My Jewish Awakening Behind the Iron Curtain
It took leaving New York to realize I was a minority and discover and treasure my heritage.
“Mom, can you get me a visa, too? I would love to go to Russia with you and Dad.” The connection was filled with static. “Mom, can you hear me?”
I heard a tinny sound but couldn’t make out what mother was saying. The phone went dead.
Two weeks later, in September 1975, after traveling around Europe on my own for six weeks using a Eurail pass, I was with my parents. I was twenty years old, a recent college grad who had left home at the end of my sixteenth year to escape from family, and now, for the first time since, I was about to embark on a journey with the people from whom I had fled.
My parents flew to Stockholm, where I met them. We caught an overnight ferry to Helsinki, where we would train into the Soviet Union.
I grew up devouring spy television shows such as “The Man from Uncle” (I had a huge crush on secret agent Ilya Kuryakin), “I Spy” and “Mission Impossible.” We were in the middle of the Cold War and the Soviet Union was our enemy. I hadn’t forgotten the training I received when I was three years old. When the name Khrushchev was mentioned, I was taught to say “Feh.” I had no idea who he was, only that he was a bad guy.