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Paul and Yurika Golin

Interviewed by

Biography

Paul Golin was born and raised in Staten Island, New York. His maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors, who immigrated to the United States shortly after World War II. His father came from a Ukrainian Jewish family, who immigrated to the United States in the 1880s. Paul attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and then moved back to New York City. He lived in the East Village for fifteen years before moving to Park Slope, Brooklyn with his wife, Yurika, where they had a son named Elliot. He worked at the Jewish Outreach Institute, an organization for unaffiliated and interfaith families.

Yurika Golin was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She moved to New York City when she was 23 years old to attend Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn and later Baruch College in Manhattan. She lived in the East Village for nine years before moving to Park Slope, Brooklyn with her husband, Paul, where they had a son named Elliot. She worked as a flight attendant with Continental Airlines and United Airlines.

Interview Highlight

"Right before my bar mitzvah, when I was hating the studying, I was 12, and I already knew that I was, at the least, agnostic -- I kind of yelled at her, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t believe in God.” And she said, “Well, I don’t either, and you’re going to do it.” And it was really interesting to me because at that point and for the rest of her career she had already dedicated herself to working as a Jewish communal professional in the Jewish Community Centers movement. And I knew that being Jewish and being part of the Jewish community was very important to her.

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Identifier: 2011.019.052
Date: August 16, 2013
Duration:
Citation: Oral history interview with Paul Golin and Yurika Golin, 2013, 2011.019.052; Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations Oral History Collection, 2011.019; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Language: English
Interview Abstract:
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