immigration

Cutting board with chopped carrots and potatoes for soup

Why I stopped cooking Russian soups – on habits and muscle memory

Food, Personal Essay /

(A version of this appeared in the February issue of my newsletter, the Soviet Samovar.) Winter came late this year — it only properly snowed in early January and I finally felt like I could breathe again. Winter has always been my favourite season, and now I rely on that blanket of snow to, quite literally, blanket my climate anxiety for a few months every year. […]

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Soviet-Jewish Decade Gal Beckerman book

Soviet-Jewish Decade Top 10: When They Come For Us We’ll Be Gone

Soviet-Jewish Bookshelf /

My first selection for the top 10 Russian-Jewish works of the decade is journalist Gal Beckerman’s When They Come For Us, We’ll Be Gone. Published in 2010, the book was — and remains — the first and most comprehensive history of the Soviet-Jewry movement. It won the National Jewish Book Award and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and was named a book of the year by the Washington Post.

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Walking to the site of a Holocaust mass grave in Romanow, Ukraine

On #FirstSurvivor and the Russian-Jewish Holocaust experience

Personal Essay, Soviet-Jewish History /

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day—sharing some thoughts on the Russian-Jewish Holocaust experience. There’s a thread making its way around Twitter about #FirstSurvivors, asking people about the first survivor they ever met. This was my response, which I’m posting here too, with some tweaks, before it disappears into the abyss of updates. Like many Russian-Jews, there is no “First Survivor” in my family, because the Holocaust

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Lost in Immigration: People I Will Never Know

Immigrant Experience, Personal Essay /

This photo was taken a few nights before we left the Soviet Union forever. To my knowledge, it is the only photo that exists of me with all my (at that time living) grandparents. That’s them, in the front row. My paternal grandmother, then my maternal grandfather (holding me), and my maternal grandmother next to him with my cousin. My parents are the two people

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Canadian Soviet flag mash-up symbolizing Canadian diversity advertising

No Air Canada, I don’t want a Russian flag on my face

Immigrant Experience /

On my mind this week is Canadian diversity advertising, brought to you by this Only-in-Canada spot from Air Canada that aired during the Olympics, called “Our Time.” Per the accompanying press release, “The ad portrays the values of multiculturalism, compassion and equality that make Canada a role model for the world.” It’s got all my favourite parts of stock Canadiana (and let’s admit, yours too)

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Russian bukvhar from 1970s

Russian Bukvar for beginners – How I almost didn’t learn Russian

Immigrant Experience, Soviet Life /

I wrote a bit last time about one of my ‘immigrant identity crisis’ vignettes that I shared at the Limmud retreat. But it started with an assignment, to bring an artifact, or object, from home about our Russian-Jewish heritage. When you and your childhood home are separated by over 3,000km, digging up an acceptable artifact – Was it interesting enough? Too trite? Russian enough? Too

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