Out of Line: Growing Up Soviet

In 1979, at the age of 17, the author immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union. She is now a rabbi at a synagogue affiliated with the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. Her description of her daily life and her family's life in the Soviet Union enables us to understand the abstractions we have all been told about life under communism: the corruption, the poverty, and the fear of government. Her book is not an anti-communist screed. Rabbi Grimberg praised the system of childcare and tells how her grandmother was exonerated from a false accusation of corruption. She had a happy childhood. One of the most poignant scenes in the book is when the 10-year old Tina ordered her beloved grandmother not to speak Yiddish in public again. The grown-up rabbi tells this story in a way that shows she has not forgiven herself. Indeed, forgiveness is oriented to the past and has no meaning for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. They are concerned only with the future, not realizing there is no future if there is no past. We can forgive ourselves because God forgives us. As an added benefit, we all have someone we can express our gratitude to for whatever happiness He has given us.

This memoir tells about life in the Soviet Union during the Communist era. Tina Grimberg grew up in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, in a tiny flat with her parents and her older sister. She explains that, for over 70 years the world was divided into two parts, East and West, or the Communist Bloc and the Free World. This book tells about her life behind the Iron Curtain. After the fall of the Czar, during the Communist Revolution in 1917, the Communist took over and forbade all religion. Tina and her family were Jewish, but they were not allowed to practice their religion, even speaking Yiddish outside of the home meant trouble. Although the Iron Curtain is gone, her memories of that time remain. In the West everyone assumed that communism was a great evil. Grimberg reports that there were certainly aspects that were bad, evil even, but it wasn't all gray and dreary. For small children, it was a stimulating place with love of family strong, along with the endless lineups in the cold. It also meant trying to escape the all-seeing eyes, whether they belonged to the old ladies in their babushkas who guarded every courtyard, or to the Soviet state that monitored every step its citizens took. In the 1970's the Soviet Union, often referred to as Russia, agreed to allow certain "undesirables" (Jews and some minorities) to leave. Tina, then 15 years old, and her family were sponsored by kind strangers in Indiana, who helped the family settle in the United States. This subject of life behind the Iron Curtain is rarely told for children and the book is highly recommended. For ages 8-12 years. Reviewed by Barbara Silverman

Grimberg's collection of memories of life behind the Iron Curtain is an essential key to understanding a way of life which millions led in the 20th century. Though the Iron Curtain is gone, thus impact remains - and thus this autobiography of Tina, who was born in Kiev and grew up in a tiny flat with her family, is key to understanding, even today, the psyche of a country.