Bloch Performing Arts Inc

Introduction & History: 

Rivka Teitel is my Great-grandmother, and a daughter, sister, aunt, or cousin to each of the people behind the letters of We Will Outlive Them… Letters to Rivka from Galicia. Just before the first world war, Rivka fled to the United States of America from Galicia (a part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, and now parts of modern day Poland and Ukraine). Galicia was also an area where many Jews settled during various times in the diaspora.

Moshe Zeider, the voice of these first two letters, was Rivka’s father, and wrote his letters to Rivka while at the end of his life. In his younger years, he had been the Jewish representative for his region of Galicia at Emperor Franz Joseph’s Court of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But as tolerance for the Jewish people lessened, and the empire declined into World War One, the family began to decline as well. In his first letter, Moshe is worried about surviving winter, his wife’s illness, the taxes specifically on Jewish people for existing, his children finding successful marriages, and Israel’s financial antics (one of Rivka’s brothers). Moshe also reveals that their house was burned down, a popular hate crime towards Jewish people at the time. Not long after, Moshe passes, and the subsequent letters are from Rivka’s family members revealing the gravity of their persecution as they try to flee Galicia. A couple years after World War Two, the Soviet Union responds to an inquiry Rivka sent about her family, and they reveal that they were killed in Russian-occupied Ukraine pogroms. 

Though the Zeider family story does not have a happy ending, there is hope. Moshe repeats many times that he wishes his grandchildren to live long, and I’m happy to report they did! My grandpa David, Rivka’s son, is now 96 years young, and his two sisters also lived into their late 90’s. My grandpa told me that Great-Grandmother Rivka’s biggest regret was not being able to bring her family to the United States. So in many ways, these pieces are my way of bringing them here and giving them a voice.

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