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 […]
[Editor’s Note – Want to read this in Russian? Click here to read a translation of my Q+A on Booknik.ru] Memoirs about Soviet-Jewish life during the immigration period of the 1970s and 1980s have not yet saturated the memoir genre, so I’m excited to tell you about a new book that’s just come out this month. Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story is the second memoir by writer
Leaving Russia: An interview with Maxim Shrayer on his new memoir Continue Reading
I spend a lot of time downloading Facebook photos, uploading them to an email and sending them to my parents, where, I suspect, they will sit for all eternity in their inboxes. We, like most families, used to have albums, but now we have attachments we will never find again. As usual, we have an extra layer of “how immigrants keep in touch” on top
With so many ways to keep in touch, let’s never talk again Continue Reading
I forgot the word for helicopter the other day. For the rotor, actually. And I didn’t forget so much as remember it in the wrong language. My brain froze up and then offered me nothing but a very Russian “vyertolyot“. The end result is that I have a toddler who will never know what those non-airplane things in the sky are called. I actually have
Apparently, there are words I still don’t know in English. Like apron. Continue Reading
*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
A very long time ago (in internet years), I had a Twitter conversation with blogger and general funny girl Vicki Boykis (@vboykis) about our attitudes towards Russian tchotchkes. The original link is dead, but it was probably something along these lines. Her response was an unequivocal “yea,” while I was firmly on the “ugh, why?” side. (Need another example of Vicki’s interesting love for things
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