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Blue Star over Red Square
English (translation)Original Russian
387 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 9, 2021
4.0 out of 5 stars A decent investment of time
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2018
Arthur Golden quote: "Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us-so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe."
That is the thought that comes through my mind as I read this fortuitously-received book. There were a lot of unanswered questions, such as: "During the time that this girl was in her younger life..... Where did the money come from for her to do all of these things and go all of these places?"
But what we do see is more like what life was like in the Soviet Union before it finally collapsed. A lot of young idiot Communists in Western countries have romanticized ideas of what that period in time was like, and this book is an antidote at least to that much.
The prose is so easy and light that the book can be read through in three or four settings.
It's also interesting that the early parts of this book took place in Lithuania, and that was once upon a time a very large Center of European jewry. (Hence the designation "Litvak," and all of the writings of the vilna gaon. It's surprising that they were no more than 30,000 Jews in that area, in spite of all of its intellectual bulk.) It's not hard to imagine for me that the anti-Semitism that these authors experienced was actually endemic to Lithuania and built up over the hundreds of years that Jewish people lived there. And likely separate to the official anti-semitism of the Soviet state. Probably also separate from the anti-Semitism of Russian peasants, which was a cousin of the Lithuanian anti-semitism.
In some sense, the book is also a snapshot of the turbulence and flux that was in Eastern Europe for a long time from the Bolshevik Revolution all the way until the Soviet Empire stabilized. One family starting here, then losing everything and then starting up somewhere else and then doing it all over again. The tenacity and strength and pioneer spirit of these people is just amazing.
The worst events are all here. The first and second world war. The Ukrainian famine.
When the Bolsheviks took over Russia, it's a very interesting thing that many of the revolutionaries were also Jewish. I guess they had this idea that After the Revolution, everybody would be equal. And yet the anti-Semitism was repurposed under what became the later Communist government.
We have some idea of what were refuseniks. (I had heretofore thought that they were people who refused to accept something that was offered by the Soviet government, when in actuality they were refused an exit visa.)
I never knew how much work the Soviets did to keep people that they didn't really even want. i. First they tried to put a tax equivalent to 15 years of income on them. ii. And then later they said that they could not be allowed to leave because they had State secrets.
Throughout these many, many episodes of KGB surveillance (that went on for years on end).... The question kept arising was: "How did they afford to invest all of this manpower?" It seemed like they had two-thirds of the entire KGB just surveilling these Refuseniks. (I know that Eric Hoffer has said before that in Communist countries, they hire half of the population to supervise the other half. These inconceivable events were the most dramatic illustration thereof.)
In many ways, this is the same story that was told by told by Golda Meir from her visit to the Soviet Union, except that it is told through the eyes of people who were Soviet Jewry.
Characters in this book were extremely strange. And that is because it seems to me but if you put them back in time during the Bolshevik Revolution, they would have been on the side of the Bolsheviks because they promised them Paradise. It seems like these people had some vague Jewish connection, but no clue what it meant to keep kosher and celebrate the pilgrimage holidays. But, Paradise would be in a Jewish state.
The author is also very superstitious, and she even tried on a couple of other things before she decided that she wanted to take on Judaism. It's neither a rarity nor a miracle for a Saul to turn into a Paul (or vice versa), but it does somehow cheapen the story a bit. It makes the events seem more happenstance than anything else.
The author makes extremely prescient observations about Jewish fractiousness. (If there are enough in one place, then they will set about the business of fighting each other. As in Israel and the United States.)
I also wonder what language does people were speaking, and if this Russian woman address people in the United States.... Where did she learn English? How did she speak to the people who came to the dacha?
Yiddish?
Russian?
English?
There are absolutely no devices to let the reader know.
One big drawback is that the book is extremely emotional. It seems like the author is bursting into tears or fighting back tears every second or third page. In some ways, it almost read like an episode of General Hospital put to paper.
Verdict: copies of this book are currently about $54, and while I would not pay that much for it I could recommend it at the price of about $5 plus shipping and the investment and time that it takes to read it.
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2018
Arthur Golden quote: "Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us-so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe."
That is the thought that comes through my mind as I read this fortuitously-received book. There were a lot of unanswered questions, such as: "During the time that this girl was in her younger life..... Where did the money come from for her to do all of these things and go all of these places?"
But what we do see is more like what life was like in the Soviet Union before it finally collapsed. A lot of young idiot Communists in Western countries have romanticized ideas of what that period in time was like, and this book is an antidote at least to that much.
The prose is so easy and light that the book can be read through in three or four settings.
It's also interesting that the early parts of this book took place in Lithuania, and that was once upon a time a very large Center of European jewry. (Hence the designation "Litvak," and all of the writings of the vilna gaon. It's surprising that they were no more than 30,000 Jews in that area, in spite of all of its intellectual bulk.) It's not hard to imagine for me that the anti-Semitism that these authors experienced was actually endemic to Lithuania and built up over the hundreds of years that Jewish people lived there. And likely separate to the official anti-semitism of the Soviet state. Probably also separate from the anti-Semitism of Russian peasants, which was a cousin of the Lithuanian anti-semitism.
In some sense, the book is also a snapshot of the turbulence and flux that was in Eastern Europe for a long time from the Bolshevik Revolution all the way until the Soviet Empire stabilized. One family starting here, then losing everything and then starting up somewhere else and then doing it all over again. The tenacity and strength and pioneer spirit of these people is just amazing.
The worst events are all here. The first and second world war. The Ukrainian famine.
When the Bolsheviks took over Russia, it's a very interesting thing that many of the revolutionaries were also Jewish. I guess they had this idea that After the Revolution, everybody would be equal. And yet the anti-Semitism was repurposed under what became the later Communist government.
We have some idea of what were refuseniks. (I had heretofore thought that they were people who refused to accept something that was offered by the Soviet government, when in actuality they were refused an exit visa.)
I never knew how much work the Soviets did to keep people that they didn't really even want. i. First they tried to put a tax equivalent to 15 years of income on them. ii. And then later they said that they could not be allowed to leave because they had State secrets.
Throughout these many, many episodes of KGB surveillance (that went on for years on end).... The question kept arising was: "How did they afford to invest all of this manpower?" It seemed like they had two-thirds of the entire KGB just surveilling these Refuseniks. (I know that Eric Hoffer has said before that in Communist countries, they hire half of the population to supervise the other half. These inconceivable events were the most dramatic illustration thereof.)
In many ways, this is the same story that was told by told by Golda Meir from her visit to the Soviet Union, except that it is told through the eyes of people who were Soviet Jewry.
Characters in this book were extremely strange. And that is because it seems to me but if you put them back in time during the Bolshevik Revolution, they would have been on the side of the Bolsheviks because they promised them Paradise. It seems like these people had some vague Jewish connection, but no clue what it meant to keep kosher and celebrate the pilgrimage holidays. But, Paradise would be in a Jewish state.
The author is also very superstitious, and she even tried on a couple of other things before she decided that she wanted to take on Judaism. It's neither a rarity nor a miracle for a Saul to turn into a Paul (or vice versa), but it does somehow cheapen the story a bit. It makes the events seem more happenstance than anything else.
The author makes extremely prescient observations about Jewish fractiousness. (If there are enough in one place, then they will set about the business of fighting each other. As in Israel and the United States.)
I also wonder what language does people were speaking, and if this Russian woman address people in the United States.... Where did she learn English? How did she speak to the people who came to the dacha?
Yiddish?
Russian?
English?
There are absolutely no devices to let the reader know.
One big drawback is that the book is extremely emotional. It seems like the author is bursting into tears or fighting back tears every second or third page. In some ways, it almost read like an episode of General Hospital put to paper.
Verdict: copies of this book are currently about $54, and while I would not pay that much for it I could recommend it at the price of about $5 plus shipping and the investment and time that it takes to read it.
July 12, 2021
The first part of the book was wonderful, the end where the author writes about her visit in America to secure the release of her husband, was a bit tedious. It is true that it has taken the Raiz family many years to receive permission to leave Russia, but it is obvious from the book, that divine providence has kept them there because they played such an important role in the teshuvah movement.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews