Taken as red

Many of the Jewish immigrants who reached the United States during the great immigration of 1881-1914 were believers in socialism, and ardent supporters of trade unions and other pro-labor organizations. The Russian Revolution in 1917 strengthened their communist fervor: Quite a few were convinced that the "days of the messiah" had come and a just society would soon arise in the Soviet Union where Jews could fulfil their duty as Soviet citizens.

And yet hardly any of them went so far as to return to their land of birth. Most preferred to continue their pursuit of the American dream, according to which every immigrant laborer could get ahead, establish himself financially, and give his American-born children an education that would enable them to be president of the United States one day. For the majority, the dream of financial prosperity vanished within a decade, as the Great Depression left tens of thousands of people dying of hunger and created unemployment on a scale unknown since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

This was the atmosphere in which Mary Leder's parents decided to return to the Soviet Union and try their luck in the Jewish autonomous republic of Birobidzhan. The Leders were devoted communists, and their daughter, Mary, born in the United States, joined the American communist movement at the age of 15, after the family moved from the East Coast to California in search of employment.

In October 1929, more than a year before the Wall Street stock market crash, the Leders were already feeling the pinch. The father, a builder by profession, was finding it difficult to sell houses. By 1931, it was clear that the move to California was not a success. Mary's parents envisaged a brighter future in the Jewish socialist homeland Josef Stalin was anxious to establish in the eastern republic of Birobidzhan.

Mary's reaction was one of shock: What connection did she have with a faraway country whose language she did not speak? As a girl who had grown up without any formal ties to Judaism, what interest could she possibly have in any kind of Jewish homeland, even a socialist one? Although she was a supporter of the Soviet Union and communism, Mary, who had dreamed of going to college and becoming a journalist, was devastated. Realizing that she could not remain alone in the United States, the teenager informed her parents that she would accompany them, but not for long. When she turned 18, she said, she would go back to America.

This book is a kind of diary kept by Mary Leder from the day she set sail for Japan in the company of her parents, en route to Soviet Russia, until her return to the United States 30 years later. After several weeks with her family, she decided that Birobidzhan was not for her. She asked to stay with relatives in Moscow, hoping to learn a profession there. Not wanting to be a burden to her aunt and uncle, she ended up joining a commune of young people, with whom she lived and worked for several years.

Meanwhile, her parents in Birobidzhan decided to wind up the Soviet chapter of their lives and go back to the United States.

Mary, now 18, chose to stay behind and become a Soviet citizen as a first step toward finding employment. Hoping that Mary would soon rejoin them, her parents and younger siblings departed for America. Towards the end of the 1930s, Mary went to work for a foreign language publishing house, where the Soviet authorities took advantage of her skills and those of other foreign citizens residing in the Soviet Union. Later, she even received spy training, but the project through which she was being sent to America was cancelled at the last minute.

After returning to her former job, Mary married Abraham, a Jew from Rostov, and gave birth to a daughter. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, Mary and Abraham fled to a small town in the Volga region together with many other families. During that time, their young daughter became ill and died. When the couple eventually moved back to the capital, they encountered blatant anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism that began to affect their personal and professional lives. These trends intensified in the 1950s, although Stalin died in 1953.

When Abraham succumbed to a serious illness in 1959, Mary applied for an exit visa: The time had come to reunite with her parents in the United States. It took several years before her dream came true. In 1965, at the age of 45, Mary returned to the land of her birth, where she lives until today.

Leder's book is built on contradictions and dissonance. The equation is supposed to balance out in the end, but it doesn't. Right from the beginning, we have the family's high hopes with respect to the communist world, where everyone is equal and has the same opportunities, regardless of religion or class. But the author is soon disappointed with Stalin's "Jewish republic," and before long, her parents are, too.

Next, the author decides that by joining a commune in Moscow, she will be able to move ahead in the Soviet system. Again, she sobers up quickly, her hopes for collectivism soon dashed. At spy school, as Leder dreams of using her fluent English to aid her new homeland, up pops an officer and advises her that when she gets to the United States as a Soviet agent, she should defect. Go live with your parents, he says. You aren't cut out to be a spy, and anyway, life in America is so much easier.

During World War II, Leder is fired by the hope that the Soviet nation is fighting fascism. In reality, she finds that Soviet society has turned its back on her due to anti-Semitism. Finally, she believes that she will be cared for by the communist system, that citizens will be provided with everything they need in the way of food, medical care and education. The truth is that she cannot even obtain the simple drugs that might have saved her husband's life.

Mary Leder's story is both fascinating and sad. It is written in a flowing style, without the abundance of detail that often makes memoirs hard to read. Reading this book, one cannot help reflecting on the courage of this girl, who embarks on the adventure of living apart from her parents in a foreign country and makes no special effort to join them when they pack up and go home. On the one hand, we gasp at the temerity of a 16-year-old who joins a commune in an unfamiliar land where she doesn't speak the language.

On the other, it is hard to accept her passivity with respect to returning to the bosom of her family. She does make several attempts to leave the Soviet Union, but one can certainly think of some channels she hasn't tried, and the same goes for her family. Is she harboring a secret anger at having to accompany her parents to the Soviet Union in the first place? Has she become swept up in an adventure that is more than she bargained for?

In a country where parents equip their kids trekking to the Far East with international cell phones and beg them to drop into an Internet cafe at least once a week to "touch base," the story of a family that moves from the United States to the Soviet Union and sends a 16-year-old daughter alone to the capital, ultimately saying goodbye for close to three decades - that is certainly a story worth reading and thinking about.

The Nobel Prize...contrary to popular opinion it is not 'bestowed'. Had Armand Hammer lived long enough, there is a very good chance he would have received one.

He would not have received one for science. I only included Nobel Prize winners for Physics, Chemistry and Biology/Medicine, not the BS prizes such as the "Peace Prize."

It is in the sciences that the Poles seem to fall down. But, on the bright side, a lot of the Jewish prize winners probably had Polish cleaning ladies, if that makes you feel any better.

The fact that people were fleeing civil war where millions got killed, famine and shortages, doesn't prove anything.

You claim that Jews ran the Soviet Union and you claim that Jews liked communism. And yet Jews were among the most likely of any ethnic group to leave the Soviet Union while people could still get out. The desire of Jews to get away from Communist Russia was not a post-Stalin phenomenon, or a Jackson-Vanik era phenomenon, it exhibited itself from the very beginning of the communist regime.

3 million Jews wound up in the new (non-communist) nation of Poland, including 700,000 who moved there from other parts of the old Russian Empire. That does not even count the many Sovet Jews who applied for Polish citizenship and were turned away!

That certainly seems strange if Jews "ran the Soviet Union" or wanted to live under communism. Why would so many Jews leave a country that they supposedly ran?

A little trouble with reading comprehension seems to plague your interpretation. The above reference was to all those awards.

BTW, the only citation about a Polish cleaning lady was the one in NY who was bludgeoned to death by a rabbi's grandson. The Hassids protected the killer by spiriting him away. The police were deterred from investigating because the Hassids are considered 'above the law' in NY.

The above reference was to all those awards.

Oh, so you think Armand Hammer could have won a science award? You think the science awards are just bought? Which of the science award winners would you say is not legitimate and explain why.

These Jews were Polish citizens. Therefore, they were simply traitors.

Jews were Polish citizens only when it suited the Polish government to call the citizens.

In October of the previous year, Germany had attempted to deport all Jews with Polish citizenship back to Poland. However, the Polish government said that, since they were Jews, they were NOT Polish citizens. The Polish government refused to allow them entry.

This incident did not exactly inspire loyalty among the Polish Jewish population.

There are some selected over others just like there are some in New York that are prosecuted when others get away with murder.

So your position is that the reason only one Pole has ever won a Nobel Prize for science is political? Do you have any evidence that deserving Poles have been denied Nobel Prizes because they were Polish?

Start about Russia, Antarctica, three wheel industrial bicycles, Yeti, Kabul nights, the Milky Way and our dude turns the thread up side down and talks about cleaning ladies, Gacynski (Gacy+Kaczynski!), Zaolzie/Czechoslovakia, smart commie spy or Nobel.
Strange obsession. Kind of SM too.

Hope this young girl wasn't our cleaning lady. Poor child.
More
More
It's interesting that charges against pervert were dismissed.
"Lew pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a forcible felony and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. A judge later reconsidered the sentence and placed him on five years' probation."
"A store clerk was shot and awarded more than a million dollars in a civil lawsuit, but Lew has yet to pay any restitution." http://www.wsjs.com/news/01-06-Jun/010616-NWS.html
What a country, hm?
Looks like he's one of those guys who alienated the whole town of good Lutheran neighbors in Iowa, turned the place into pigsty, brought a lot of illegal aliens (who worked for peanuts) and were "smeared" in a book about Postville by self-hater (and socialist or even commie) Stephen Bloom.

You claim that Jews ran the Soviet Union and you claim that Jews liked communism.

I never said anything in those terms. Those statements are too broad. Read the first paragraph of the article, that's closer to what I said.

it exhibited itself from the very beginning of the communist regime.

The regime, over which Jews strangely presided (sans Lenin and a handful of others in a overwhelmingly Jewish government).

POLISH PRIEST GETS WRIST SLAP. Charges of raping a 16-year-old from Poland were dropped against Rev. Julian Pagacz, 50, pastor of St. Valentine’s Polish National Catholic Church in Northampton, after she refused to testify. Charges of indecently assaulting a Hampshire Co. girl, age 17, were plea-bargained down to one charge of indecent touch. Pagacz was accused of threatening to deport the Polish girl if she reported the rape. A judge ordered him to turn over the girl’s passport, as well as his own. He also denies a charge by a neighbor that she and her husband caught him looking in her window late one night and that she had stopped sunbathing in the backyard because he ogled her. She wrote out a trespass notice against him and informed the church, but was told "he wouldn’t do that". Angry parishioners decried the women’s complaints as a "witch hunt". Follower Ellen Mierzewski called one of the alleged victims "a Communist who thought she’d get money out of it". Source:

Springfield Union-News 2/17,18/92, 5/8/92; Sun-Republican 2/16/92; Boston Globe 5/5,8/92.

He's is trying to make peace with us by showing that charges against our dude were dropped because girl refused to testify. Ergo: no crime.
I treat him as a friend from now on.
Btw, almost forgot that something like National Church exist.
Another opportunity to do a research and learn new things.

The Postville story is fascinating. It was more than a clash of cultures. It was an invasion of indiscriminate law-breakers. People in Postville were honest, neighborly and law-abiding. They hadn't experienced an armed robbery for 25 years until these people moved in.

By buying off politicians, judges and others they are continuing to pervert this area. Don't get me wrong. Postville is still a better area to live in than some places, but the law breaking continues. Fines for contaminating river and ground water are ignored. Hiring illegal aliens is no problem for these ex-New Yorkers. Theft and robberies are commonplace now.

"What strange birds that foul their own nest."

In October of the previous year, Germany had attempted to deport all Jews with Polish citizenship back to Poland.

Any links on the above? Also, what were the Jews doing in Germany in October of 193?. By any chance were they citizens of two or more countries or maybe also owners of some of the most disrespectful business establishments?
Interesting, interesting ...

a lot of the Jewish prize winners probably had Polish cleaning ladies, if that makes you feel any better.

Inny, you never learn. Because of guys like you, who treat Polish, Russian, German or Arab cleaning ladies with disrespect and contempt, the world situation is becoming worse and worse. You may recall that Hitler's and Stalin's mothers were cleaning ladies for the Jewish families. And see what happened? If I were you, I would be nice to the cleaning ladies and janitors. Surprisingly, they do know a lot of dirty secrets of the families that they work for.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.