Since I often write about the overlap between Soviet food and Jewish life/food, I started thinking about how Jewish holiday foods may have started to develop in the Soviet Union, had it been permitted — much like it has here in North America. Since zakuski — appetizers — are such an important part of the Russian celebratory table, I developed these mushroom savoury hamantaschen, with […]
My second pick for the top Soviet-Jewish works of the past decade is Yiddish Glory: Lost Songs of World War II, which has completely changed what we thought we knew about how Soviet Jews made sense of the war. Its significance cannot be overstated.
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.
Soviet-Jewish Decade Top 10: When They Come For Us We’ll Be Gone Continue Reading
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
On #FirstSurvivor and the Russian-Jewish Holocaust experience Continue Reading
It starts, as these things so often do, with food. My (non-Jewish) partner and I, recently reunited after a short separation, in the sad bachelor apartment where he had temporarily landed. Where familiar lonely kitchen things still glared at me woefully, bereft of their mates that had landed up in my kitchen. Where we bumped into each other, all corners and angles and elbows still
Stumbling into Syrian cuisine while searching for a Soviet-Russian seder tradition Continue Reading
Early in January, I spent a weekend at a planning retreat for Limmud FSU Canada (it’s the first ever Limmud FSU in Canada, and yes, expect to hear more from me about it soon). We were all asked to bring an artifact that spoke to our Russian selves, and as part of the identity-digging activity that accompanied the artifacts, I ended up writing a series
*Updated at bottom Excuse me while I continue to geek out on Soviet government memos… As I flip through, I’m continually amazed at the level of specificity in these memos, and to realize that “Big Brother” genuinely read all letters received from North American activists and government officials. (Paging Amnesty International.) We like to complain that the government doesn’t listen to us (even as we
My KGB file – Yes, there was probably a file with my name on it Continue Reading
1980. I was just barely two years old, but already a stateless refugee when my family arrived in Canada that winter. Six months earlier, we’d left the Soviet Union, travelling first to Vienna and then, by train, Rome. That year, we were among the 50,000-odd Jews who’d been permitted to leave the USSR. We were part of a wave of emigration that took place between