Trip to Brighton Beach

Trip to Brighton Beach

On June 5th we took a trip to Brighton Beach which is located in Brooklyn, NY. It is a place where a lot of immigrants and refugees moved from the Soviet Union in the 20th century. Throughout Brighton Beach there are plenty of Russian and other Soviet country shops....
My grandmother

My grandmother

My grandmother is not like any grandmother that everyone has met. My grandmother has her very own special story. She was born in the Soviet Union, in 1940, during the Holocaust. It was a very dangerous time period, and as a little girl, she saw basically, her whole...
Trip to Paterson

Trip to Paterson

On June 7th, we took a trip to Paterson, NJ, to visit different Middle Eastern shops. We started the day off at Fattal’s, which was a bakery and grocery store serving mostly Middle Eastern cuisine. We tried different kinds of pita there, including plain pita...
My Maternal Grandpa

My Maternal Grandpa

    In 1945, my mom’s father, a 17-year-old soldier of the youth military (青年军), followed the Chinese military academy to the small island of Taiwan to pursue military training. At the time, China was under the rule of Chiang Kai Shek, the leader of...
Movie Review: “Refusenik”

Movie Review: “Refusenik”

The movie “Refusenik” created by Laura Bialis in 2007 illustrates the struggles of Jews in the Soviet Union trying to leave their country in the 1960s and 70s. By definition, Refusenik means “a person who refuses to follow orders or obey the...