not dig in gluttonously.”
At the table, he made a point of telling a story with a positive message. Often, he emphasized that acts of kindness and goodness were for all. A bus driver waiting for an elderly woman to make her way to the bus stop; a police officer greeting someone with a smile, or a random stranger helping to carry someone’s package in the street were all exhibiting divine kindness and mercy. Once, when someone was on the verge of killing a fly, he said, “Be careful, don’t end life.”
Malka Sossonkin, too, made a deep impression on her young charges. “She gave to others and needed little for herself,” Rochel recalled. Though she herself was caring for 9 children without a washing machine, when Malka heard about a family with many children who needed one, she took out a loan to purchase it. “She taught us that if a mitzvah came our way, we should do it with joy.”
On Friday nights, the family typically had one chicken to share between eleven people. Malka, the children noticed, never took a piece for herself. “I do not like chicken,” she would say.
“At one point we made a strike,” Rochel said. “We refused to touch any of the chicken until she took a piece.”
That was the first time in many years that Malka Sossonkin had a piece of chicken.
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Rochel Kleinman is today Rochel Zamir, and has been such for over 50 years. Also R’ Nochum Shmaryahu Sassonkin was NOT her uncle. Rather he HAD been the father in law of her aunt.
Rivky Gurevitz
This made an impression on me thank you for posting positive things
the likes of which I don’t think we have such any more sadly.