Many years after making his way to America from Odessa in Soviet Ukraine, Emil Draitser made a startling discovery: every time he uttered the word "Jewish"-even in casual conversation-he lowered his voice. This behavior was a natural by-product, he realized, of growing up in the anti-Semitic, post-Holocaust Soviet Union, when "Shush!" was the most frequent word he heard: "Don't use your Jewish name in public. Don't speak a word of Yiddish. And don't cry over your murdered relatives." This compelling memoir conveys the reader back to Draitser's childhood and provides a unique account of midtwentieth-century life in Russia as the young Draitser struggles to reconcile the harsh values of Soviet society with the values of his working-class Jewish family. Lively, evocative, and rich with humor, this unforgettable story ends with the death of Stalin and, through life stories of the author's ancestors, presents a sweeping panorama of two centuries of Jewish history in Russia.

acknowledgments notes on languages and translation prologue part one1 How I Failed My Motherland 2 Fathers at War 3 Path to Paradise 4 What's in a Name! 5 Black Shawl 6 Us Against Them 7 I Don't Want to Have Relatives! 8 Friends and Enemies 9 The Girl of My Dreams 10 How They Laugh in Odessa part two11 Papa and the Soviets 12 A Dependent 13 Without Declarations 14 Who's Who 15 A Strange Orange 16 Who Are You? 17 One Passover in Odessa part three18 On Commissars, Cosmopolites, and Lightbulb Inventors 19 Them! 20 No Kith, No Kin 21 Grandpa Uri 22 Missing Mikhoels 23 Black on White 24 Time Like Glass 25 The Death of Stalin Epilogue My Genealogical Tree