“Many years ago, I went to put up a mezuzah in the home of a family who was new to our community—Boris and Mary Kryss,” recalls Rabbi Sholom Goldschmid, founder and director of Lubavitch Center for Russian Jewry in Philadelphia. “When I went inside, I was surprised to see a large portrait of the Rebbe hanging in the living room. I didn’t understand the connection. Later, when we became close, I pieced it all together.”
Who is Boris and how did he come to have this picture of the Rebbe?
‘Berdichev Runs in My Veins’
Born in 1950, Boris Kryss grew up in Berdichev, one of the most Jewish cities in the former Soviet Union, where Yiddish was one of the official, recognized languages.
Before the Communist Revolution, there were close to 100 synagogues in the city, and half of the city’s population was Jewish. The Soviet regime prohibited all religious observance, and so, with time, Jewish life diminished. An estimated 20-30,000 Berdichev Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, and by 1946 only 6,000 Jews remained in the city.
Despite Communism’s attempts to strip them of any vestige of their heritage, Berdichev’s Jews held on to their identity and their language, speaking Yiddish, celebrating holidays, and baking matzahs. Boris remembers growing up with one big synagogue where Jews from all walks of life came to connect to their heritage.
“My maternal grandparents were deeply religious. My grandfather wore a long caftan and put on tefillin every morning. The atmosphere in their home was permeated by faith. I remember, as a child, I was fascinated watching them observe many religious rituals.”
Boris left Berdichev to enroll in the Kamianets-Podilskyi Higher Military Engineering Command School. He graduated in 1973 and served in Belarus.
In 1982, he married Mary, and shortly thereafter the couple welcomed two daughters. The family was assigned to move to Siberia, where Boris served as an officer in the Soviet Army and Mary worked as a doctor. Nevertheless, their Berdichev roots continued to illuminate their lives. Despite great risk, they always observed Passover and had matzahs shipped from Berdichev to Siberia. “I saw the barracks they were preparing for the Jews,” Boris recalls. “They were planning to deport all Jews from the Soviet Union to Siberia.” Still, they held tight to their heritage and kept a mezuzah from Boris’s great-great-great-grandfather, who immigrated from Czechoslovakia to Berdichev in the early 1800s.
Boris spent his career in the Soviet Army. He was promoted several times and, in 1990, retired with the rank of Major. After his retirement, the family settled in Zhitomir, a city near Berdichev.
“When I was growing up, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev was always the true pride of the city. We kids knew him as a great sage and miracle worker. After his passing in 1809, the Jews of Berdichev decided that there would never again be another Chief Rabbi of the city. There were many rabbis afterward, but none was ever given the title of Chief Rabbi. Even after his death, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak remained Berdichev Chief Rabbi.
“We all knew exactly where Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was buried in the old Jewish cemetery. Before the war, a small structure stood over his gravesite, where Jews gathered to pray. When I was young, I often rode my bicycle to the cemetery. My friends and I would go there to visit the resting place of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, whose memory remained alive in the hearts of the Jews of Berdichev long after the Jewish community itself had been nearly destroyed.
“In 1991, one of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s descendants, Reb Tzvi, who had traveled to Berdichev to visit the gravesite of his righteous ancestor, approached my father, David, who was at the synagogue that day to say the annual Kaddish for his father. Reb Tzvi confided in my father his dream to build a tomb at the gravesite so that Jews would once again have a proper place to pray.
“My father, David Kryss, was always deeply devoted, connected to his heritage and his hometown of Berdichev, where he was born in 1927. In 1949, he married my mother, Raisa, and soon I was born, followed by my sister Irina. My parents made sure I had a bris on the eighth day, in accordance with Jewish law. It is impossible to explain the extreme risk and dedication it took for my family to arrange that. This was in 1950, the time when Stalin was mercilessly hunting down religious Jews.
“When Reb Tzvi came to town in 1991, my father was working as a supervisor for dental technicians for the entire county. He had a serious job, but when he heard about the plan to honor Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, he quit his job and agreed to undertake the project. A local Jewish architect, Leonid Mushitski, prepared the design. My father devoted himself entirely to the project, spending virtually twenty-four hours a day overseeing the construction, and within a few months a beautiful memorial was completed.”
“Right as the project was being completed, travel agent Nachman Elbaum flew from New York to Berdichev. He asked my father to help organize an event for the Skverer Rebbe and his chassidim, who were traveling to the newly erected gravesite of the Berdichever Rebbe. About 2,000 people were expected to arrive! My father reached out to many residents, asking them to host the guests, and a huge tent was set up on the riverbanks.
“The Skverer Rebbe and his chassidim arrived in dozens of buses. We welcomed them in Berdichev and afterwards took them to Uman and Medzhybizh.
“At the same time, the Vice President of the Orthodox Union brought with him the first new Torah scroll to enter the Soviet Union after many decades.
“It was an extraordinary event. My father had the honor of carrying the Torah scroll into the synagogue during the dedication ceremony. The Jews of Berdichev rejoiced as thousands gathered in the synagogue. It became a true celebration of the revival of the Jewish community of Berdichev and the surrounding region.”
Ramping Up Jewish Activities
“I wanted to help my father and got directly involved in the rebuilding of Jewish life. That same year, 1991, a rabbi came from Israel and taught me how to build a kosher mikvah. I completed the construction exactly according to his instructions. At that time, many Jewish visitors continued arriving in Berdichev and the mikvah was put to good use.
“Rabbi Shmuel Plotkin, an emissary of the Rebbe newly sent to help rebuild Jewish life in Berdichev and Zhitomir, reached out to my father. My father helped him establish a Jewish school; the teachers were young rabbis from Israel, the United States, Canada, and even Australia.
“My father remained in Berdichev to help with many projects, while I went to help with Zhitomir's Jewish community. All of the events in Berdichev were held in the synagogue (which was repaired for the first time since WWII after the fall of the Soviet Union), but in Zhitomir I had to find a space. We rented a hall from the city’s chess club where we gathered for classes and events.
“To gain more knowledge, and to acquire books, kosher food, and other religious items, I often went to Moscow to visit Rabbi Berel Lazar.
“Rabbi Lazar asked me to organize a big Lag BaOmer celebration. I rented a park, a circus(!), and many buses to bring Jews to Moscow from all over the region. As the event drew nearer, the weather forecast predicted a heavy downpour for the exact date and time of the celebration.
“I called the Rebbe’s office in New York. I explained that everything had been organized for months, but now it looked as though rain would ruin the celebration. I was told to wait and see what the Rebbe would say.
“I waited a long time, over 30 minutes. Eventually, I was given a message that the Rebbe wanted us to continue with the plan, with the reassurance that in every city that is preparing a Lag BaOmer celebration, there will be good weather.
“With the Rebbe’s blessing, I continued with the preparations. I trusted that all would work out, and despite the rain, I sent the buses for the people. Miraculously, when the buses arrived at the event, the weather cleared up and the sun shone brightly. The celebration took place with great success. As the last bus was leaving, the rain resumed.
“One woman approached me and asked: ‘Can you explain this to me? Is this really because of the Rebbe?’ I reassured her that the Rebbe gave us a blessing, and so it all came to be wonderful.
“Later, in Berdichev, we organized another major event. A mohel came from Israel to the hospital where my father had once worked. We were given an operating room in which about 10-15 circumcisions were performed that day. There was tremendous interest among Ukrainian Jews who had discovered their Jewish roots and wanted to enter the covenant of the Jewish people by having their sons circumcised.
“We also organized programs that enabled Jewish children from Chernobyl to spend the summer in Israel at Kfar Chabad. After the nuclear explosion, the Rebbe directed that the children be taken out of the danger area.
“There was one rather ‘adventurous’ milestone that I will never forget. Rabbi Berel Lazar asked me to drive a ‘mitzvah tank’ (a minivan decorated with Jewish symbols) and offer men the opportunity to put on tefillin. During my route, a policeman stopped my car and immediately arrested me.
“I was taken to the police station. When asked about my role in the strange driving mission, I explained that I was a retired officer of the Soviet Army and an active soldier in the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Imagine the confusion and the humor of that answer! Indeed, they were very confused and, after checking my official army record, let me go.”
The Mysterious Portrait
Today, Boris and his family reside in Philadelphia and are prominent members of the Lubavitch Center for Russian Jewry, established by Rabbi Sholom and Malky Goldschmid.
When Rabbi Goldschmid first visited the Kryss home, not knowing their history, he was surprised to see a large portrait of the Rebbe hanging in the living room.
How did it get there?
In 1991, Boris was invited to participate in a delegation to meet the Rebbe in the Crown Heights. As a gift, he commissioned a portrait of the Rebbe to present at the meeting. Yet, due to legal issues relating to international travel, the portrait remained with Boris. When the Kryss family immigrated to the United States, they brought the portrait with them. Boris intended to travel to New York and present the gift to the Rebbe.
Unfortunately, by the time the new immigrants could travel out of state, the Rebbe had passed away. Today, this portrait serves as a testament to all the work that the Rebbe inspired in the former Soviet Union. It hangs in the living room of the Kryss' house. “We feel that the Rebbe is part of our family and our story,” says Boris.
A Mystery Is Solved
David Kryss immigrated to Israel in 1991. Despite his age, he wanted to continue to live a productive life and opened a travel agency specializing in trips to the former Soviet Union, including Berdichev and other cities where tzaddikim are buried.
Years later, there was a suggestion that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was not actually buried at the site where the memorial was built. But David was able to reassure those involved that he remembered exactly where the site was from before the war, and that the memorial had been built in the correct location.
In 2019, he was proven correct when local Berdichev rabbi, Moshe Shmuel Tahler, renovated the floor of the memorial built by David and discovered the original gravestone of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak.
In a 2020 interview in Be’er Sheva, David repeatedly identified himself as, “Ich bin David von Berdichov” (“I am David from Berdichov”), explaining that his family had been native to Berdichev for four generations and that the holy city flowed through his veins.
“As a young boy, I remember Torah classes being held in the synagogues between Minchah and Maariv. Jews flocked to the prayers and daily classes. Hundreds of Jews would come to pray at the grave of the tzaddik.
“I remember that before the war, the Jews of the city poured concrete over the grave of the tzaddik to protect it from destruction and looting.
“After the war, people returned. Refugees gathered and came to pray in the ancient and sacred synagogue where Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev prayed. The building had suffered extensive damage, and I was able to obtain funding to renovate it inside and out. During the renovation, I even discovered an old mikvah pit.
“The Communist regime permeated the reality of that time. Jews of the city knew that the grave of the righteous man of Berdichev had been covered with a large concrete slab before the war. We really wanted to remove the slab and re-erect the tent on the exact spot where it had stood before, but the authorities did not approve it.
“I remember well how, throughout all those decades, we would stand and pray at that concrete slab that measured around 15 meters by 15 meters. On it, a simple tombstone was placed.”
Father and Son: Deeply Devoted Until the End
David Kryss passed away at the age of 95, in Be’er Sheva, on March 5, 2023. His funeral was attended by the Chabad rabbi who traveled from Berdichev, military officials, many prominent rabbis, and government officials.
David Kryss, a Jew who lived nearly 100 years, saw much destruction, yet he also witnessed a miraculous testament to the resilience and eternity of the Jewish people.
David considered his greatest accomplishment not only the revival of Jewish life in Berdichev, but also the family he helped build. His descendants faithfully observe the Torah and live according to Jewish law and tradition.
“My father always felt proud of his decision to help Reb Tzvi and build an Ohel for the Berdichever Rebbe. Although we have no family ties with the descendants of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, over the years they have become like family to us. For we, the Jews of Berdichev, are forever connected to each other and to the tzaddik.”
