**In the distant pre-war years, in a small [Jewish shtetl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtetl), two pals — Fima (Efim) Drabkin and Leva (Lev) Epstein** — used to run along Invalidnaya Street. They were the same age, though Fima was two months older, and when you’re 10–12 years old, that’s a big difference! Besides that, Fima was much stronger than his “younger” friend and often stood up for him, because Leva was quite a little rascal.

**Then came the war (WW2). One of them was caught in a bombing while evacuating, ended up attached to a military unit, and became a “[son of the regiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_the_Regiment)", he wasn't even 18 when he reached Germany and even get a [Soviet Medal For Courage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_%22For_Courage%22_(Russia))**.

**The other, in 1941 would received his first prison sentence for stealing a loaf of black bread for himself and his mother, by 1950 he will be crowned as a Vor V Zakone (Thief in Law) and took part in a brutal war that happened in the gulags known as [The Bitch Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitch_Wars)**.

**Many years later, they both became very well-known figures, known as Leva Belmo and [Efim Sevela](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efraim_Sevela)**. Fima, too, would later feel the freezing winds of [Kolyma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolyma) after participating on February 24, 1971, in the seizure of the reception office of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. But **Leonid Brezhnev chose to get rid of him by stripping him of his citizenship and sending him into forced emigration — to Paris**!

*Who did that really hurt in the end*?

Later, of course, they met again, and Leva would jokingly tease Fima: “**Why did your gang break into that reception office? There was nothing there except seals and forms. You should have robbed the savings bank instead**!”

Efim was bold, a real whirlwind, he too was an criminal after all, just a political one, a [dissident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_dissidents), If fate had turned out just a little differently, he might have thundered across the entire Union as a legendary outlaw and could have become a Vor aswell. Even after moving to Israel, he managed to fight and shed blood in the [Yom Kippur War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War).

Why am I telling all this? Because whenever the conversation turned to the war (the Great Patriotic War / WW2), Fima never asked Leva why he hadn’t taken up a rifle and gone to fight — because he knew **that for Leva, the Thieves in Law code stood above everything else, and a Thief in Law should never take up arm's**.

*A monument to Sevela was erected in that shtetl, almost in the very center. It’s a pity there isn’t a monument to his pal Leva standing beside him*.

A tale about two Jewish Outlaws (Lev Epstein and Efim Sevela)