How a Ukrainian Judean Family Came to Practise Falun Gong

Irena and Vladimir are a couple who live with their two children in the south of the garden state of New Jersey in the United States. They are Jewish and were born in Ukraine, they are a first generation of immigrants to the US. Irena was born in Lviv of Ukraine, which was a small town in Poland before being annexed by the former Soviet Union. The following is the cultivation story of her and her family.

A unique child

One could say that Irena’s character had always been special. On buses in Lviv, many undesirable and dirty farmers were avoided; however Irena always looked at them with kindness. She even had the desire to wash them.

As a teenager, she used to follow old women with heavy bags. She would silently lift their burden to help them with the weight. Her mother often told her, “You are truly unique.”

Active, imaginative and an excellent communicator, Irena chose to specialise in media studies at University. Why media? In the former Soviet Union, one could not express oneself freely, especially not with speech which would be considered out of tune with the government and so Irena now had the chance to break away from this restrictive ideology.

After graduation, Irena first worked in a factory as a factory news reporter. Later at a city newspaper she took jobs as a photographer, editor and also in advertising amongst other areas of the paper. Under the communist regime, the government maintained strict control over all media meaning that no photos or stories related to Jews could be printed.

Immigrating to the US as asylum seekers

The fight for profit and harsh reality turned Irena to religion. She often thought about the meaning of life. She was once interested in Catholicism, Yoga and Zoroastrianism.

What is the most important thing in life, she kept asking herself and others, is it love? Starting to read ancient Chinese philosophers, she once even wanted to leave for Tibet to find the answers to her questions. While the trip to Tibet did not go through, her whole family left Ukraine in 1992 to emigrate to the U.S. The main factor that drove them to leave Ukraine, aside from lack of freedom under the government constraints, was for the future of their children. At that time, the Ukrainians stood in long queues for even a piece of cheese, sausages or a glass of milk. Struggling for the necessities of life, people had no time to think. Everything was difficult, there was simply no hope.

With her parents’ support, they emigrated to the U.S. as asylum seekers, where they finally attended a Jewish church. For the first time she could follow her religion publicly. She was very proud of being Jewish, a feeling shared by her husband.

Born in Ukraine, Vladimir has a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from Kyiv University. Since graduation in the 1970’s, his career suffered because of his Jewish origin. Finally he managed to find a job designing biological and medical equipment, such as polygraphs, etc. For more than twenty years he worked in a research institute, surviving merely owing to his outstanding performance in his profession.

After three years of waiting, they finally boarded a plane for the U.S. in 1992. At Moscow airport, however, they were robbed of their luggage and lost almost everything. When they arrived in the US, they had only forty-five dollars left from twenty years of work and savings.

Excited to find a remarkable book

According to Irena, when she was studying at a computer school in 1998, a kind lady often helped her. The lady introduced Irena to a friend of hers who also came from the former Soviet Union and was also very interested in the meaning of life. They then got to know each other and would often meet up and enjoy lunch together. A month later, the lady’s sister called from Washington DC, talking about an interesting book. This was how Irena found the remarkable book, Zhuan Falun.

Upon reading the book for the first time, Irena was very surprised and excited, “This is exactly what I wanted! This is great!” Her excitement unsettled the composed Vladimir. He was concerned that his wife could be wrapped up in some oriental mysticism as he personally would never accept anything so easily.

Perhaps due to his background and experience, Vladimir took an entirely different path to cultivation. Never ruffled, he remained rational and collected. He would always ask “What” or “Why”. Having experienced at first hand Christianity, Judaism, Confucianism and Yoga, he invariably tried to understand the logics behind various religions through talking with people. Vladimir knew that science has its problems but he never imagined that such problems were so serious.

After detailed analysis, Vladimir started to read the Russian version of Zhuan Falun for the first time. Through his own comprehension, he realised that this was something extremely precious. However instead of immediately accepting it, he adopted a staged approach, reading while discussing what he had learnt from the book with other people. There were moments of hesitation, when he did not necessarily agree with what others said, yet through phases of thinking and understanding, his analytical brain of an engineer awoke to the truth. Subsequently, he made up his mind and started to cultivate in Falun Dafa.