Word: pinsk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...libertarians in the U.S.S.R. and other Communist countries were taking Helsinki seriously-or acting as if they were. According to a tale that has been repeated with local variations in virtually every Communist country in Europe, a grandmother goes to the police station in Pinsk and requests permission to visit her sister in The Bronx. The policeman just shakes his head. The old lady then pulls out of her string shopping bag the tattered pages from Pravda reproducing the text of the Helsinki agreement. "It says here, young man, on page 3, section A-Contacts and Regular Meetings...
...ordinary carpenter, am actually on my way to the Holy See to meet the Pope." "Don't forget," retorted her assistant, "carpenters have a special standing there." Now that Mrs. Meir has written her memoirs, this image of the Yiddisher mama as world figure-"I, Golda Meir, from Pinsk, Milwaukee and Tel Aviv"-dominates. The progress of that pique remains a compelling narrative...
...carpenter's daughter started life in pogrom-ridden Russia. The family was nonreligious but proud of its Jewishness. God did not choose the Jews as his people, the young Golda decided; rather, the Jews chose God: "The first people in history to have done something truly revolutionary." From Pinsk the Mabovitches emigrated to Milwaukee. At the Fourth Street School, still standing in the shadow of a brewery, Golda learned English to complement the Yiddish spoken at home and the Hebrew she would later speak with an accent. She yearned to become a schoolteacher, but Labor Zionism exerted a stronger...