Scan barcode
dcliz's review against another edition
5.0
Despite being an American Jew growing up in suburban Connecticut in the 80s, I have remained almost entirely ignorant of the effort to help Soviet Jews emigrate, although my mom tells me that our synagogue provided readings about their plight for Passover. This memoir, by someone about my age, was as eye-opening (how Israel helped by creating relatives to send "summons" for hopeful emigrees, the destruction of birth certificates and school transcripts at the border, the threat of terrorists targeting groups of refugees) as it was charming (the life-changing receipt of a donated winter coat, watching American's throw away plastic cutlery on July 4, discovering that many towns in the U.S. have the same name).
Most of the book centers on the author's recollections of his early childhood and his family's journey out of Ukraine to Vienna, and finally the United States. It is funny, poignant, heart-breaking, and hopeful, and a good reminder why so many people today still try to make a new life in the U.S.—even if it means sacrificing a career as a doctor to become a security guard—to try to give their children a better future. My own ancestors emigrated from Russia about 100 years before the author's family, and the book has made me curious whether they received help from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Most of the book centers on the author's recollections of his early childhood and his family's journey out of Ukraine to Vienna, and finally the United States. It is funny, poignant, heart-breaking, and hopeful, and a good reminder why so many people today still try to make a new life in the U.S.—even if it means sacrificing a career as a doctor to become a security guard—to try to give their children a better future. My own ancestors emigrated from Russia about 100 years before the author's family, and the book has made me curious whether they received help from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
samarov's review
reviewed in the Chicago Tribune
In the late 80s—last few years of the Soviet Union—a flood of Jews streamed across its boarders. Many had waited a decade or more to leave and suffered untold personal and professional hardship in doing so. The inscrutable procedures required to emigrate often included immediate firing from one's job, public shaming, as well as increased scrutiny from the KGB and other government agencies. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 many restrictions began to ease as the end of the USSR neared. Thousands of families were allowed to leave for Israel and America thereby fulfilling decades-old dreams. Though this was a positive development for the majority, the process was not without its hurdles and setbacks. In the last few years some of the children that made that momentous journey—now adults themselves—have been trying to make sense of their immigration experiences. Lev Golinkin's A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka is the latest book to mine this territory.
In the late 80s—last few years of the Soviet Union—a flood of Jews streamed across its boarders. Many had waited a decade or more to leave and suffered untold personal and professional hardship in doing so. The inscrutable procedures required to emigrate often included immediate firing from one's job, public shaming, as well as increased scrutiny from the KGB and other government agencies. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 many restrictions began to ease as the end of the USSR neared. Thousands of families were allowed to leave for Israel and America thereby fulfilling decades-old dreams. Though this was a positive development for the majority, the process was not without its hurdles and setbacks. In the last few years some of the children that made that momentous journey—now adults themselves—have been trying to make sense of their immigration experiences. Lev Golinkin's A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka is the latest book to mine this territory.
Golinkin starts his memoir in 2003 as he's graduating from Boston College with no clue about what to do next with his life. He decides he must go back before he can move forward, so he returns to Kharkov, Ukraine—the town in which he was born and which his family left in 1989—bound for America.
The early chapters detailing his life in Kharkov are unremittingly miserable. Lev is beat up and abused so much in school that his parents take every opportunity to keep him at home. His best friend stops talking to him once it is revealed that Lev is a Jew. He quotes his friend:
"You are a zhid. You have the ass of a zhid, the face of a zhid...We learned how to look for them in school."
His older sister, though at the top of her class, is refused entry into medical school. The whole town lives in fear of the secret police and of each other. The absurd requirements the Soviet state insisted on of those wishing to leave their “worker's paradise” was that one's employer had to approve one's request to emigrate. At the time that Golinkin's family was going through the process there was added urgency as the country was rife with rumors that the US was about to cap its quota for asylum seekers. His father waited in line for days, gaining the necessary documents just as the window of opportunity was about to shut.
The heart of the book is Golinkin's account of the grueling days-long bus ride to the Czekh border and the subsequent in-between time in Austria and Italy while the family waited to be granted entry into the US. He convincingly relates the purgatory of statelessness, the confused anticipatory state of the immigrant. Because Golinkin was but a child during this period, we must assume that many details that give this part of the book its power come from the remembrances of adult family members and acquaintances who went through the experience with him; a memoir is always a mixture of one's own memories with those of others that way.
Golinkin travels back to Austria to meet the nobleman who took his family under his wing, as well as the relief agency which gave him his first proper winter coat. He's searching for his origins in order to find a way forward in his life and seems to find what he's looking for. Oddly, the part of the book about his years in America are a lot sketchier than the long-ago saga of his immigration. Perhaps he would've benefited from interviewing people from his more recent past to flesh out his memories as he did for the part about his childhood. His high-school years are barely even mentioned.
Golinkin's prose is workman-like. There are occasional attempts at sarcasm or dark humor which mostly fall flat. The value of this book is as a document of the time rather than as literature. I didn't get a sense that he had any particular aspirations to be a writer; more that he had a story he needed to tell and just told it.
As the dissolution of the Soviet Union recedes in our collective memory, it will be more and more important to have first-person accounts of that turbulant era. Golinkin's memoir will provide one such window back to that time.
sofiey's review
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Antisemitism
cherbear's review
4.0
This was an incredibly moving memoir about a young Ukrainian-Jewish boy's journey to America and the various people who helped his family along the way. There were many little vignettes that I found very moving, such as what it's like to not speak the language of the country and how demeaning it can feel or the fantasy vs. the reality of America as imagined by immigrants and portrayed by the film "An American Tail". It was just a fascinating and very touching account of what it's like to have to leave the place of your birth and make your home somewhere unfamiliar.
iansgold's review
5.0
I loved this book so much I'll be emotionally tied to its success. If you've marked "to read", don't push this down your list.
fasoli's review
1.0
the gist of the first half of this book: I am 8, I am a Jew, I have no idea what that is and I am embarrassed and I hate it, but I want to be it freely, away from this evil empire. I want to be with all the Jews! Israel is helping us leave by forging documents, and yay I can be with all the Jews, but hey, there is too much theocracy there (even though I have a huge problem with the evil empire not allowing me to be religious - but I don't know what that is either) and I also like ham. I can't possibly live without ham. I want to go to the US where I can have pork chops. Why don't the American Jews move to Israel so I can move to the US and have pork chops.
The DNF police arrested me for DNFing so fast I broke the sound barrier.
The DNF police arrested me for DNFing so fast I broke the sound barrier.
merethebookgal's review
4.0
I really enjoyed this memoir, and would give it a 4.5 if I could! It was very insightful, but I had to keep reminding myself that the author is only 5 years older than me, even though he has gone through so much. It's hard to believe all of this was still going on during the 1980s, and it was interesting to get a wider view of the Jewish immigration as a whole, along with some of the logistics of it all, non-profit organizations, etc. Parts were heartbreaking, while other parts were filled with humor and introspection. I would definitely recommend this memoir!
tizzlango's review
2.0
Eine interessante Geschichte eines jüdischen Mannes, der als Kind in den 90ern mit seiner Familie aus der UdSSR geflohen ist, als diese auf ihr Ende zulief. Er erzählt von antisemitischer Diskriminierung, Korruption und den Schwierigkeiten ihrer Flucht.
Es ist eine interessante Erzählung seiner persönlichen Erfahrung, mit den Menschen, die seine Familie getroffen hat, und seiner persönlichen Entwicklung, in der er seine Identität erst wirklich als Erwachsener finden konnte, als er zurückreist und mit Menschen redet.
Auf der anderen Seite fällt auf, dass der Author, obwohl er aus der Perspektive seiner Kindheit schreibt, natürlich viele Informationen im Nachhinein eingeholt hat und nun an vielen Stellen retrospektiv seine erwachsene Perspektive dazumischt. Das fällt vor allem an manchen Stellen auf, in der er gewisse Dinge über die Sovietunion sagt, z.B. wenn er es "Evil Empire" nennt oder von Dingen erzählt, die teilweise historisch keinen Sinn ergeben, z.B. Gulags in den 80ern. Ich denke man kann davon ausgehen, dass er einfach als Kind diskriminiert wurde und seine Familie aus schlechten wirtschaftlichen Zusammenhängen der frühen 90er geflohen ist und er dann im Nachhinein in den USA seine Ansicht über die UdSSR aufgebaut hat, was man ihm nicht verübeln kann. Es liest sich nur teilweise etwas komisch, wenn der Autor z.B. davon erzählt, wie seine Familie Radio Free Europe gehört hat, um von den Verbrechen des Regimes zu hören, während man heutzutage weiß, dass es sich dabei ausdrücklich um CIA-Propaganda-Kanäle handelt und der Autor darüber scheinbar keine Reflexion hat.
Ich habe gesehen, dass er jetzt ein Journalist in USA ist und was er schreibt sieht ziemlich vernünftig aus, vor allem ist er sehr kritisch gegenüber der starken Präsenz von Nazis in der Ukraine, die mit der NATO zusammenarbeiten, was auch Sinn ergibt, da er selber Jude ist und aus der Ukraine kommt.
Alles in allem eine nette Geschichte, aber teilweise fühlt sich ein wenig durchsetzt an, doch es ist ein persönlicher Bericht und das ist nunmal sein gutes Recht. Es gibt vieles sehr interessantes über Identitätsfindung zu lesen, sowie ein Beitrag zur berechtigten Kritik an der UdSSR, wenn es um den Umgang mit Religion geht.
Es ist eine interessante Erzählung seiner persönlichen Erfahrung, mit den Menschen, die seine Familie getroffen hat, und seiner persönlichen Entwicklung, in der er seine Identität erst wirklich als Erwachsener finden konnte, als er zurückreist und mit Menschen redet.
Auf der anderen Seite fällt auf, dass der Author, obwohl er aus der Perspektive seiner Kindheit schreibt, natürlich viele Informationen im Nachhinein eingeholt hat und nun an vielen Stellen retrospektiv seine erwachsene Perspektive dazumischt. Das fällt vor allem an manchen Stellen auf, in der er gewisse Dinge über die Sovietunion sagt, z.B. wenn er es "Evil Empire" nennt oder von Dingen erzählt, die teilweise historisch keinen Sinn ergeben, z.B. Gulags in den 80ern. Ich denke man kann davon ausgehen, dass er einfach als Kind diskriminiert wurde und seine Familie aus schlechten wirtschaftlichen Zusammenhängen der frühen 90er geflohen ist und er dann im Nachhinein in den USA seine Ansicht über die UdSSR aufgebaut hat, was man ihm nicht verübeln kann. Es liest sich nur teilweise etwas komisch, wenn der Autor z.B. davon erzählt, wie seine Familie Radio Free Europe gehört hat, um von den Verbrechen des Regimes zu hören, während man heutzutage weiß, dass es sich dabei ausdrücklich um CIA-Propaganda-Kanäle handelt und der Autor darüber scheinbar keine Reflexion hat.
Ich habe gesehen, dass er jetzt ein Journalist in USA ist und was er schreibt sieht ziemlich vernünftig aus, vor allem ist er sehr kritisch gegenüber der starken Präsenz von Nazis in der Ukraine, die mit der NATO zusammenarbeiten, was auch Sinn ergibt, da er selber Jude ist und aus der Ukraine kommt.
Alles in allem eine nette Geschichte, aber teilweise fühlt sich ein wenig durchsetzt an, doch es ist ein persönlicher Bericht und das ist nunmal sein gutes Recht. Es gibt vieles sehr interessantes über Identitätsfindung zu lesen, sowie ein Beitrag zur berechtigten Kritik an der UdSSR, wenn es um den Umgang mit Religion geht.
manalivewith2legs's review
5.0
This is a story worthy of your time and of allowing it to soak into your conscious and perhaps change your outlook on the world and of your fellow humans.