Russian-Israeli relations are rapidly deteriorating as both countries engage in a tit for tat on visitor screening The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had 15 “republics” and countless “autonomous regions”, but really only two republics mattered: the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The rest were window dressing. The USSR had only three capital cities that mattered, Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg today), and Kiev. The rest were “provinces”. After the fall of the USSR in 1990 and the free for all that followed, Soviet Jews, those who have not emigrated to Israel or America in the 1970’s like my family had done,...