Viktor Shel

Stories Told by an Old Jew Viktor Shel

The collection of short stories "Stories Told by an Old Jew" has 10 different stories describing the events happened from 1948 to 2000 year. Just two stories in the book directly connected to a biography of the author. Rest of the stories are fiction based on a life of people in the Soviet Union and life of immigrants from the Soviet Union in the United States. Author hopes that reading of these stories would help to understand the wish of the Soviet Jews to leave the Soviet Union in search of free life at the West Events described in first five stories had the place in the Soviet Union. The story "Vilen Youth" show experience of a young boy living in an ordinary apartment building in the city of Odessa, who first fell in love and faced with the death of a close friend. The story of "Purim" described feelings of the young Jewish man at a time of persecution of Jewish doctors in 1953. Five stories describe a life of immigrants. Worries of a recent immigrant looking for a first job in a new country showed the story of "First steps". A life of elderly immigrants is in story "Nothing New". Immigration from the Soviet Union sometimes brought tragedies to a life of young people. The story "The True Jewess" described the situation when young couple faced with a necessity of parting because one of them had to immigrate with his parents to Israel. The book consists of different stories written at a different time but connected with a fate of Jewish people from the Soviet Union.