u/TMC_YT

Because of political events going on around the world, there has been a lot of hate, paranoia, and misinformation surrounding Jewish people and communities around the world, so I thought I’d host this AMA to educate some folks and make people less scared and stupid, lol.

To preface this, I’m both ethnically and religiously Jewish.

My parents and grandparents are both from the Soviet Union. My mom’s side left in 1979, and my dad’s side left in 1981, and both ended up to NYC, which is where I was born and grew up. I live in New Jersey at the moment, and go to college in Michigan.

I grew up as a Reform Jew, but was very isolated from other Jewish people, especially when my family moved my brother and I to New Jersey. Kids would pick at me, and tell me I “wasn’t Jewish enough” or that I was lying about being Jewish in high school. It was mostly targeted at my family’s relative lack of religiosity and that I speak English and Russian, not Hebrew or Yiddish, and I don’t exactly participate in normative American Ashkenazi culture from my perspective, and I guess others too.

For context, my mom is 100% genetically/ancestrally Jewish, of both Ashkenazi and Krymchak descent (these are both different Jewish ethnic groups, feel free to ask more). Her mom was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and that side of the family has roots in Odesa, Ukraine. Her mom (talking about my grandmother) was born in Azerbaijan, and her husband (my great-grandfather) was born in Odesa, but escaped the draft during WWII by temporarily fleeing to Uzbekistan, evading the German invasion, before settling in Baku, meeting my great-grandmother. On my grandfather’s side, his mom was born in Odesa, and his dad is Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula.

My dad is 50% Ashkenazi Jewish and 50% Russian, although his dad is the Jewish parent (which, traditionally, makes my dad a gentile in the eyes of most Jewish sects, but not in Reform, as he was raised Jewish, despite a non-Jewish ethnically Russian mother). He also has an Estonian great-grandmother on his mother’s side. My dad’s dad was born in Dolgoprudny, Russia (right outside of Moscow, but within Moscow Oblast). His parents were born in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, however. Jews weren’t allowed to live in most of Russia for a long time, until the USSR came around, and that’s where his parents were resettled after WWII. My dad’s mom was born in Moscow proper, and all of her ancestors were from Moscow as well, although her grandmother on her dad’s side migrated from Estonia in the early 1900s.

I’m not Israeli, but I have been to Israel twice, the last time was in May.

I did this on Discord and also got asked to do it here.

There’s no leftist flair, so I guess this will have to do for now (no, liberals and leftists are not the same people). I would describe my ideological position as Libertarian Socialism, to be specific.

So, ask away.

Hi all, I’m new to this sub, and I’m very interested in the history and nitty-gritty of the USSR, being that my parents and their parents, and their parents were all born there so my brain is a treasure-trove of personal anecdotes and stories from them, as well as things I learned in school (my AP World teacher was surprisingly pro-USSR, and gave us less western-biased info from what I’ve cross referenced in discussions with M-Ls and hobbyist-esque personal research) and from my own rabbit holes of research and discussion about the nation and its history for fun (I’m diagnosed autistic, it’s a special interest among trains and automobiles lol).

My family was born all over, so I’ll try and word this as simply as possible, then format it with below this giant block of text:

My mom is Jewish on both sides, and was born in the Ukrainian USSR, in Odesa. She is mostly of Ashkenazi ancestry, although her paternal grandfather was Krymchak (Crimean Rabbinical Jew). Her mom was born in Baku, in the Azerbaijani SSR, and is an Ashkenazi Jew. Her dad (my great-grandfather) was born in Odesa, but evaded conscription by faking his age, and temporarily escaped to Uzbekistan, before settling in Baku, where he married my great-grandmother. My great-grandmother, his wife, was born in Baku and had grown up there (she could speak Azeri, Russian, and Yiddish fluently) and was also an Ashkenazi Jew. This whole side of the family moved to Odesa upon my grandmother marrying my grandfather. My grandfather was born in Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula. His mom was Ashkenazi, and was born in Odesa. His dad was Krymchak (see above for meaning) and was born in and grew up in Sevastopol, before moving to Odesa to stay close to his son and my grandmother (his wife).

My dad is Jewish on dad’s side, which is very taboo in the Jewish community, but was heavily pushed in the USSR. I can expand more in the comments if you guys ask for more clarification. My dad was born in Moscow, in the Russian SFSR. My dad’s dad, my grandfather, was born in Dolgoprudny, in the Russian SFSR, and I believe my great-grandfather might have been born in Kharkiv (Ukrainian SSR), but no one is really sure. My great-grandmother was born in Kremenchuk, which is also in Ukraine. My dad’s mom, my grandmother, is not Jewish, and is mostly ethnically Russian, with some Estonian lineage as well. She was born in Moscow. Her mom was also born in Moscow, and we don’t know anything about her parents. Her dad was also born in Moscow (although technically he was born a little before the formation of the USSR). One interesting tidbit of information that I will bold for its importance, his name was Viktor Valbert, brother of actor Nikolai Valbert, who starred in a series of biographical films about the writer Maxim Gorky, where he played as the adult Maxim Gorky in the second and third films, iirc. He is my great-great uncle, so that’s cool to know, especially if you recognize him from Soviet films (hopefully some of you do). They both had another brother, and their mom was Estonian, while their father was Russian.

Formatted more simply:

Mom: Odesa, Ukrainian SSR

Grandmother: Baku, Azerbaijani SSR

Great-Grandmother: Baku, Azerbaijani SSR

Great-Grandfather: Odesa, Ukrainian SSR

Grandfather: Sevastopol, Ukrainian SSR (was Russia when he was born)

Great-Grandmother: Odesa, Ukrainian SSR

Great-Grandfather: Sevastopol, Ukrainian SSR (was Russia was he was born)

Dad: Moscow, Russian SFSR

Grandmother: Moscow, Russian SFSR

Great-Grandmother: Moscow, Russian SFSR

Great-Grandfather: Moscow, Russian SFSR

Grandfather: Dolgoprudny, Russian SFSR

Great-Grandmother: Kremenchuk, Ukrainian SSR

Great-Grandfather: Kharkiv, Ukrainian SSR

My parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were smuggled out of the USSR by the Jewish Federation in the US, which helped to fake their documents in order to escape to Vienna. They were then told to pick a destination to live in, where the choices were the US or Israel (which is why they needed to be smuggled out, moving to those two places was illegal for Jews). Both sides of my family chose the US, and they were assigned to live in NYC. They were then transported by train to Rome, Italy, where they flew to the US after living in Italy for six months. My mom and her family arrived first, in 1980 (leaving in 1979), whereas my dad and his family arrived in NYC in 1981.

I was born and raised in NYC, raised as a reform/secular Jew, but recently started observing Shabbat and reading the Torah out of interest in my heritage and after making more Jewish friends in college.

Hopefully the mods see this, and this probably wasn’t a good idea to leave until the end, but I am an anti-Zionist Jew. I stand for a Free Palestine unapologetically, and I support the Palestinian people in their struggle to achieve self-determination against the Israeli occupation. I know that many Jews are Zionists and that Zionism is very much not tolerated here, so I want to make this clear to the mods or anyone else reading this. I simply want to share the stories and experiences and history of my family’s life in the USSR, not push Israeli Hasbara or whatnot.

Thanks to all for reading and asking thoughtful questions!