My grandmother never ate mushrooms. I could not understand it. I thought they were the most delicious thing on the planet. I asked her why and she said ‘You see-I never ate them as a child. We just did not eat them. And something you do not eat as a child…you rarely learn how to eat later’. I was curious about that. My grandmother’s family did not eat mushrooms. They lived in a town, not in a village. To get mushrooms-you need to pick them in the forest. Central Ukraine in year 1914 was not known for its supermarkets. To pick them-you need to know an awful lot about them, otherwise you are at a risk of serious poisoning and death. Given the lack of effortless lifestyle-based knowledge and the risks, it is easy to see why they never ate them. But: is that true that childhood determines your taste for the rest of your life?
Before I was six I never tasted a banana. I even did not know very well how they looked. Sixty years after the October revolution large parts of the Soviet population never encountered a type of fruit grown outside of their region, and even the regional fruit was strictly seasonal. Then I watched a children’s cartoon ‘Three bananas’ and I understood what they are although I was not too sure of their colour-black and white TV failed me on that one. Finally, my first introduction to bananas took place when my mum came home from work and, with a mysterious smile, gave me ‘something’-something I thought was a special delicious-smelling melon. It was a banana. A single fruit. Brown in colour, and now I know that it was very ripe. Amazed, I peeled it, ate it, and thought it was a fruit out of this world, from the Paradise.
Then there was a lull of 13 years. When I left the USSR and met others from the USSR in the West, I came across people who knew about bananas ‘ from home’. Apparently-also something I am only now aware of-different regions of the USSR differed dramatically in the level of socio-economic development and market supplies. They still do. The level of GDP in today’s Moscow puts it close to the level of the Netherlands while Ingushetia is at the same level as Iraq. My own town of birth is at a level of Montenegro. That is *now*. It was in all probability below Montenegro *then* , as any of us would have traded our town for Montenegro any minute, given the opportunity.
Anyhow, fast forward to the delicate age of 18 years when I left ‘what just emerged as Russia’ out of the collapsed USSR. My journey to Israel took a peculiar route. It went through Finland. A group of Evangelical Christians in Finland organised a programme which took Jews from Russia to Finland and from there, within 2-3 days, to Israel. During the 2-3 day stay in Finland, Jews were homed in Christian families , provided with food, entertainment and shopping opportunities. I signed up for that, travelled to the special collection point not very far from the border with Finland, but very far from my home town, and found myself in Finland.
I am digressing but it is worth saying a few words about people I came across there. I was homed by an elderly couple who lived in a neat flat in a multi-story building. They had one bedroom, which was their master bedroom, with a double bed. It was given to me-before I knew the number of rooms in the house and anything about them really. I was too exhausted to ask normal questions and to register things around me in a normal manner. In the morning I came out of ‘my’ bedroom-only to find out that they spent the night in sleeping bags on the floor of the dining room. My evening entertainment consisted of a concert of Sibelius’s’ music held in their church. (I never saw a non-Russian Orthodox church before and it looked like a school hall to me, not a church). After the concert I found myself encircled by a group of Christians-they all smiled at me, one of them-she looked my age-spoke perfect almost-unaccented Russian. ‘How comes?’ I asked. ‘When I was eight years old’-she said-‘ I promised G-d that I will devote my life to helping the Soviet Jews to leave the USSR and go to Israel. I was told that I would need to learn Russian for that. So I did’. Simple, is it not?
When I landed in Israel a couple of days later, I told these very stories, and more, to the Israeli clerk who registered me on arrival to Ben-Gurion airport. (She was a representative of the Ministry of Absorption. In her 30s. Liberated Mediterranean type. She spoke in croaky voice, smoked in my face and was undoubtedly the most attractive woman I had ever seen. I sat in front of her swaying slightly from the power of emotion induced, no doubt, by finally making it to the historical homeland). ‘They were taking care of you like that?’-she said-‘ How is it that nobody knows anything about them? We should wash their feet and drink the water…-if you ask me!’. I could not find a fault in her argument either.
So many words spent and the second banana has not made it to the story yet. Here it comes. The second banana was given to me a minute after I crossed the border of Russia into Finland. A bus full of Jews who, like me, were registered on a ‘Finnish programme to Israel’, reached the border with Finland, not every far from Vyborg. After an interminable and humiliating customs check in Vyborg we were allowed to leave and continue with our journey. The bus crossed the little bridge over a brook-we were in Finland! (What I felt at that moment is indescribable and should not dwell on it for too long not to derail the story again). The bus stopped immediately, the doors opened, and in came a few people with trays of food. On each individual tray there were: a slice of cheese-that I never saw before served in this way, pieces of strange crispy bread-that I never saw before, something else- I have no idea what it was still, and a banana! The second banana. And if that is not amazing enough, then I also got a choice of orange juice or coke. I had coke of course. In a can. I had no idea how to open it but I got help. It was the second banana and the first coke of my life. Later I found out that the trays with food were organised by our Christian hosts-they learned about the length of customs checks in Vyborg and that people made it to the border fainting from hunger, so they made these trays. Simple, is it not?
And now that I am done with bananas, it is time for potatoes. Unlike bananas, that *is* my childhood food. The main dietary ingredient. In the European part of Russia potatoes are sown in late April. They are dead-easy to tend to, require very occasional watering during summers, only a tad more demanding in years of Colorado beetle epidemic when protection against the beetle is needed. If you neglect that-say good-buy to crops. They are dug out in early September. After that it is important to clean and dry them, if not dried properly-they will start rotting quickly and will not survive the winter. Why do they need to ‘survive the winter’? And how I have so much knowledge to impart on an obscure agricultural subject? That is because, 60 years after the revolution, Soviet citizens grew their own potatoes to survive the winter. And my family grew them as well. My mother and father were middle class professionals, and grew potatoes at the same time. Not-normal things become normal when everybody does them. When cultural Marxists gain an upper hand in politics and the economy collapses, my friends, I will come in handy. I will teach you how to grow your own potatoes. You will need it.
Why to talk about all this now, specifically now? No other reason except to fulfil the promise that I made to myself during that short stay in Finland. I promised myself then that I will tell the world about my Christian hosts at any opportunity that presents itself, this was the least I could do to partially repay my debt to them. My excuse today is the coming US election. Today, unlike then, I know something about the essentials of faith of these people and their demography. 4% of the world population, 3% of Europe and 10% of Americas are evangelical Christians, Pew Research Center data tell us. America is a real stronghold of this population: one third of global evangelical population is located there. Another third of them is in sub-Saharan Africa, by the way. In the coming US election, American Evangelicals will be overwhelmingly (perhaps > 80%) voting for Donald Trump. Just like they did in the 2020 US election, earlier surveys of this population make this pretty certain. In that they will be strongly aligned with the highly religious (haredi) American Jews : 80%-90% of them will vote for Trump, as the recent research conducted by Mark Trencher and David Myers suggests, and very distant from the Reform Jews, of whom only 20% or so are likely to cast their vote for Trump.
How much did they impact on bringing Jews back to Israel? That is anyone’s guess, but some things are more certain than other. Today, the proportion of Jews living in the Land of Israel out of the total global Jewish population is in the region of 45%-50% (Figure below). When was the last time such distribution of Jews between Israel and the Diaspora was observed? At the time of the Second Temple, or year Zero of the Common Era , believe it or not. Today, like then, the dial is approaching the 6 o’clock mark. After a looooong time that it was somewhere around 1 o’clock, if that…. ….What my hosts did is to move that dial closer to six.
It is better to finish on a lighter note, I am being told. Ok, if I must….
…My grandmother was right after all. You never learn to fully appreciate foods you did not eat in childhood. Having tasted bananas a few times since that fateful crossing of the Finnish border, I rarely eat them now. Much prefer potatoes. Red skinned potatoes-King Edwards type-like the ones we grew. They should be boiled in water, in skins (very important!). Drain the water and set to rest; take a soucer, mix two tablespoons of sunflower oil with one teaspoon of large-crystal salt. Dunk the steaming potato in the mixture of oil and salt. A greater delicacy has not been invented yet-take my word!