Migrant from Leningrad found resilience and optimism in humanity

ROBERT DESSAIX: Michael (‘Misha’) Ulman was an ‘unrepeatable’ human being who found a unique way to be Russian, a Jewish migrant from Leningrad and erudite

MICHAEL ULMAN (Misha, as he was known to everyone), who died in Sydney on June 13, was an “unrepeatable” human being, as he once said of a Russian writer he was close to. Michael found a unique way to be Russian, a Jewish migrant from Leningrad and erudite. He also found a distinctive way to make our reading and our daily lives feel subtly, even quirkily, more abundant.

Think of Michael and think of books, shelves crammed with Russian books with a potent smell of Russian paper and Russian ink. Trunkfuls of them had followed him from Leningrad to Israel when he emigrated there with his family in 1972 in the first wave of Jewish migration from the Soviet Union, and then from Israel to Sydney two years later when he took up a position in the School of Russian at UNSW. He was quite a catch.

FULL STORY Migrant from Leningrad found resilience and optimism in humanity (SMH)

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JONATHAN COLEMAN: TV and radio presenter with jovial and genial personality (SMH)

Jonathan Harry Coleman, born February 20, 1956 in Hackney, East London of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, was turning heads from his earliest days in the workforce. Voice impressionist Keith Scott remembers being summoned, in June 1977, to a recording session for the Sydney advertising agency which employed the 22-year-old apprentice copywriter.

Photo: Michael (Misha) Ulman