Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story
"... [an] exquisite memoir ... [an] unforgettable first-person account of Jewish life and Jewish suffering during the final years of Russian Communism.-- Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University, author ofWhen General Grant Expelled the Jews"In his eloquently written memoir ... Maxim D. Shrayer takes readers on a moving journey back to his Soviet childhood behind the Iron Curtain. ... One might see "Leaving Russia" as a bitter book, filled with traces of trauma the author experienced during his Soviet years. He does not try to hide his emotional scars, still present 25 years later. Yet, the autobiography, written in the narrative styles of Tolstoi and Shrayer's favorite author, Nabokov, depicts many happy moments of love, friendship, family vacations, travels and literary growth."-- Jewish JournalLeaving Russia: A Jewish Story, Maxim Shrayer's nuanced memoir of his youth in the Soviet Union, reads less like the nonfiction account that it is, and more like a literary work. ... Shrayer tarries over the landscapes he loves, the many attitudes toward Jews and being Jewish he experienced, the meaning of coming of age as a refusenik during the waning days of the Soviet Union, and his own complex ... emotions about being both Russian and Jewish.--New Jersey Jewish NewsLeaving Russia adds color to the black and white world forced on Jews in the old Soviet Union. In this book, Shrayer describes an emotional journey not just from Russia to America, but from spiritual darkness into light. The book also explains why Jews felt forced to leave a country they loved, when it grew clear that country would never, could never, love them in return. --Wyatt Andrews, CBS News National CorrespondentMaxim D. Shrayer s stunning memoir Leaving Russia is an engaging story of growing up as the son of Jewish intellectuals in Moscow who applied for emigration when he was ten to give him a future as a Jew. ... His family s cohesion is admirable, and their concrete-tower apartment, where they host refusenik salons, becomes a palpable home for the reader. ... Leaving Russia should be assigned reading for anyone interested in the Jewish experience of the twentieth century. --Annette Gendler, Jewish Book World