To Be a Soviet Jew
Well…
It means pulling a used Christmas tree off a neighbor’s curb to use as your New Years tree a week later.
It means having that same tree taken down when an American Rabbi tells your parents they’ll get you confused about religion.
It means buying one for your mother as an adult because she misses it and you both feel nostalgic for the warmth it created in your home.
It means being told to cut pork out of your diet, and so you do, except for all the Russian dishes that you “didn’t know” had pork in them, gasping when someone tells you, and taking a proper 1.5 (poltara) month break before coming back to kalbasa.
It means teaching your parents about G-d and religion as a child. They weren’t allowed to practice, but you were handed a Siddur in first grade and automatically became the authority on prayers every Shabbat.
It means making your parents feel guilty when they disobeyed the rules you learned in Hebrew School. Rules they’d never heard before.
It means learning to doubt G-d in a way that American Jews don’t because when your government lied to you and your family for generations it also became more difficult to trust your religious leaders.
It means arguing that Santa, or as you know him, Ded Moroz, does exist. The American Jews on your school bus will always end the argument by questioning your Judaism.
It means drinking tea instead of saying after meal prayers.
It means playing ABBA at your Bar/Bat Mitvah, your wedding, and every other social occasion because all the refugee families got an ABBA Gold CD in their “Welcome to America” package.
It means slowly losing your Russian over years of time. Practicing with your grandma, but knowing that your children will grow up without it. Feeling guilt because you broke the chain.
It means understanding that you and your family’s prejudices were oftentimes a necessity for assimilation. Spending your life trying to get rid of them. Understanding that you’ll never fit in anyway.
It means being ostracized at Chabad for not knowing all the prayers. It means being celebrated by Chabad for your shared roots with the Rebbe.
It means being unsure of what’s an Eastern European superstition and what’s a Jewish one. It means being scared of both.
It means being made fun of for bringing Borsch to Jewish day school after being told that you’ll fit in “better” here.
It means being in service of a culture that raised you and yet you’re losing more of every day.
