Samantha Shokin
By Samantha Shokin
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Culture Meet the Jewish songbird who dropped everything to save Ukrainian lives
Ukrainian American singer Daniil Cherkasskiy felt little connection to his home country. But after the Russian invasion, he knew what he had to do
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Life On ‘Victory Day,’ Russian Jews Sing Soviet War Anthems — In A Nostalgic Note
Today is Victory Day in the former Soviet Union, commemorating the USSR’s defeat over Nazi Germany. As Russia’s most important national holiday, today Red Square will be replete with the usual fanfare – larger-than-life military parades, decorated veterans, and of course big, bold numbers performed by the Red Army Choir. Not all Russian wartime songs…
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Opinion Meet the Progressive Russian Immigrants Fighting Trump — and Their Own Families
Emblazoned in handwritten Cyrillic on Olga Tomchin’s back is a word that has come to embody so much more than its literal definition. Pozor, Russian for “disgrace” (or shanda in Yiddish) has become a rallying cry for a movement of Soviet-born millennials defying their families’ ideologies and banding together in opposition to Donald Trump. Like…
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News My Brighton Beach
Russians don’t speak highly of Brighton Beach, the enclave in Southern Brooklyn where I spent many of my formative years. The neighborhood’s critics disparage it with a degree of shame or superiority, or even irony, as was the case in my family. Moscow-born author Lara Vapnyar encapsulated this widespread sentiment when she titled her contribution…
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The Schmooze Immigrant Drama, Redux
“Covers,” a new production by experimental theater troupe the Lost & Found Project for the Russian division of the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, attempts to breathe new life into two timeworn themes: young rebellious children and the clash of traditional values in the new world. Premiering May 22 to a packed (and largely Russian-speaking) audience,…
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The Schmooze Arts Festival Reinvents Brighton Beach
Babushki chattering in Russian, store awnings adorned in Cyrillic, the scent of fresh pierogi in the air — for decades, these displaced attributes of Soviet culture have been characteristic of Brighton Beach, New York’s Russian-speaking enclave in the southern tip of Brooklyn. While much of the borough was busy gentrifying, Brighton managed to stay frozen…
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Life A Russian-Jewish American Graduate
With much fuss and fanfare, this week’s NYU 2012 university commencement marked the conclusion of my undergraduate career. But instead of rushing forth and celebrating recklessly, determinedly, as is perhaps appropriate, that evening was a decidedly low-key affair. In this post-graduation haze, the only thing I’m inclined to do is sit and self-reflect by the…
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Life Touches of Home at an Istanbul Seder
Passover in my family has rarely been a formal affair. At one point, when I was a child and my family still observed a few watered-down traditions plucked out of the Jewish canon, we would gather round a makeshift Seder table to read selections from the ShopRite Haggadah. A Seder plate and stack of supermarket…
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