Shush! Growing up Jewish under Stalin : A Memoir.

Intro -- Imprint -- Subvention -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Notes On Languages And Translation -- Prologue -- Illustrations -- Part One -- 1 How I Failed My Motherland -- 2 Fathers at War -- 3 Path to Paradise -- 4 What's in a Name! -- 5 Black Shawl -- 6 Us against Them -- 7 I Don't Want to Have Relatives! -- 8 Friends and Enemies -- 9 The Girl of My Dreams -- 10 How They Laugh in Odessa -- Part Two -- 11 Papa and the Soviets -- 12 A Dependent -- 13 Without Declarations -- 14 Who's Who -- 15 A Strange Orange -- 16 Who Are You? -- 17 One Passover in Odessa -- Part Three -- 18 On Commissars, Cosmopolites, and Lightbulb Inventors -- 19 Them! -- 20 No Kith, No Kin -- 21 Grandpa Uri -- 22 Missing Mikhoels -- 23 Black on White -- 24 Time Like Glass -- 25 The Death of Stalin -- Epilogue -- My Genealogical Tree.

Many years after making his way to America from Odessa in Soviet Ukraine, Emil Draitser made a startling discovery: every time he uttered the word "Jewish"--even in casual conversation--he lowered his voice. This behavior was a natural by-product, he realized, of growing up in the anti-Semitic, post-Holocaust Soviet Union, when "Shush!" was the most frequent word he heard: "Don't use your Jewish name in public. Don't speak a word of Yiddish. And don't cry over your murdered relatives." This compelling memoir conveys the reader back to Draitser's childhood and provides a unique account of midtwentieth-century life in Russia as the young Draitser struggles to reconcile the harsh values of Soviet society with the values of his working-class Jewish family. Lively, evocative, and rich with humor, this unforgettable story ends with the death of Stalin and, through life stories of the author's ancestors, presents a sweeping panorama of two centuries of Jewish history in Russia.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.