By Ilya Magid

About the Jewish Mother

In WW2 the Jewish Mother was in the Blockade of Leningrad. She worked in the Military service. After the war she received her passport* with the designation 'Russian'.

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*Each Soviet person had to have an internal passport. The passport designated his nationality. The passport was necessary to begin a new job, to go to a government office, to move to another apartment, etc.
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(How did some Jewish people receive a passport with the designation "Russian" instead of "Jewish"? Maybe that required special investigation, but sometimes that could happen as a mistake during regular processing of the passport. Then they could return it and report the mistake at a passport office, stating, "I am Jewish, not Russian".)

When that mother gave girth to her son in 1956, the passport service recorded in the birth certificate that the father is "Jewish"; the mother is "Russian." (That gave the son the best position for enrolling in specialty schools).

At the age of 16 (in 1972) her son had to receive his own passport. He could choose the nationality for his passport, the nationality of his mother or of his father. He wanted to choose the nationality of his mother, 'Russian'. When he went to the passport service office and showed his birth certificate a clerk told him, "Have your mother come here with you!" When his mother came to the clerk, the clerk told her, "I have known your family since long before the revolution. They were 'Jews' ".

The clerk ordered a change in the mother's passport and recorded in the passport 'Jew'. The clerk gave the son his passport also with the designation "Jew". The clerk called to mother's plant about her lying about her nationality. She had much trouble at her plant, although she had a low position in the plant.

In the year 1979 her son emigrated to Israel. He had a problem, because his birth certificate said: "Mother is Russian." So for Israel's law he was Russian. He called his mother quickly and told her, "Give me a document that shows you are a Jew". The mother sent him her birth certificate in which it was written that she was a Jew.

All ended well!

Editor Steven Siegel

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