Alex

I met him while in Chicago on a consulting gig, we were working in the same company. Alex, or Alexander G...ich was a Russian Jew - because of all the recent headlines I keep remembering him these days.

Alex had migrated to US a few years earlier before I met him, and he apparently had the option of going to Israel but chose not to. We had a lot of chats on politics, once I asked him why not, he had a sour expression in his face, and started to tell me about how Zionism, and how Christian Zionists in US are goading Jews back to "the homeland" because the second coming of Jesus depends on all of them being there, etc.. Crazy stuff. Then he goes "well, if the return of all Jews to Israel is a precondition for that, they'll have to wait a while because I'll never set a foot on that racist country as long as I live". That was shocking, and the first (and not the last) time I heard such a remark from anyone.

I believe it was also the first time I went to a Russian restaurant, thanks to Alex. Good pastries. Liked the borscht. I remember joking "look there is an item called 'Nuclear Chicken' on the menu!" The item was actually "Chicken Chernobyl", we had a good laugh on that. We had some other running jokes; Everytime we talked about Russian history, Alex would ask me "do you want the real version, or do you want the state version? Because I know both equally well".

America is a great place to meet people from all over the world, listening to everyone's stories.. by this time I was starting to understand nationalist narratives (i.e. horses..t) trascendes all borders, all colors and cultures. I had the Russian / Jewish perspective of that from Alex.