Part 1

My mom was raised in mysterious neighborhood of St. Petersburg. From my earliest years I used to hear how much she hated building we lived in. I did not find it that terrible. There were a lot of factories around my building that were good for exploration.

Decabristov Park was nearby. There was rebellion against the tsar’s regime in 1825 organized by noble people with progressive ideas. The greatest Russian poet Alexandr Pushkin and some other creative heroes of that epoch supported that movement.

The tsar and government made the decision to send some people away from the big cities, and some of the rebels were punished by hanging.

The punishment was executed in Petropavlovsk Fortress, across the river from the Hermitage. The bodies were never found.

Later on to commemorate the progressive revolutionary movement, the communist government made the park. Old shadow trees. A small obelisk with five names on it surrounded by metallic bars. We studied the story of that rebellion in school. 

Also within walking distance from home was an old cemetery, Smolenskoye, with a grandiose Russian Orthodox Church. During my secret excursions to the cemetery after school I discovered the sweet wax smell of burning candles. The deep sound of church music. Liturgies. The fairy-tale clothing of the priests. I am surprised now it was not forbidden or closed. Some people still come there and pray to St. Xenia for miracles. The Xenia chapel was closed, but you could put your petitions in writing and place the small folded piece of paper in a gap in the stones of the wall.

I personally didn’t know anyone who was religious or who went to church. Among the people I saw during my secret expeditions were small old ladies with black scarves on the their heads. I liked to admire the old cemetery stones, half broken but still with old Russian letters on them. I imagined the life of those people when they were still alive.

Almost all the teachers in my school talked about how religion was poisonous, especially during my history classes: we studied about how the priests and rich people oppressed the working class, how religion was just an instrument for control.

I was not even ten before my adventurous hikes were discovered.

I had a serious conversation about my nationality at home. My mom explained to me that she hated that area because she had undergone a lot of humiliation for being Jewish in this neighborhood when she was a little girl.

She was not rebellious like the Decembrists from the park. She just always kept that fear in her heart. In repayment for her education she had to accept a profession she did not like. My mom explained to me that if I noticed any hostility towards me in school or outside, I should not fight back. I should just leave that place. I had to understand that the majority of people were just not going to like me because I was Jewish. I had to just accept that as a rule. If I was going to fight back—the forces being unequal—the majority of people would just support my opponents. I would not win anyway.

But what I should do instead was to be the best. If I wanted to have the same advantages of other people, I would have to always be one step ahead.

In general, mom said, she would like to leave this country, but my father was writing his thesis for his Ph.D. and my grandfather was in the Communist party. She did not want to leave me without father or grandparents.

Another little detail that upset my mom was my expeditions to the Orthodox church and cemetery.

My mom complained to my grandmother. My grandmother was from a different generation. She had survived World War II. She believed in action. It was a time when you could not buy or sell your apartment. You were born in your apartment and you would live there with your grandparents and someday with your grandchildren.

My grandmother organized multilevel trades to change our one-bedroom apartment in for a two-bedroom apartment with a view of the Baltic Sea. Even though it was just seven bus stops from my old house, I did not continue with my cemetery adventures. I was in a totally new atmosphere. That place stayed in my mind as a dark, mysterious area, and I moved to la ight area with a Baltic Sea breeze.

My new school had unique architecture. It was not a grey two-story building with classical bas-reliefs on the façade like my old school. Pushkin, Gorky, Lermontov, and Dostoevsky had illuminated our educational life. But all in different shades of gray.

My new school was covered with pink tiles. It was uplifting. It also had a huge auditorium on the second floor with windows from the floor to the ceiling. Outside of that auditorium there was a balcony with a spiral staircase. It was definitely a very special school. We had dance lessons. But the most unique feature of that school was the fact we had foreigners in our school. During that time behind the iron curtain, meeting a foreigner was like an encounter with extraterrestrial life.

Kids from families of diplomats were in our classrooms. That was a reason for pride and bragging. That was the reason for the pink tiles, spiral staircases, and dance lessons.

I had not felt my unique identity in my former school that concept did not come up as a matter for discussion for most families until the child was ten or eleven.

During my dance lessons I learned from my partner that people of different nations are dancing together now. Nothing bad, but I felt some chills.

I really enjoyed one particular after-school activity: the boys would chase the girls on the spiral staircase. It was a rumored that the boys could see the girls’ legs from the ground floor. Add to that some early gender interest, and it was especially exciting if your crush was chasing you or observing your legs. I used to like that game until I overheard a boy I was interested that time proclaiming loudly: “Let’s hide Jew’s bag.” I found my bag in a bathroom later.

But after that I learned a lot of poetry, like:

Jew Jew, hop hop

Running on a tight rope

Rope got popped 

Jew was swatted.

If there is no water you can use 

The fault is dirty filthy Jews. 

I knew this was not my classmates’ mind-blowing piece of art. It was learned at the dinner table of “intelligent” families.

But the  “swan song” of my high school education was a lecture from my military teacher before a May First demonstration. He decided to conduct this informative session in that beautiful auditorium with windows from the ceiling to the floor. He wanted to make sure all the high schoolers would absorb the valuable information he was preaching.

That was the Day of Solidarity for working people around the world.

For us it was mandatory to demonstrate solidarity. It was a happy holiday. Warm weather. Time together with classmates.

Unfortunately, the Jewish cemetery in St. Petersburg suffered from vandalism right before that holiday. Some criminals destroyed memorial stones and put swastikas on some others.

Our military teacher advised us to be on the alert against Jews. It was obvious to him that the Jews had committed the vandalism themselves. But they also might approach immature minds during the demonstrations and impose other dangerous ideas on us. It was overwhelming for me and I complained at home.

My parents went to the school.

The military teacher started a discussion about the “misunderstanding” with me during the next lesson. In front of the class. He explained that he didn’t mean anything heartbreaking for me, and his best friend was a Jew. Later on I learned that every velvet-gloved anti-Semitic person has good Jewish people surrounding him, despite all odds.

Part 2

My favorite book

Raquel, the Jewess of Toledo: A Spanish Ballad

I am not into historical books, but the ambience of this story somehow drew me in. It was in high school. I was really embarrassed about being Jewish. Or embarrassed is the wrong word: it was a mixture of pride, not fitting in, being externally different, and having secrets at home, combined with some others accents and brushstrokes.

And I was reading this book about the time when flamenco was born in southern Spain—Seville. Raquel was originally from there. Her father had converted to Islam. Due to political and career changes, he had decided to move his family to Toledo. There the family began to move back toward their Jewish roots.

Her father became an advisor to the king. Her father was a wise man whose motto was “Bad peace is better than good war.” It was not exactly the philosophy of a Christian king at the time of the Crusades.

The Christian king, along with all his other problems with the moors and his other vassals, harbored sexual desire for Raquel, the daughter of his advisor.

Raquel, according to the author’s description, looked like my mom. But besides having perfect looks, she was full of stories! Her grace and peaceful aura drew me in.

The royal ways of courtship are likely very different from the common ways, but I like the way king showed his interest. He gave her a palace as a first present, sort of like you would give flowers on a first date. Not even flowers—I would compare the gift more to the payment of the bill at a restaurant. If you let someone pay, you accept his interest and attention. If you insist on sharing the bill, he can look for another princess.

Raquel’s father was not so sure how to respond. He had Jewish interests to consider on the one hand, and his daughter’s destiny on the other. But she was attracted to the king, and so the dilemma was solved.

Jealousy in a Jewish community. Crusades. Pogroms. The king’s relationship with his previously adored queen. Political arguments between small kingdoms. Wars. Decisions about taxes in opposition to physical forces. All of it was just wind blowing around their eternal love.

Raquel tried to awaken some delicate sensibilities in the rough Christian king through colorful stories from the Muslim world. She told him about the hourglass. She told him fairy tales, sang him melodic songs, played chess with him in a gazebo next to the lake. She brought to the kingdom a kind of Alhambra touch of poetry and majestic gardens.

That unique atmosphere she created changed the internal perceptions of the king. He was still a harsh warrior on the outside, but much wiser on the inside.

Of course, none of this could lead to a happy ending. The king was trying to convert Raquel to Christianity, but she was loyal to her Jewish values. The queen was becoming more and more jealous. She arranged pogroms and the murder of Raquel and her father.

Part of what made me cry every time I read that book was the king’s conversation with his priest after Raquel’s death. He admitted that the loss of his great love had totally ruined his union with the queen. It was absolutely accepted for a king to have lovers, but not to have such a deep affection for any of them. Upon Raquel’s death his soul became like a land ravaged by a fire. He said to the priest: “I loved her more than my kingdom, more than God, more than my children, and I don’t want to say it, but I loved her more than my immortal soul.”

Somehow that historical love story changed my perception of my own Judaism. It became much easier to bear anti-Semitic jokes or see anti-Semitic slogans written on buildings. I used to feel a terrible cowardly coldness in my stomach when criminal-looking people would ask me why my hair was so curly or my nose looked the way it did. I did not have an answer. I was scared to admit that I was Jewish—as if those people had not known it from the start.

I used to feel that same coldness inside when my classmates opened the class journal. The last page of that journal had information on our nationalities. Thinking about it now, that seems strange. What difference would it make to the education process for everyone to know the nationality of the students? I spoke Russian just like anybody else. I was the only Jewish person in my class. My last name, even without any other indication of my nationality, was enough to prove it.

I was extremely uncomfortable when people wanted to see my passport. Its second page indicated my nationality as well.

I did not have any Jewish friends until medical school. I have had to learn to cope with my identity on my own. But the Spanish ballad and Raquel were my friends. They made me realize you can be loved even if you are Jewish. It is OK.

I always wanted to visit Toledo and look at the broken hourglass of Rabbi Haanan. Explore the palace King Alfonso gave to Raquel as a flower bouquet. Sit in the shady garden where they played chess and listen to the whisper of the river passing by.

I arrived in Toledo and took a tour of the city. I saw that river and the magnificent ancient church with its portrait of a bearded woman feeding an infant. Little red houses descending upon the hills. It was just as it was described in my book.

I asked the tour guide about that story. He was angry. He asked how I could believe such a fairy tale. A Christian king could not possibly fall in love with a Jew. It would be filthy and disgusting….