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Family Is All That Matters 78 support for her beloved Israel and popularizing the Yiddish language and Yiddish-based culture, Yiddishkeit. Zhenya is happy. This is how she sums up her life: "I make people laugh and cry." Lyubov Braverman Volftsun Lyubov Braverman Volftsun Lyubov, the youngest of the Braverman children, was born in Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine, in 1929. From childhood on, Lyubov Braverman was always cheerful and smiling. No one can ever recall a cross word om her. Not one relative can remember an argument or disagreement with her. Like a magnet, Lyubov attracted people. She was in the middle of everything. Children loved her. Lyubov came om a very theatrical family, and in school she always acted in plays. She was also very artistic, growing up with a deep love for all things Jewish and especially for Shabbat. Most of all, she loved dancing and singing. She had a particular fondness for Gypsy music, but it didn't matter: Russian dancing, Jewish dancing, all was an opportunity to dance. Whenever music was in the background it was hard to restrain her om swaying with the rhythm. Lyubov was terribly impressed that Zhenya became a professional dancer and singer. She would ask her sister to teach her some dancing steps. "When I was taking dancing classes as a little girl, Lyubov would always ask me to show her some moves," Zhenya recalls. "She always wanted to dance, and danced at every opportunity." Lyubov was always thinking of other people. "No one was iendlier than Lyubov," her niece Esfira Grinev remembers. "She liked people. When she went to see a merchant, she wanted to be iends. She established relationships easily. She had four sisters and called them almost every day to find out how they were doing." When she was away om Moscow, she wrote letters nearly every day. Lyubov was a good student at school with a quick mind. A classmate and eventual relative, Zhenya Moldavsky Spector, has many memories of Lyubov as a schoolgirl. She remembers Lyubov with her face buried in books and always having her lessons prepared. Lyubov was also very willing to help students who were not as diligent as she was. One thing that impressed Zhenya was how respectful Lyubov was. For example, Lyubov visited her grandmother's grave oen. This made a big impression on Zhenya, who became Lev Laber's mother-in-law. Lev Laber is Lyubov's nephew (the son of her eldest sister, Klara). One of her most outstanding gis was her ability to listen. "She was an excellent listener," Boris Grinev, Esfira's husband, recalls, "with an uncanny ability to invite people to talk to her." A related trait was Lyubov's ability to start conversations with people on the street; this approachability helped her with languages, which she was very quick to pick up. Lyubov never had an enemy in the world; everyone just wanted to be with her. Esfira admits that when she was a teenager and needed advice about relationships, she preferred to talk to her aunt Lyubov rather than her own mother. "Lyubov never judged," Esfira says. "She would listen and wait for me to make a decision. She rarely offered advice, but if she did, it was usually the best solution." As the youngest child, Lyubov had the advantages that come with having older brothers and sisters. But it was also a lonely life, as her siblings were older and far away. Years would go by without Lyubov hugging one of her siblings. The situation with her beloved sister Zhenya—who lived in Paris and then Israel— was the worst. The only contact the sisters had was through letters. In Soviet Russia, letters om foreigners were suspicious. Russians who received such letters were presumed to be disloyal and received extra scrutiny om the police. For Iosif, an officer in the Air Force, letters om his sister-in-law Zhenya represented special risks. The family was aware of the risks. They communicated only Above: Lyubov Braverman in Povlovskiy Posad, Russia, 1939.

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