The problem was, the U.S.S.R. had no religion. Having had no exposure to Judaism throughout their lives, Soviet Jews were largely ignorant of the religious traditions American Jews had always embraced. Here’s how the American Jewish Committee’s Russian-Jewish affairs director Sam Kliger described it in a research report several years ago:52

Oral reports and publications indicate that some American Jews depict Russian Jews as not “Jewish enough” who not only are ignorant of and indifferent to Jewish religion and tradition, but also are insensitive to American Jewish culture…Explicit forms of personal religious practice or communal identification, such as wearing a kippah, and a Jewish communal life separate from the general population is [sic] unfamiliar to them and difficult to accept. Being Jewish, for them, is less about action and community and more about relaxing with friends and talking about God or about Israel’s flaws and successes. For most Russian-speaking Jews, Jewish identity is not a matter of choice or religious practice, but rather a sociological fact, prescribed at birth and known to the individual and his or her family, not to be casually announced to everyone who wants to know. A Russian Jew may know he or she is Jewish, may be proud of it, may feel, think or even believe as a Jew, but rarely will act as one.

Now that we were in a place where we could act Jewish, we had no desire to. According to a 2004 survey by the AJC, only 6 percent of Russian-speaking Jews considered religion “very important.”

There would be hardly any Jews in the place my family would end up next, but even if there were lots, I doubt we would have fit in well with them anyway.

A year into our new American life, my dad was persuaded to move our family from Los Angeles to Midland when, during a short visit to Midland on business, he stopped in to a random apartment complex and asked the management office how much they charged for a one-bedroom.

“Two fifty,” said the woman behind the desk.

“Two hundred fifty?” my dad replied. “A week? This is not bad.”

“A month, sir.”

It was done. We had no money, and this arid place seemed to require very little.

My dad returned to Los Angeles and shared the good news with my mom: “You can’t imagine what a hole it is. It’s hideous. But we have to move there.”

To be sure, we were so poor that my mom, the former head of finance at her company in Leningrad, had been working as a cashier at McDonald’s, and the prospect of saving up some money was appealing. But my mom was vehemently opposed. Los Angeles had beaches, sunshine, and immigrants from all over. Just a few months after we immigrated, she had already made friends. And where the hell was Midland, Texas?