The Long Lasting Journey: Notes of a Wondering Jew

By Leo Pevsner

Over three thousand years separate the exodus of biblical Jews from the land of Egypt and the last wave of Jewish migrants to exit Russia. Today, hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews find themselves in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere. What made them depart this time around? What country are they loyal to? And finally, who is a Russian Jew? The Long Lasting Journey is about a people in quest of a better destiny. The story is written against the backdrop of dramatic political developments in two world superpowers in the second half of the twentieth century. Historical and social conditions of the past century have formed the distinct culture of Soviet Jews - an educated, ambitious, secular, and yet conservative people. For these people, the journey is a cultural integration to a new society - a society with a social order polar opposite from that of their own. It is also about the principle fiber of a people with a split identity. They are deeply rooted in Russian culture but maintain an elusive difference from the Russian majority; they consider themselves Jewish but are essentially distant from Judaism; they carry on an American way of life but their mind-set alienates them from the US mainstream. A mixture of personal divisive experiences, focused observations, and subjective reflections about these people of the last exodus determined the substance of this first person narrative. The Long Lasting Journey outlines the cultural merits left behind in one world and found in another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481744713

Leo Pevsner

Leo Pevsner belongs to a generation of baby-boomers. His lifetime has been divided into two dissimilar parts: Russian and American. This divergence alleviated his understanding of moral basis, cultures, and ethics of these two so distinctive societies. In his book, he depicts Russian speaking immigrants in the US, specifically Jews, their common background, and cultural traits. Over three thousand years separates biblical Jews exited from Egypt from the last wave of Jewish migrants exited from Russia. In present time, hundreds of thousands modern day Russian Jews found themselves in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere. Why did they leave their country of birth? Why people that used to be Jews in Russia became Russians in America? What country are they loyal to? And finally, who is the Russian Jew? This book is about the principled fiber of the people deeply rooted into the Russian culture but keeping the elusive difference from the Russian mainstream; their mind-set also alienates them from the American mainstream. Historical and social conditions of the twentieth century have formed the distinct culture of Soviet Jews – educated, secular, and ambitious. Through the example of his own fortune, the author attempts to describe the divisive experience of these people and observe how their culture melts with an American one. A combination of personal experience, focused observations, and reflections about people of the last exodus determined the substance of this book. Leo holds doctoral degree in marine engineering, has a number of scientific publications in international technical magazines as well as over a dozen of inventions. The area of his business for the last 17 years is Environmental Engineering. In addition to engineering, he has a longtime concentration in History, Genealogy and Judaic studies. He lives in Northern New Jersey with his wife Marina. He works as a Project Engineer in Engineering Consulting firm.

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2013 by Leo Pevsner. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/21/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4472-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4471-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907410

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1.   The Wanderers

1.1 Settler

1.2 Brighton Beach Avenue

1.3 THE OUTLOOK

2.   The Survived Civilization

3.   Tribal Story

3.1 STARODUB’S PALE OF SETTLEMENT

3.2 AMERICAN KINFOLK

3.3 GENERATION OF HARDSHIP

3.4 COMMUNAL LIFE

3.5 EMERGED GENERATION

4.   At The Point Of Origin

4.1 ARGUMENTS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

4.2 BEYOND THE IRON CURTAIN

4.3 PORTRAITS OF THE SOVIET LIVING

4.4 ATTEMPTING TO HUMANIZE

4.5 ATTEMPTING TO REBUILD

4.6 RUSSIA IN SEARCH OF THE NATIONAL IDEA

5.   Departure

5.1 TO GO OR NOT TO GO?

5.2 TWO PEOPLES TOGETHER

5.3 THE FIFTH RECORD

5.4 LOYALTY AND DISLOYALTY

5.5 TO GO!

6.   At The Point Of Destination

6.1 JEWISH ESCAPES TO AMERICA

6.2 CHALLENGES OF THE WANDERER

7.   A Perplexed Identity

7.1 WHO AM I?

7.2 CULTURAL MAKEOVER

7.3 CRISIS OF IDENTITY

References

In memory of my parents, Rebecca and Arnold

INTRODUCTION

I think it was 1997. The crew on the remediation site in one of the New York City boroughs included Poles, Yugoslavians, and the Latino American workers. I was the only one from Russia. I remember lunch breaks when workers chatted about when each of them was going back to their home countries. Some intended to return after earning their American pensions. Others wanted to save enough money to buy a property and return home for good. Everyone was thinking of returning eventually. When it was my turn to share the vision of my future, I said I had no plans to return to Russia. I remember they were astounded. Although that did not mean they would definitely return, in their minds, they had another home… the real one… and they all dreamed of going there.

I did not tell them that I am Jewish. For them, if I am from Russia, I am Russian, no matter who my parents are. Your nation is what your mother tongue is. That is a common understanding of people from many countries, apart from Russia. In spite of this, ethnicity matters there, and the Jews are not seen as Russians in the eyes of others.

After two hundred years together, the greater part of Jews left Russia and moved to Israel, America, Canada, Australia, Germany, and elsewhere. Was Russia a motherland or a stepmother for these people? Which country are they loyal to? What memories do Russian Jews keep of their country of origin and of new places? Why do people who used to be Jews in Russia became Russians in America, and what is their identity? In addition, who is the Russian Jew in America? Many questions but fewer answers.

After many previous ones, another Jewish exodus came about at the end of the twentieth century. Many talented people emigrated. The children they took to new countries, or who were born there, grew up and now lead in technology, industries, medicine, and arts, far from the land native to their parents. Russia has lost them eternally.

Historically, the exodus has been the last resort for the Jewish community to survive the hardship of persecution. Every time was thought to be the last one. Yet, after a few decades or centuries, they have to move with a hope for a better destiny. With migration and new settlement, this nation has had to adjust to new restrictions and even absorb the traits of the local people. Although they remained Jewish, the cross current traditions and religions affected their culture. After receiving his Nobel Prize, a journalist asked Joseph Brodsky, an ingenious poet exiled from Russia: You are an American citizen who is receiving the Prize for Russian-language poetry. Who are you, an American or a Russian? I am Jewish… a Russian poet… and an English essayist, he responded.

Still the confusion exists among the community members about who the Russian Jewish Americans are. Three entirely different cultures input into this new commonness. This observable fact has predetermined the plot of the book.

After much hesitation, I made up my mind with the contemplation that someone bearing this triple identity should attempt to understand who we are. At the outset, I started with my personal story but later redefined it to make a step toward generalization. It was essential to understand how strong our bonds are with Russia, the country where we grew up; about the Jewish heritage, that has never been an important part of our Russian life; and of how effectively we can adjust to the lifestyle and work ethics of the new home country. This book is about the common fortune and identity of Russian-speaking Jews who used to live in Russia but now live in America. It is the notes and reflections of a man who has lived in two diverse societies at the time when these two countries—Russia and America—experienced immense social and political transformations.

In a way, America and Russia are antipodes. My criticisms of Russia are natural. It is a country where I was born, lived through different political times, and still root for anything occurring there. I am able to understand people’s motivations behind social and political changes, although often irrational. In America, it is a different game play, too rational for the Russian soul.

The Russian community is doomed to disappear in a few decades. Mere knowledge of the Russian and Jewish roots will live in our descendents. They will be part of the American mainstream, the same as it was with the immigration wave at the beginning of the twentieth century. The last Jewish migration from the Soviet Union and then Russia lasted about thirty years, from the beginning of 1970s until the end of the 1990s. Comparing the likenesses and differences in these two waves, I find both but the differences are deeper. To realize who the Russian Jews are culturally, their ethnic and social roots need to be understood. The life style, social being, customs and features, and the way Russian Jewish cultural basis developed is described here as episodes of the Soviet civilization that formed the Russian part of my identity. I depicted them in the first face on the backdrop of political and social events in the Soviet Union of the 1960s to the 1980s.

One serious reason for Jewish emigration was anti-Semitism, the inherent policy of the Soviet government and the unfortunate prejudice in certain strata of any society. In the Soviet Union, it was most cynical. The so-called fifth record was a nationality (ethnicity) in the Soviet passport. Exposed in the passport, the fifth record was a black mark for the Soviet Jews, symbolizing the Soviet government supported anti-Semitism. Soviet Jews felt and suffered it mostly after the World War II (WWII) until the USSR collapsed in 1991. The question of Jewish disloyalty to a country of living has always been a milestone in the relations of Jews with other peoples. In the different countries where they lived, Jews were blamed for not fully absorbing the values of the title nation, in other words for being disloyal. I considered this problem from the opposite side of the coin. Based on the historical instances, Jews have always been loyal to the countries where they had an equal opportunity and no persecution but disloyal to those who oppress them.

This book is also about the principled fiber of the people who left Russia for America and who went through challenges of immigration and the identity puzzlement. Some of these people kept their cultural fit, while others altered. Many of them watched the decisive events of recent history both in Russia and in the US at the grave moments. As one of them, I will never forget the spirit of freedom in Russia in August 1991 that I watched in Leningrad, nor will I forget the American tragedy of September 11, 2001 that I witnessed in downtown Manhattan. Events like these are the milestones of a history and affect people’s national moral.

One more subject I would like to bring up at the beginning: Russian is my first language and a few people with whom I shared my thoughts to write the book asked why I do not write it in Russian, my natural language. My answer is associated with the potential readers. Even if my grandchildren speak some Russian, they would not be able to enjoy reading a Russian book because that language for them will have become similar to what Yiddish was for my generation—barely understood but not used or neither understood, nor used, like it was for me.

In addition, I would like that the cultural and national experience collected by the Russian migrants was thought over by different strata of American society, including mainstream and immigrant groups. It is to look for anything in common within our great multi-cultural society. To reach these readers, I thought it better if the book was written in the common language of this country. I, therefore, apologize for my Russian accent.

Few books on the Russian (Soviet) Jewish history of immigration have been published in the US. The topic has thoroughly explored. However, none of the books has been written by a community member or from the first person. This book is an insider’s view and an attempt to understand what we, the people, are.

Most of the Soviet Jews left Russia with mixed and even bitter feelings about the country of birth. The enmity toward the Jews has always existed but why did Jew-hatred grasp Russia so strappingly in the twentieth century? The view on the accusations ascribed to Jews here is the view of not the accusers (includes a few great Russian writers) but the accused.

A reader might have an impression that I see Jewish emigration from Russia as a Biblical Exodus from Egypt. That is not accurate—the reasons and conditions are different. There is no archaeological evidence that the Exodus from Egypt took place in the way it is described in the Bible. Nevertheless, we can see two similarities: both the Egyptian Pharaohs and the Soviet authorities did not want to let the Jews go. The second similarity is both ancient and moderns Jews had a rationale to be free from the oppression. This motivation has always been relevant through history.

There were several medieval legends about the concept of a Wondering Jew, most of them have clearly anti-Semitic connotations. During the period of European enlightenment, the figure of the Wondering Jew was identified primarily with freeing from the established with centuries of a negative image and a struggle for Jewish emancipation in Europe. Emancipated but still hated by many is what Jewish communities are in the modern world.

The book makes no pretence to describe profoundly all aspects of life and the extrinsic activities of the Jewish immigrants from Russia. My personal fortune, typical for Russian immigrants in the US, has mingled with the destinies of many people of the community. I attempt to draw the way of social adjustment of those who grew up in the autocracy and communal living to a completely different individualistic society. Certainly, I also concentrate on Russian Russians who shared the hardship of the Soviet socialism together with Russian Jews for so long. It is even more difficult to draw a cultural line between them as the destinies of these two peoples are interlinked so closely. Yet, the Russian longtime mental tradition sets people of the non-title ethnicity out of the title one. Do not ask me why, it is just given. This is Russia, the country that is very close and distant from me at the same time.

The Long Lasting Journey has been written against the backdrop of the dramatic developments in the second half of the twentieth century. The journey is going on and the only generation of our American-born grandchildren to become native to this land. I want them to know what we renounced in Russia and found in America.

THE WANDERERS

We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out from Egypt with great power and mighty miracles—with terrible blows against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his people.

We saw it all with our own eyes.

Deuteronomy 7:20

1.1 SETTLER

On 28 May, 1996, the Boeing 737 St. Petersburg-New York brought us—my family and me—from Russia to America for good. We all were concerned about our vague future, and even our five-year-old son Boris was agitated by the journey.

We, Russian Jews tired of hopelessness and unfavorable treatment, made a decisive step and flew across the ocean to the United States. We left our country in search of a better life. I used to be an engineer, a researcher at the institute for the marine industry. In post-1991 Russia, both the entire marine industry and the institute were in fall off.

Previously, my identity interested me only as an ethnical pain to me and two more million Jews in the Soviet Union as potential objects for anti-Semitism. I have different thoughts now. My identity is being trifurcated. I am Russian as a carrier of culture and language, a Jew by the blood, ancestry, and mind, and an American by the country where I live and to which I keep loyalty. These three identities compete for precedence. Some people have room for all three Is in the character; other ones just live and do not ever think on this matter. Many immigrants of the last wave (1970-2000) feel perplexed about their national identity. All previous waves wanted to liberate from their past and mentally become Americans sooner. The last wave is different, and I attempted to understand the essence and character of the recent (and not so recent) immigrants from Russia, and to figure how their dissimilar past and present affect them culturally.

Beginning from the 1990s, millions of people from the former USSR have migrated from the country and dissipated throughout the world. Ethnical Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Georgians, and many other peoples left the collapsing empire. About half of the Jewish flow from Russia directed to America and Canada; another big part moved to Israel, and smaller numbers of Jews moved to Germany, Australia and other civilized countries. According to different sources, about seven hundred thousand American citizens and residents have Russian as a first language and at the same time, Jewish ethnicity. Few of the community members emigrated in 1970s and the majority moved in at the end of the 1980s, beginning of the 1990s.

The bigger part of the Russian immigrants in America was of Jewish descent. They formed a new community with the majority of population concentrated in greater New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and a few other areas of the large cities.

The language of this community is Russian, not Yiddish as it was with immigrants from the czarist Russia just a hundred years ago. All in all, this is a noticeable stratum of immigrants in modern America and one of the most successful ones. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union are mainly well educated, used to overcoming obstacles and difficulties, and are gradually becoming more influential in the US.

I start with the story of Eddie, for he was a mental bridge between America and me. To explain what this means, I will give you an example. Imagine an underprivileged life in a deprived country. Someone you know leaves this country for the terra incognita where people are well-off—that was how America was seen in our eyes in the 1970s. Since this someone is as close to you as a brother is, you get a feeling that settling in this land is real and not for only the strong-minded but for the less-determined people like yourself. Your establishment goes even smoother if in your early days, you have such a friend sharing a shot of vodka with you after an unhappy day in a strange land.

We landed in New York JFK airport. Our friends Eddie and Svetlana met us. At that point, they had lived there for sixteen years, were long-time American citizens, and self-confident about the local life, taking to it like a duck in water.

The story of my friend’s Eddie life is exceptional as much as the life of a brilliant individual could be. His entrepreneur talents and natural ability to bring people together provided his success in America. However, the main secret of his achievement was his personality. We know happy stories about the newcomers. Eddie’s story is indicative because it shows great success is still possible in modern America.

I cannot think of my youth without my friends with whom we had so much fun getting together. Eddie was always a leader in our group of peers.

He is late but seared in his friend’s soul. This friendship shaped my youth. I met Eddie when we were sixteen while studying at evening school. These schools were for people who worked in the mornings and continued their school studies at nights. We worked as metalworkers and then went to evening school. Eddie was social and had many friends. We always had something to discuss, whether it was business or social life or the future life or how to make money. We spoke about girls and spending time with them or anything else that teens might be interested in anywhere and anytime. He brought me into the round of his friends who became my friends too.

He was neither handsome, nor well built; nonetheless, he was fantastically popular with the girls. Further, he did not parlor-snake after them; instead, they chased him and called him all the time. The secret of his charisma was in his sharpness; he also was quick-witted and ingenious and could find precisely the relevant words that touched everyone with whom he communicated—so exact and witty his phrases were.

At first, when he showed up in a new group of people, nobody paid much attention to him but once he said his first short expressions, he won their attention and then gradually caught everyone’s interest. He then became the gravitational center of a group, so when people met him next time, he was already everybody’s good friend.

He had a talent to attract different people. His short wording shaped in jokes hit the point that someone had in their mind. That was compelling, and nobody could stay aloof to him. This wonderful ability to charm people with a sense of humor, smartness, and his great entrepreneurial talents were the reasons for his impressive success in business many years later. In all his enterprises, he always kept in mind alternate ways of doing business in case the primary one failed.

When we graduated from high school, each of us went his own way. He entered the Polytechnic Institute and I found myself in the Engineering Maritime School. We often met, and it was even more motivating when we had two girlfriends who befriended to each other. These parties of four were cheerful.

My parents loved him because of his attention to them: every time I went to sea for several months he used to visit them, and his care of them was touching. Vera, my younger sister, I suspected, was secretly in love with him and much later, she confessed to me about it. He always had some fresh ideas like where to spend time, whom to visit, and how to make money. He had different cohorts of people with whom he communicated. Once a year, we visited Leningrad Synagogue (not being religious though) for the Simkhat Torah celebration, where we met many young Jewish boys and girls our age.

These connections were so strong that even now we keep up our friendship with a few of them. As always, he was in the center of any of these groups, talking, joking, and helping with something they needed. He was open but at the same time, he never shared more information than he thought people might need to know. I never knew what deeds bonded him with so many people. I think he had the unique natural ability that Dale Carnegie described in his book How to Influence People.

We continued keeping up with our friendship after we both married and became family husbands. Our wives did not object to our traditional getting together unlike many other Russian wives due to men’s inclination to drinking alcohol. We used to visit a steam room with few other friends. Such meetings were traditional for us, and we never missed them.

We spoke a lot about the Jewish emigration that had just begun in the early 1970s. To me, it was still far from my realities at that point. Yes, we suffered anti-Semitism in one way or other but we knew where the bad stuff came from and what to expect. The state supported that anti-Semitism was as predictable as any other ideological dogmas. We had to live with it (thanks God, no pogroms) and perceived it as an imminence. Such was my view on emigration when I learned that Eddie and his family were going to emigrate.

I knew Eddie was a freethinking person and could expect this decision. Yet, when in 1979 he told me about his plan to leave, I was shocked. I clearly remember that day in March 1980 when I saw him off at Leningrad airport. I was sure I had seen him for the last time. He had a family of four by that time: wife and two little kids. I could not even imagine how they would live in a foreign country with no language, no friends, no money, and no job. Finally, the plane took off, headed to an intermediate point in Vienna.

Our communication was finished. I could not have correspondence with him because it may have affected my job sustainability through the mail interception by KGB. I only heard about him from his retired father with whom I kept communicating. I thought how hard it must have been for oneself to integrate into a new society culturally and psychologically. I now feel it easier but at that point, it was problematic to imagine myself in his shoes.

In about 1983, we, a few friends, wrote a letter to him and sent it with somebody who was going to America for good. Months later, we received a response from Eddie with his gifts. He sent me a scientific calculator with many functions that was unbelievably luxurious for the Soviet reality. I fondly thought if such a sophisticated stuff was now affordable for him, then he must have been doing well.

Sometime in the mid-1980s, Eddie worked in Canton, Ohio. One of his friends brought him to a local Jewish Club where Eddy became acquainted with the US Representative Ralph Regula. Whether he played golf or something else in the Jewish Club but Rep. Regula was there at the time Eddie and his friend arrived. I do not know what the circumstances of their meeting were. Anyway, they talked about the situation with the Soviet Jews no longer allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union as the stronger-minded President Reagan came to the White House. Eddie wanted his father who was living in Leningrad to join him in America but he could not get an exit visa.

The Congressman took Eddie’s problem seriously and generalized it to all Soviet Jews who wanted to leave Russia. He was very active in solving this problem: wrote a letter to the Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin asking to recommence Jewish emigration from Soviet Union, dropped in on Moscow, then Leningrad, visited Eddie’s father in his apartment, and then invited him to come to Canton. Sometime later, in 1987, Eddie’s father arrived in Canton. In the press conference organized by Rep. Regular, Eddie’s father spoke on the existing Jewish problem in Russia and called for letting the Jews go and resume emigration. Eddie translated his father’s speech.

I am far from thinking that the press conference alone solved the problem but there was Eddie’s input in it. Anyway, starting from 1988, immigration was taken up again until it faded out by the end of 1990s. To finish the issue that ultimately rose up to a political one, it is worth noting that discussion on the situation with human rights in the White House took place when President G. Bush Sr. took office, and as