An Almost-Funny Story
To all my Russian friends: you can skip the paragraphs at the beginning that go into what it was like to be Jewish/religious in the USSR. I put it there for the benefit of those who don't know. As it turned out, I did the right thing - most had no clue.

In the late 80's, an Orthodox Jewish man named Lenya organized a small private Hebrew study group in his apartment in Moscow. All ten of his students desperately wanted to leave the crumbling empire still called, at the time, the Soviet Union. Unsure of our emigration prospects, we considered Israel our most likely final destination and prepared ourselves for what lay ahead by learning the language.

The times were changing fast, but studying Hebrew was still a rather risky proposition. We never walked in groups of more than two or three, tried to keep our voices low during the classes, and made sure to carry our passports with us at all times. Soviet passports were de facto National ID cards. The infamous "fifth item" on the passport (after the first, middle, and last name as well as the date of birth) asked for one's ethnicity. Ours said, "Jew." This designation had nothing to do with Judaism--in fact, converting to Christianity would not matter one bit. You could be an Orthodox Christian priest or a devout atheist and a member of the Communist Party - once a Jew, always a Jew. I never set foot inside a synagogue growing up, yet I always knew which colleges would accept me and which wouldn't. Most good ones were in the latter category.

Still, our lives were a walk in the park compared to those of the religious--Orthodox--Jews. They existed outside of the system, surviving on whatever Western charities sent their way. A man with a kippah (yarmulke) on his head had no hope of finding a half-decent job or getting into a college or even a trade school. Kosher food was non-existent in the Soviet Union. If you were stuck somewhere far from home, you went hungry. Moreover, most Soviet schools and colleges had a six-day schedule--we studied every Saturday unless it was a holiday or an official break. Not attending the school on Saturdays was grounds for multiple disciplinary actions. Some once-a-week classes were held only on Saturdays, and missing all of them automatically meant failure.

Any openly religious person was an outcast, but Jews arguably bore the brunt of it. An upstanding citizen could lose everything overnight if a member of his or her immediate family decided to "get religious." Moreover, a religious child could ruin not only the careers of his or her parents, but the career prospects for all the siblings as well.

One day, our Hebrew teacher lost his voice and asked a friend to substitute for him. The friend, I'll call him Vlad, was an Orthodox Jew like Lenya and knew Hebrew very well. He was also highly articulate, funny, and engaging. We thoroughly enjoyed his lesson and almost wished he were our regular teacher.

A young man from our group had taken a keen interest in me early on in our studies and walked with me to the Metro station after every class. That day was no exception. We were strolling and talking about phenotypes when I said something about Vlad not looking the least bit Jewish - he had a typical Slavic face.

"He's not really Jewish," replied my friend. "Well, he is one quarter Jewish, to be exact."

"How do you know?" I was surprised.

"A friend of mine went to college with him. We have several common friends, actually."

"How did he get into Judaism?"

"Not sure. He met some religious guys while in college; I guess they had quite an influence on him. I don't know the details. I do know what it cost his family."

"What happened?"

In my then-eighteen years of living in the USSR, I had heard enough "woe is me" Jewish stories to last me a lifetime. Heck, my own father was a Holocaust survivor. But this one was different.

Vlad's maternal grandfather was a Jew. He left the family when his child could barely walk, and the jilted wife raised her daughter an ardent Anti-Semite, never missing a chance to call the guy who dumped her every name in the book, "that bloody kike" being the nicest of them.

Vlad's dad was a 100% Slavic man who worked for the KGB or some related organization. He didn't like Jews either, but was far less passionate about it than his wife.

Vlad grew up in a good family. His parents loved each other and were, by the Soviet standards, very financially secure. They had two wonderful children--a girl and a boy. First a precocious kid, then a promising young man, Vlad was easily accepted into one of the best colleges in Moscow--one that did not accept Jews. He excelled in all subjects and was one of the best students of his class. Smart, handsome, and easygoing, he was his parents' pride and joy.

No one could tell where and how he met the Orthodox Jews. Knowing what I know now, I have some suspicions, but the real story remains a mystery. Over time, Vlad grew more and more fascinated with Judaism. According to the Jewish law, he wasn't a Jew and had to go through ger tzedek--a very involved conversion procedure. Judaism is arguably the hardest of the major world religions to convert into--it takes months, if not years. Vlad had to learn Hebrew, Torah, and the Jewish law; he was a regular at the synagogue and active in various religious and Zionist organizations. Obviously, he also had to get circumcised--not an easy procedure for a twenty-year-old man. And he had to keep kosher--any food sold in Russian stores or served in Russian restaurants was now off limits.

Soon, the KGB took a keen interest in his activities. They offered to turn a blind eye on his lifestyle if he sold out his friends. He refused. They talked to him, and talked to him again, gradually progressing from reasoning to threats, but all to no avail. One day the college administrators simply kicked him out - in the middle of the senior year, with no hope of continuing his education elsewhere. Almost immediately, his father lost his job and his Communist Party membership. He suffered a heart attack and barely survived. Vlad's mother had a nervous breakdown and ended up in a hospital. His sister, who was finishing high school that year, lost all hope overnight of getting into the college of her dreams.

The proud firstborn broke all contacts with the family that didn't want anything to do with him at that point anyway, and went to live with his friends. He worked odd jobs when he could, ate whatever he could find, and stayed with whomever was willing to take him in that week.

Our walk was long over, but the conversation wasn't. We stood near the Metro entrance and kept talking about faith, about God, and about choice. What did it take to forego everything one knew and loved for His sake? How strong did a man have to be, how strong did his faith have to be? We felt sorry for Vlad, for his parents, as Anti-Semitic as they were, for his sister, and for all of us, forced to live in the inhumane monster of a country that condemned people to choosing between God and family, God and meaningful employment, God and normal life. Vlad's story reached to the very bottom of my soul and stayed there. For a while.

Fast forward to the summer of 1993. The guy who walked me to the Metro station had been my husband for over three years, and we had been living in the US for two and a half years. Now we were in Israel visiting some friends. We stood in front of a weird-looking ATM machine in Tel-Aviv trying to figure out which buttons to press in order to get some much-needed shekels out of the damn box.

"Hi," said somebody behind us. We turned and saw a curly-haired guy smiling ear to ear. I had no idea who he was - this man didn't resemble anyone I knew. After a few seconds, my husband suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Vlad, hi!"

Vlad? What Vlad? I must have looked perplexed because my husband said, "Oh, come on, Sara, remember Vlad? He taught us Hebrew a couple of times when Lenya got sick."

Oh. I remembered Vlad. Except this guy still didn't look like anyone I knew. There was no kippah on his head. He wore shorts--short shorts. The man looked like an Orthodox Jew as much as I looked like an Indian Chief. The Vlad I recalled was a solemn, yet intense, guy with the millennia of Jewish suffering reflected in his sorrowful gaze. I wouldn't have recognized him if my life depended on it.

While I stood there, dumbstruck, my husband chatted with Vlad about this and that and told him about our plans for that evening--we were going to see some old college friends of his, the ones both men knew. As it turned out, they had invited Vlad, too, so we parted relatively quickly promising each other to catch up in a few hours.

And catch up we did. First we brought Vlad up to date on our lives. Then it was our turn to ask questions. When did he immigrate to Israel? How did he like it there? What was he doing, career-wise? Did he have a wife? Any children?

He left Russia as soon as he could, in 1989, found his new home country just great, worked for some private business, and flew to Europe on a regular basis. He was happy. No family though, and no intentions of acquiring one.

The hostess found some plausible excuse to take us aside.

"Don't ask Vlad about the family."

"Why?"

"You know he is gay, right?"

"He is WHAT?"

"What, what, he doesn't like girls, that's what. He has boyfriends, but changes them all the time. Don't ask me who he's with--we are pretty confused at this point. I think he dates a few at a time."

"Wait, what about religion?"

"Religion?" She laughed. "We haven't seen him in a kippah for years! He spends most of his free time in gay bars and leads a very ... how can I say it nicely ... unholy life. That is to say his way of life is anything but kosher."

We walked back in silence.

As far as I know, Vlad didn't stay in Israel for long. He went to live in Western Europe and completely forgot all things Jewish.

Somewhere in Moscow lives an elderly couple - a man with a very weak heart and a chronically depressed woman who pops pills like candy. They once had a son.