A Jewishness Check in the 21st Century

"My parents came to the United States from Kiev in the late '90s. We traveled an enormous path, we returned to observing the mitzvot, and I studied at an Orthodox school in Chicago. I consider myself a hundred-percent American religious guy. But to the local hereditary Orthodoxy, I will forever remain 'the Russian.'

Recently one family declined to meet with me after spending three weeks examining my grandfather's documents. The shadchanit relayed their words: 'We have great respect for Mark, but his roots are from the former USSR. The archives there are unreliable, who knows what might come up. We would prefer a family with a clearer Ashkenazi lineage from Europe or old America.' It hurts unbearably. My parents accomplished a colossal spiritual feat, preserving their Jewishness in a place where you were punished for it. And here, in a free country, people who never lifted a finger for their faith because they received it on a silver platter sit and study my roots under a magnifying glass with disgust. This caste-based prejudice poisons the community from within."