The Double Burden — Being Jewish in Soviet Ukraine

I have told you about the burden of collectivism — the forty square meters, the empty promises, the suffocation of the soul.

But I carried a second burden. One I have not yet named.

I am Jewish.

In the Soviet Union, this was not a private matter of faith or heritage. It was a legal classification — stamped in my internal passport, recorded in every official document, visible to every employer, every admissions officer, every bureaucrat who held power over my life.

Nationality: Jewish.

Not Soviet. Not Ukrainian. Jewish — a permanent mark that set me apart in a system that demanded conformity.

State-Sponsored Antisemitism

The Soviet state did not merely tolerate antisemitism — it institutionalized it.

There were quotas limiting Jewish admission to universities. There were professions closed to Jews or restricted by unofficial but rigid limits. There were promotions that never came, opportunities that never materialized, and doors that remained shut no matter how qualified you were.

The state called this "equality." In practice, it meant Jews had to be twice as good to receive half as much.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, when I was sixteen, the situation intensified. "Anti-Zionism" became the acceptable face of antisemitism. Jews were "cosmopolitans" — rootless, disloyal, secretly aligned with foreign enemies. The ancient hatred was given modern ideological clothing.

Cultural Antisemitism

But the state was not the only source. The hatred lived in the culture — in neighbors, in schoolyards, in casual remarks that reminded you of your place.

Zhid. The slur that followed Jewish children through Soviet streets.

I heard it. I felt it. I knew what it meant: You are not one of us. You do not belong. No matter what you achieve, no matter how Soviet you try to become, you will always be other.

My family tried to protect me from this, too. They added it to the protective wall they built around me — another reality to be softened, another poison to be filtered.

But you cannot filter everything. The hatred seeps through. It shapes you even when you do not fully understand it.

The Refusenik Choice

By the 1970s, many Soviet Jews made a desperate choice: apply for exit visas to Israel or the West. They became refuseniks — refused permission to leave, but also stripped of everything for having asked.

To apply was to declare yourself a traitor. You would lose your job. Your children would be expelled from university. Your family would be shunned. And after all that sacrifice, you might still be refused — trapped in a country that now officially hates you, with no way forward and no way out.

Some waited years. Some waited decades. Some never escaped.

When I applied in 1978, I knew what it meant. I knew the cost. But I also knew I could not stay — not as a Soviet citizen, and not as a Jew in a system that had marked me as an enemy from birth.

Why This Matters

I tell you this not for sympathy. I tell you because it is part of why I see what I see.

Collectivism needs enemies. The system cannot admit that its failures are structural — that central planning cannot work, that the incentive problem cannot be solved, that the knowledge problem is insurmountable. So, it must find saboteurs. Wreckers. Class enemies. Scapegoats.

In the Soviet Union, Jews served this function. We were the explanation for why paradise had not arrived. We were the internal enemy that justified continued vigilance, continued control, continued sacrifice.

I lived inside this logic. I know what it feels like when an ideology decides that you are the problem.