To trace their family roots, brothers Barry and Robert Slavin recently travelled to Zaporozhye, Ukraine, the birthplace of their late father, Nachum ben Dov Behr Halevi Slavin.
To honour his beloved memory in a lasting and meaningful way they commissioned a beautiful Bimah Cover for the Chabad Synagogue in Zaporozhye. The rich velvet Bimah Cover, with beautiful embroidery and Hebrew dedication, was made by Astra Centre.
Robert Slavin added one clarification after this article went to print: “We were not exposed to any information on the deaths of our grandparents. All records ended in 1917. According to the archivist and Rabbi Ehrentreu the Soviets, and later the Nazis, destroyed all information. It was therefore very unusual for people like ourselves to visit and include residents of Zaporozhye in finding any records of their forbearers prior or post revolution. There were no Jewish cemeteries from that age, although a Jewish cemetery site is demarcated on Google maps, within a field on the outskirts of the city, with many broken tombstone fragments. In other instances, factories and residential developments were built on top of Jewish burial sites.”
