Evgenia and I talk about my decision to serialize my new book — The Soviet Jew: A Weaponized Immigrant’s Tale — and the difficulty of writing and thinking about what is essentially a taboo topic in this country: a “saved” immigrant who is not content with the American way of life.
—Yasha Levine
PS: We briefly discuss a special agitprop Passover prayer booklet — a Haggadah — that I discovered while doing research for the book. It was created as part of the American movement to save Soviet Jews from communism. It has an interesting segment where it celebrates modern plagues that were unleashed by God on the Soviet Union because it would not let out its Jews — just like what happed with Egypt back in the day. But instead of blood and locusts, the USSR got hit with much less dramatic weapons — like the loss of scientific genius and international respect. Still, this Haggadah wasn’t wrong. Didn’t the godless commies at least take a little peek at the bible? Everyone knows our petty God gets angry when you don’t let us out!
Here are a couple of photos just so you can get a visual.
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