Yankel Ochsenberg, poor Jewish boy of nineteen, married a seventeen-year-old Jewess in Warsaw. A few months later he was arrested by the Russian police, accused of stealing, and was sent to prison.
That was twenty-five years ago.
Revolution came on the heels of war. Poland became an independent State. Yankel disappeared. His wife mourned him as dead; devoted herself to the son born when Yankel was in prison.
Recently Mrs. Ochsenberg read in a Polish newspaper that Yankel had become admiral of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
She confirmed by letter that the admiral was her husband, now married again and father of two children.
She wrote to Yankel, demanding a divorce according to Jewish rites. Yankel, Bolshevist and atheist, refused. His wife, a good Jewess, refused a civil divorce.
Last week Yankel received a letter from a Warsaw Rabbi: “If you do not divorce your wife according to Jewish rites no Rabbi will say prayers over the grave of your old father when he dies.
Yankel telegraphed back: “I agree.” Now he is on a pilgrimage from Odessa to Moscow to obtain a Jewish divorce for his father’s sake.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
