By Alex Gordon in Haifa, Israel
The surname Rabinovich is so Jewish that few Jews in Russia can bear to carry it. It is even possible that the Jewish writer Sholem Aleichem, Solomon Rabinovich, could not bear this sonorous and unambiguously Jewish surname and began writing his works under a pseudonym meaning the traditional Jewish greeting “Peace be upon you.”
Sholem Aleichem loved the city of Kiev until the pogroms of 1905, after which he was forced to flee to America. The writer retained his love for Kiev throughout his life, but he never returned to the city. The events described in this story took place in Soviet-era Kiev.
In the USSR, the main character of jokes that mocked the Jews was Rabinovich. This surname came to embody the typical Soviet Jew. When this country ceased to exist on April 1, 1995, on the International Day of Laughter and Jokes, a monument to Rabinovich, the hero of Jewish jokes, was erected in Odessa. The USSR no longer exists, but the monument to Rabinovich still stands. Sholem Aleichem, a classic of Jewish humor, had no idea that his former surname would become the funniest in the folklore of Jewish jokes. He not only created a gallery of Jewish comedic characters but also inadvertently became the namesake of a character in numerous Jewish jokes.
But let’s return to the USSR. Since Jews were unpopular there, carrying the surname Rabinovich was difficult and dangerous. Moreover, it was inconvenient and even “indecent” to bear the surname Rabinovich in Kiev, where antisemitism was a powerful spiritual current in the lives of the non-Jewish population of the city and a target for the ideologues of Soviet state antisemitism.
The most unfortunate family in Kiev was the Rabinovich family, whose three sons were born and grew up under the burden of this mocking surname.
The eldest brother Rabinovich decided to avoid the unfortunate fate of bearing this problematic surname by marrying a Russian girl and changing his unfortunate surname to her sonorous Russian surname Trofimov. But this act seemed to him an insufficiently reliable refuge from the surname Rabinovich, and he decided to move from Kiev to another city where he was not known as Rabinovich.
But moving from Kiev was not a reliable guaranty for Trofimov to escape his Jewish identity. And he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and started to build a career in the military. In August 1968, he found himself in the troops of the (socialist?) Warsaw Pact countries that invaded Czechoslovakia, which wanted to build “socialism with a human face.” For the operation to “restore order” in Czechoslovakia, Trofimov received a medal for military merit and was promoted in military rank. Since the antisemitic stereotype that Jews did not fight was firmly entrenched in the USSR, the combat officer Trofimov definitively parted ways with Judaism.
The middle brother followed the path of the eldest: he fled from the surname Rabinovich by marrying a Ukrainian girl with the melodious surname Belokon. This surname, which meant “white horse,” ensured him a rapid career advancement and an equally swift distancing from his Jewish heritage. Even after divorcing his wife, he retained her remarkable Ukrainian surname, which opened doors for him in the society of full-fledged individuals. Like some other Rabinoviches, Belokon turned out to be a talented person.
He became a professional artist and the chief animator of Ukraine. He excelled in the role of a Ukrainian artist, received a state award, and the title of “Honored Artist of Ukraine.” This miraculous transformation reliably protected him from being Jewish. His Jewish origins were forgotten. In directories and encyclopedias, it was claimed that he was born under the surname Belokon.
The youngest brother, Rabinovich, had the hardest time. He was unlucky because he married a Jewish woman, and therefore, he couldn’t successfully change his ridiculous surname to a pleasantly sounding non-Jewish surname. He turned out to be a Jew not only through his father and mother, but also through his wife. He had to endure the bitter existence of Rabinovich, who was pointed at and laughed at. In general, he had to lead a miserable existence as a schlimazel.
Many fairy tales began like this: there lived three brothers, two wise and one foolish. In the family of our Rabinoviches, the situation was exactly like that. The third brother was a fool because he continued to live the life of a Jew, but not just any Jew, a Jew from a joke, a generalized Jew with the surname Rabinovich.
In Soviet times, citizens of the country had passports that included their nationality in the fifth line, such as Russian, Ukrainian, Jew, and so on. The fifth line-imposed restrictions on the achievements of Jews, just as the numerus clausus during the Tsarist era prevented them from studying at Russian universities and forbade them from holding certain professions.
Jews were called the invalids of the fifth line. Formerly the Rabinovich brothers, Trofimov and Belokon, not only changed their provocative surname to non-Jewish “decent” and promising surnames. They changed their passports several times until, in the fifth line, Judaism was replaced with the desired nationalities: Russian and Ukrainian. Thus, they successfully borrowed not only their wives’ surnames but also their nationalities. They were smart brothers, towering above their third, foolish Jewish brother.
The Soviet Union seemed like an empire that would last for centuries. But historical processes began, leading to the economic collapse and subsequent dissolution of the USSR. On the eve of this event, the Soviet authorities slightly opened the “Iron Curtain.” The mass exodus of Soviet Jews from the country, which was experiencing a major crisis, began.
Many Soviet people lived very poorly, but they had nowhere to run. Only the Jews found themselves in a privileged position: they could emigrate to Israel and Western countries. By that time, I had already been living in Israel for a long time. However, my father lived in Moscow. When Jews had the opportunity to emigrate, my father wrote to me that it was unlikely many Jews would leave the USSR, as everyone who wanted to emigrate had already emigrated. To this remark from my father, I replied that now those who didn’t want to emigrate are the ones who are emigrating.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews left the crumbling USSR. Deserving citizens, Russian Trofimov and Ukrainian Belokon, found themselves in a very difficult situation. They also had a desire to emigrate, but it became impossible because only Jews could emigrate, and they were no longer Jews due to their many years of efforts. However, their Jewish brother Rabinovich had a clear path to emigration, which he took advantage of, and ended up in economically prosperous America. And so, the two smart brothers Trofimov and Belokon, former Rabinoviches, remained in the crumbling country, while the “foolish” third brother, who remained a Rabinovich, moved to the wonderful country of the USA, where he lived prosperously. Like in fairy tales, the third younger brother, the fool, turned out to be smarter than his clever brothers.
*
Alex Gordon is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the Academic College of Education. He is the author of 12 books.