This article is part of Unpacked’s Gen Z Voices series, which highlights our readers’ experiences on campus or as recent graduates, cultural commentaries, and reflections on what it means to be Jewish today. Learn how to submit here.
The living room embraces the bright, warm sunshine of California I have grown to love. I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, watching Mama make a fresh batch of oladushki for breakfast, the comforting smells of vanilla and apple swirling around the room. My little brother is re-watching yet another episode of the Soviet cartoon “Kot Leopold,” giggling as the mischievous mice find themselves in another funny situation. Papa sits at the table, reading the news, Cyrillic letters dancing across the paper. Our home is filled with beautifully crafted Soviet rugs, antique vases, and memorabilia, reminiscent of a strange time that is directly at odds with the culture represented by the small Star of David hanging around my neck.
Growing up in the diaspora, I have always known my family to be Soviet Jews; while my parents did immigrate to Israel and later to the United States, their customs and culture are still very much rooted in the USSR. Their Jewish experience became a blend of fragmented customs passed down through generations and the influence of their host country’s culture.
As a result, the first language I learned was Russian, not Hebrew. The foods I eat are a staple in Russia, the movies I watched over and over again growing up were Soviet, and the fables I can recite by heart are the same ones that my parents passed down from their childhoods. To be a Soviet Jew means to be almost Russian — never fully. A little bit Jewish, but not enough to be fully immersed. But as my parents left their homes, they — like many Soviet Jews — built their own definition of what it means to be Jewish, combining pieces of different cultures from around the world to create a beautiful puzzle.
Soviet Jewry: Too Jewish to be Soviet
My parents hail from Moldova, a small country nestled between the sizable terrains of Romania and Ukraine, located in a historical region known as Bessarabia. Although they wouldn’t meet until adulthood, my parents grew up only 55 miles apart from each other, my father in a small town near the Romanian border and my mother in the heart of the country’s capital, Chișinău.
Prior to the Second World War and the establishment of Soviet presence in the 1940s, my grandparents recall the vastly different world their parents and grandparents occupied. One that was virtually destroyed by the USSR.
From the delicious smell of Hungarian Gulyás to the festive sounds of Romanian folk music, my father’s side of my family enjoyed simplicity in their lives and professions, rejoicing in the comfort of their tight-knit community. My great-grandfather made a living as a photographer, welcoming a large town into his small, yet homely, studio that sufficed enough for him to pursue his hobby. Crossing the grand expanse of the Danube River into Moldova, my mother’s family dominated the business scene, establishing a reputation for operating many groceries in the colorful streets of Bessarabia, serving people who always took the opportunity to help each other through any situation. Throughout my childhood, I had the privilege of flipping through old photo albums, marveling at every snapshot that captured a story of what once was.
Growing up in the Soviet Union, my parents never learned much about Judaism or Jewish culture. On both sides, my great-grandparents knew and spoke Yiddish, but kept the language between themselves to truly assimilate into Soviet culture.
I know my great-grandparents by the names they claimed in the Soviet Union. People who were once known to loved ones as Yehudah, Avram, Yehezkiel, and Chaya became Yasha, Arkady, Mikhail and Clara. The past was a mere memory, and my ancestors now had the duty of forging new identities to provide the best for their children and grandchildren amid the harsh Soviet reality.
While Jewish people in the Soviet Union preserved their identity in bubbles, those on the outside were well aware of their classification as “others” that didn’t quite belong.
Antisemitism behind the Iron Curtain
Everywhere my parents went, a clear mark of their Jewish identity followed. On birth certificates, it was noted whether an individual was Jewish. In schools, teachers had books for writing down notes about students’ behavior, with certain pages demarcated so that it was evident which children were Jewish. Starting at a young age, elementary school children made sure to remind their classmates of their second-class status. Even on a university level, there was an unofficial quota of how many Jewish students could be accepted to maintain a curtain of division within Soviet society. My babushka, who held aspirations of becoming an engineer, had no choice but to attend university in the icy Siberian city of Tomsk — over 3,000 miles away from her beloved Chișinău.
While I live in what seems to be a modernized, progressive Western world, those same sentiments linger. In the U.S., we all stand shoulder to shoulder, meant to live as equals. A nation standing on the purported foundations of freedom, democracy, and equality is now reverting to the same rhetoric that Soviet Jews, and other diaspora Jews had to struggle with. I am witnessing a clash of my two worlds, a divide in the values I have grown to appreciate and the treatment my peers and I are battered with from college campuses to social media. They say history repeats itself, which is all too true for the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles that left behind a repressive society only to see their experiences reemerge in a new form.
Every day, I tread along a delicate invisible string that threads together stories of the past and my experiences in the present. It feels as if my inner monologue never stops, a ping-pong back and forth between the identities that have shaped me.
Defining Jewish identity amid the storm
As a first generation Israeli-American with parents from the USSR, I’m being strikingly honest when I tell my friends I have no clue who I am. I have friends whose parents fully assimilated into American culture, leaving behind the past. I’ve been both blessed and cursed with an overpowering blur of my heritage. My mother tongue is Russian, my practices are Jewish, my favorite music is Israeli, and my comfort shows are all in English. It feels as if I’ve taken a little piece of everything from a table that wasn’t even mine to begin with.
I am so exhausted by explaining my background to everyone I meet that I have resorted to referring to myself as one constant identity, one focal point of this messy story. Though they grew up without much of a guiding light, my parents always made sure to remind me that I should never be ashamed of not feeling Jewish enough. Everyone experiences this identity differently, which is what I have grown to learn. I attended Hebrew school, became a bat mitzvah and got involved with every Jewish activity that I could, just to feel a little bit more connected to a foreign community. Despite a seemingly traditional upbringing (minus going to sleepaway camp), I’m still navigating how to live, not only as a Jew, but as someone with a complicated identity that gnaws at me every day.
Within this storm, I find the beauty of the diaspora experience, cultivated by the range of diverse backgrounds of those I met along the way. The diaspora is like a reunion with extended family. It could be a cousin that you haven’t seen since you were 3, or a great uncle that claims he changed your diaper when you were a baby (he didn’t), yet, everyone is connected by this central celebration of Jewish identity, no matter the country of origin, generation or religious background.
At just 0.2% of the population, we are a stubborn bunch, always returning to a grounded community. I am the product of this tenacious spirit, a collective of my ancestors’ tribulations in repression, marked by the communities shaped in the USSR. I feel the constant presence of this diaspora in my neshama, a deep, ancestral reminder of the pain and sorrow endured, but also the joy and pride of being a member of the tribe.
The unique subset of being a Soviet Jew is a part of my identity that I will always carry with me, regardless of where I live, whether it be in California, the U.S., or Israel. My perspective breaks through the boundaries of simply one identity, paved by new cultures and identities that grew from what was lost. My Jewish experience, while still in the works, is heavily influenced by what is left of a generation from this strange historical experiment.
Though my heart tugs toward Israel, a diaspora identity is a home of its own. A collective of characters written by the stories of their ancestors. Time and time again, despite attempts to extinguish us, the thundering presence of any Jew in the diaspora is a testament to a blazing flame that continues to resist.
Originally Published Aug 10, 2024 02:34PM EDT
