Tonight after sundown, surrounded by three generations of their families at tables crowded by matzo, wine and food, Boris Zelkind and Kiva Brook will participate in a tradition that has survived for more than 3,000 years: Passover.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette Boris Zelkind, left, and Kiva Brook were among the half-million Jews who served in the Soviet army during World War II. Click photo for larger image.

The two men share similarities: Both were raised in Orthodox Jewish families in shtetls, or small towns in Belorussia, now Belarus; both served in the Russian Red Army and were wounded during World War II; and both immigrated to the United States about 16 years ago.

And both, like generations of Jews before them in countries around the world, remember years they couldn't observe the festival of freedom or had to do so secretly.

Passover commemorates the Israelites' freedom from slavery in Egypt (Exodus, 12:23). A special text called a Haggadah retells the story and serves as the guide for the special Seder dinners the first two nights for Orthodox Jews and most Conservative Jews, and on the first night for Reform and Reconstructionist Jews.

Until they were drafted into the Russian army during World War II, Mr. Zelkind and Mr. Brook had celebrated Passover each year with family members. They remembered rolling the flour for matzos, their homes full of friends, walking to the synagogue as a family.

That changed as soon as they put on their Red Army uniforms.

They were among the half-million Jews who served in the Soviet army during World War II. As a soldier, there was no way to continue the observance of Jewish law, Mr. Zelkind, 89, said. With war-time shortages, it was hard enough finding bread to eat, much less being able to meet religious requirements.

"You didn't even consider matzo" during Passover, he said.

It worsened after the war.

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin began a series of persecutions against the country's Jews, including arrests, secret executions and a wave of sanctioned anti-Semitism. Jewish organizations and facilities were closed. Both men knew of people arrested simply for baking matzo.

Mr. Brook recalled going to Moscow's main synagogue in the years after the war and surreptitiously swapping flour for baked matzos. It was a dangerous undertaking since Russian secret police kept tabs on people entering the synagogue.

His family always cleaned their apartment of chametz, or any products containing leavening. They kept separate dishes for the holiday, he said, and though the Russian and Tatar families that shared the building's kitchen "saw the dishes, they didn't ask any questions."

Neither his family nor Mr. Brook's had access to a Haggadah; the prayers and stories they told came from memory. Mr. Zelkind said the first haggadah he had was in 1979 or 1980 that had been smuggled in illegally from Israel. Before that, each year he told his daughter the story of the exodus and anything else he could recall about the holiday from his religious upbringing.

"I was still frustrated at not being able to observe the laws" of Passover, he said.

Even after Stalin's death in 1953, it was three decades before Soviet Jews were allowed to express their faith publicly.

"That's why we left such a 'good life' in Russia," Mr. Brook, 83, said. He arrived in America in 1991.

He cherishes the memory of his first Passover in freedom. It was at his daughter's home in Pittsburgh.

"It wasn't like a completely new experience since I was familiar with the traditions from my childhood," he said. "It was a feeling of elation.

"I felt that I can openly feel pride about being Jewish."