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 Grigory
Gorelik worked at "Vostokmash" factory as a mechanical engineer. There
was no amateur art activities group, but on March 8, Women's Day, male employees
organized a festive show with poems, funny greetings, and quizzes. The poems were
written by Grigory Gorelik. Everybody liked his sincere verses, it was his hobby -
to write birthday greetings, especially for women, as well as parables in verse.
He retired on a pension in 1992, though he could do it five years
earlier. In 1994 Jewish Cultural Center opened in Ust-Kamenogorsk,
and in 2000 - Hesed "Faina" with its theatrical studio "Seven
Forty". The actors began rehearsing Igor Shprits's "Severed Branch"
play, and rumors were spreading: "Gorelik dances and sings there!"
The first night… Grigory Gorelik plays the leading role - he is a factory
accountant brought up in an orphan's home, gentile, but filled with Jewish culture
(to utter delight of his family who dream to live in the Promised Land). And suddenly
he finds out that he has a brother in Israel, a Member of Knesset, and soon they
will meet! The play is full of national colour and humour. Gorelik plays very
naturally, sings, and dances. Though he is 74 years old! Storm of applause. "Bravo"
and flowers. Success! I run up to him: "May I kiss you?", and
not waiting for permission…
But I want to tell about Grigory Gorelik more. He was born in the town of Bobruysk
in 1927. In 1933 his family moved to Chelyabinsk city, where he graduated from
a Machine-building technical school and entered a Polytechnic Institute. His family
was in difficult financial position and he had to work at a tractor factory while
studying by correspondence. He had been an editor-in-chief of a wall newspaper
in technical school, and he continued his hobby at the factory.
Library Literature Club has been working in our Hesed for two years. And as people
"have heard something" about Gorelik's poems, we decided to invite him
to a meeting. But what uphill work it was!
"Absolutely no! How can I be a poet?"
I kept on persuading him: "OK, it'll be a meeting not with a poet, but
with an interesting person. We know you as an actor, not we would like to see
another side of your talent."
Somehow he agreed. The meeting was very interesting, everybody liked his wise
and sincere poems. We wish Grigoy Gorelik sound health and creative power. May
his unordinary talent please the audience for long years. It is nice that our
community has such people!
Fanya Suponitskaya
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