How Are These (Soviet) Jews Different From Other (American) Jews? – Guest Post by Alina Adams

Winston Churchill once described Americans and British as “two people separated by a common language.”

When I first arrived in the United States as a Soviet Jewish refugee, I found out that American and Soviet Jews are two people separated by a common religion.

And here is the primary reason why:

To many American Jews, their quintessential representative is Bernie Sanders (even if they don’t live in Vermont). Born in Brooklyn, he picked up political activism in the crib, surrounded by members of Workmen’s Circle, a Jewish social and cultural organization affiliated with the labor movement, and The Bund, a Yiddish speaking group dedicated to spreading socialism throughout the world. He fought for civil rights, attended the March on Washington, and protested against the Vietnam War (i.e: The A-B-C of being a Baby Boomer.).

Sanders was so enthusiastic about socialism that, in 1988, he visited the USSR to explain to the people living there how wonderful they had it. He met a cross-section of typical Soviet citizens (all handpicked for him by the KGB). He was especially enchanted with the lack of homelessness and how affordable Soviet housing was – only 5 percent of a citizen’s income, rather than the average 40 percent in the United States. He did not visit any Soviet Jews or ask about their living conditions or their treatment. Life in the Soviet Union was utopia for all, he’d been assured and allowed to witness with his own eyes. Why wouldn’t it be peachy for Jews, too?

The majority of American Jews don’t identify as socialists like Bernie Sanders. (Was I the only one who was confused about why he was confused that he wasn’t given the Democratic party’s nomination for President in 2016? He wasn’t a Democrat….) But the majority of American Jews do identify as Democrats and progressives, and, while they may not sympathize with all of Sanders’ positions, they do romanticize Jewish-Americans’ pasts as labor organizers and other such noble and heroic activities.

There is no question that American Jews took that politically active spirit and turned it onto the plight of Soviet Jews in the 1970s. (Bernie Sanders was busy singing Cuba’s socialist praises at the time, so wasn’t available to participate.) American Jews were absolutely a huge part of the Soviet Union finally allowing refugees like me to immigrate.

But when we got here, confusion ensued: For reasons American Jews had trouble comprehending, Soviet Jews did not love socialism! In fact, they seemed strangely hostile to it! Almost like they’d lived through Soviet – and American – politicians telling them how wonderful they had it, when firsthand experience suggested the opposite.

Yes, Senator Sanders was correct, they had no homeless people in the USSR. But that’s because they weren’t allowed on the streets. Since it was illegal not to have a job – anyone not working was arrested for being a parasite on society – anyone unemployed and unable to afford a home was in prison. What a wonderful solution!

And, yes, housing was a smaller expense than in the US. But could that be because people were forced to live in communal apartments, stuffed two, three, five, ten families into a single living space so that residents were sleeping on the floor, on windowsills, in closets? Luckily, in many homes, there was no indoor plumbing so those areas could be turned into sleeping sites as well. Such efficiency! And all thanks to socialism!

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The majority of Russian-speaking Jews currently living in the US (whether they came from Russia itself or ex-Soviet republics like Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Belorussia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, etc…) didn’t directly experience it as adults. Most either came as children or were born in the US. And yet, they heard enough from their parents and grandparents to, even thirty-four years after the fact, still lean more right-wing than their American counterparts.

For some reason, no matter how many times American Jews try to explain that Soviet Jews should listen to what they read about how wonderful socialism is rather than rely on silly things like lived experience, Soviet Jews insist on clinging to their foolish ideas of left-wing ideology not being everything it’s cracked – or talked – up to be.

In my May 2025 historical fiction novel, Go On Pretending, my lead character, Rose, grows up in the same milieu as Senator Sanders. She even does him one better: Rose goes to fight in Spain with the American Lincoln Brigade against Francisco Franco! (We’ll cut Sanders some slack there. He was born two years after that stage of the conflict ended.) And then, in 1957, Rose goes to the USSR for the 6th World Youth Festival of Youth and Students, and decides to stay.

Why would she do something like that? How does it work out for her? Or for her daughter, who returns to her mother’s country of origin in the 1980s to compare what she was told about America, with what she finds there?

Let’s just say that a lot of cross-cultural confusion ensues.

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Alina Adams is the NYT best-selling author of soap opera tie-ins, figure skating mysteries and romance novels. Her Regency Romance, “The Fictitious Marquis,” was named the first #OwnVoices Jewish historical by The Romance Writers of America. Her historical fiction, The Nesting Dolls and My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region, shines a spotlight on little known aspects of Jewish history. Her latest book, Go On Pretending, featuring American Jews who moved to the USSR in the 1950s, is a May 1, 2025 release. Pre-order your copy at: https://www.historythroughfiction.com/go-on-pretending

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