As a Jew, How Did Russians Relate to You and Your Family in the USSR?

Station 1 - Jews

Excerpt 1: Moisei

-Moisei: Odessa was a large city, but that…meant Jews could only live in certain places, so called “mestechki”; in Yiddish, “shtetl”. Odessa was the only large city in Tsarist Russia where Jews were allowed to live.

-As a Jew, how did Russians relate to you and your family in the USSR?

There was always anti-Semitism, from the government… If there hadn’t been governmental anti-Semitism, it would have been fine. But there were anti-Semitic remarks, on transport, at the market…

Excerpt 2: Grigory: Jews in Uzbekistan

Before your decision to emigrate, when you thought of your homeland, what were you proud of?

-[In] Uzbekistan…there was never any anti-Semitism there, on a daily basis, I mean, at higher, state levels it was there… for example, as a Jew would never be the director of an institute or factory, he would be the head engineer or lead designer, but not director, that’s the higher level anti-Semitism, but on a daily level – never. The first time I heard the offensive term “Yid” was in ’66 when I was on a business trip in Kiev, Ukraine, but never in Uzbekistan… My circle, the friends that would get together often, there were all sorts of nationalities – Jews, Uzbeks, Tatars, Armenians… there was no difference between us in our day-to-day life, so we lived normally, as equals, but again, that was on a daily level, not on the higher levels, like I said. For example, the director of our institute was an Uzbek, but the head engineer was a Jew, the head designer was a Jew, so…

Excerpt 3: Iosef

As a non-Russian, how did people relate to you. Was their equality between nations like in Soviet propaganda?

-It’s an interesting question. I’m a Jew, my father was Jew, fought in WW2 and was wounded. When there was the repression under Stalin, he applied to join the Party. It was very difficult for Jews to do, but… He fought in the war, he worked, and open anti-Semitism, he didn’t really see it. But the petty kind, on a daily level, he saw, that people said Jews are sly, deceive, etc., etc. I never felt anything myself. I was a director, had a good position, but that was because I worked hard. As a supervisor, my group was always one of the best; the same at every level I worked at, because I had a sense of responsibility; a lot of people knew me for that. But there was still that kind of joking level, for example, towards the Peoples of the North, the Chukchi, or towards the Jews. But that was on a small level, not on the governmental level, teasing almost. But there was no antagonism like what happened after the breakup, in the Soviet Union there truly was a friendship of nations, especially during WW2, when half the country evacuated to Central Asia. Then later when there was an earthquake in Armenia, then the whole country got together to send help to those people. And later with Chernobyl, all the specialists from all over to stop the catastrophe. That was friendship of nations. There were jokes, and they upset some. I was upset by the 5th line in my passport, that I had to write “Jew” – it seemed to me that people laughed at me because of it. But on a governmental level it wasn’t really there, just on a daily, small level. I could go complain, and people could have been tried…

Excerpt 4: Tamara

-I can tell you what I never enjoyed. I never liked the political system in Russia. First, from childhood on I was made to understand that being a Jew is like being a second-class citizen. My father was Jewish and my mother Russian, so it was visible that I was Jewish. However, in all my official paperwork I listed that I was Russian. If I had put down that I was Jewish it would have been much more difficult for me. First of all I wouldn’t have been accepted into graduate school. Thank goodness that I married a man with a Russian last name. It was really awful. You couldn’t escape the feeling. When I was teaching at the institute, I was the coordinator for a group of students. I met one of the students in the hallway and he was in tears. He said that his instructor had yelled at him “You Jew, be quiet! You should keep silent!” The idea was that as a Jew he shouldn’t do anything to stand out or show that he was better than others. As a Jew he was a second class citizen. I couldn’t defend him in any official way. I calmed him as best I could, saying that I am just like you. There was nobody to complain to, because there was no way to make such a complaint. It was impossible.

When there was a recommendation for a new faculty member, the chair of the department where I worked declared that we don’t have Jews in our department, we never have, and we never will. Can you imagine? That was the argument put forth, although everybody knows that many of the world’s best scientists are Jews.

Except 5: Lidia—On celebrating Ukrainian independence.

-There is something else I would like to share with you. When all the demonstrations and protests began, the people were at the city square, which had a statue of Lenin. The people took town the statue and it was one of the first Soviet cities to do this. After the statue had been taken down, the people found the markers [tombstones] from a Jewish cemetery. People were horrified by what they saw. We were disgusted at how cynical the Soviets were to destroy a Jewish cemetery and put a statue of Lenin in its place.

Excerpt 6: Rosa
-The problems arose when my husband was recommended for a promotion. Suddenly they found out that he was Jewish and so they denied him the promotion. It wasn’t the end of the world but it was certainly unpleasant.

The second time we had problems was after my daughter graduated from college and was sent to Moscow to a prestigious university for graduate studies. She spoke with her would-be advisor and he seemed to like her, he invited her to join the program. However, when they sent her to register for housing and courses she was turned away; they said, “We do not take Jews”—that’s how they said it in those exact words.

Station 2 - Women and Armenians

Excerpt 1: Iosef: On talking about his wife

Do you think women in the US work as much as the women in Ukraine?

-Well, women in Ukraine, in the Soviet Union, worked on practically the same level as men. Moreover, they came home after work and needed to cook, clean up, help with the kids. The man came home, sat down, watched TV, drank beer or vodka, laid there drunk while the woman kept working. That doesn’t happen here. Here men and women seem to work at the same level, but women have less to do at home, because here you can order food for delivery or pick things up at the store for dinner or for parties, so women seem more free here. Here children are more independent, they go to after-school groups for art or sports; but there you need to watch your kids more to make sure they don’t end up with a bad crowd, and the mother answers for that – the man sleeps. It’s not right, women had and still have it very difficult. It’s more simple for women in the US, but it seems to me that that happened relatively recently, that women worked very difficultly earlier… We, especially my wife, like the way women are treated here, more free, more educated, they can study, be beautiful, and be loved…

Excerpt 2: Lidia
Did you feel that you had the same kind of professional opportunities that were available to men?

-Yes, there were professions that women would not get hired for—positions of power in which you were in charge. On the other hand, women worked hard jobs. There were jobs that women should not have had to do, but they nevertheless had to do them because there was nobody else to do it. Women had to make money to support the family.

Excerpt 3: Rosa

In the Soviet Union, all business was state controlled. Everything was organized through networks. I can explain it as a financial specialist—if there’s a job it made no difference if the person hired was a man or woman—the salary was already set. Everything was under strict regulation. However, the real question is whether or not women were promoted for positions of authority. And in large part it was not the case that women were pushed upward in the ranks. Promotions were given usually to men. It’s most likely the same thing here in America.

Excerpt 4: Grigorian: On ethnic conflicts between Azerbaijanis and Armenians in Azerbaijan

-I’m Armenian, but we were living in Azerbaijan. In 1986 perestroika began, and in 1988 there were ethnic conflicts in Azerbaijan. They began to expel Armenians, there were murders… I was only 15, but it’s remained with me. They expelled us and we went to Armenia. We left our house, our things, but we saved our lives…My parents were raised in Azerbaijan, and in 1986 Gorbachev came to power and perestroika began, the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia began, and literally on the next day, people came to work and they were simply murdered, just killed, they went into Armenian homes, threw things out the windows, poured gas on people in the streets, killed and raped women… that was in ’88…

Excerpt 5: Elena: On her life as an Armenian student in Azerbaijan
-[The Azerbaijanis] were great classmates even during the tensions between Azerbaijanis and Armenians, when Armenians were being attacked. The director of our school was Azerbaijani but his wife was Armenian. He went to each classroom and said that he would stand up for us. He said remember that the school is a safe place for you…I understood that the only country that wouldn’t discriminate against me because of my nationality would be America. Even Europe wasn’t an option really. You go to France, well France is for the French. You go to Spain, Spain is for the Spanish. Moreover even in my student days I dreamed about going to America but it didn’t happen [until recently].