Shush! -- Growing Up Jewish Under Stalin by Emil Draitser, UCalifornia Press' 08, 301 pages, ISBN #0520254465.
So anti-semitic did the author find life in the Stalinist Soviet Union that when he emigrated to the United States, he became conscious of his lowering his voice every time he uttered the word "Jewish." "Don't use your Jewish name in public," Draitser he says was a rule of life. "Don't speak a word of Yiddish. Don't cry over your murdered relatives."
Through it all, the Draitsers managed to conduct "a loving family life -- lively, evocative, and rich with humor." The author's work includes "a sweeping panorama of two centuries of Jewish history in Russia" and ends with the death of Stalin. Emil Draitser teaches Russian at hunter College of the City University of New York and is the author of ten books.
