Mikhail Anisimov
Mikhail Anisimov grew up in Odessa, Ukraine, which was the home to over one million Jews. While Odessa had a population of over a million Jews, there was only one synagogue in the area, which signified the lack of a Jewish communal culture. Moreover, Anisimov was pigeonholed as Jewish throughout his experience in the Soviet Union, whereas his experience, and involvement, in Jewish culture was very limited. Due to the Soviet Union’s general distaste for religion, Jews were discouraged from openly practicing their religion. However, even though many Jews did not openly practice Judaism or publicly celebrate Jewish culture, they still faced institutional anti-Semitic barriers. Such difficulties led Anisimov and his family to seek greater opportunity in Los Angeles.
Through the assistance of organization such as, HIAS, Jewish Family Services, and Young Israel, the Anisimov’s were well received by the Los Angeles Jewish community. Since the late 1960s, the Jewish community in Los Angeles had been working to help Soviet Jews to emigrate and resettle. The free Soviet Jewry movement gained wide recognition, in Los Angeles through the support of Tom Bradley, as he campaigned for mayor for 1973. Tom Bradley’s involvement in the Soviet Jewry movement was part of his effort to construct multicultural coalition that included Jews, African-Americans, and Latinos.
However, the expectations that the Los Angeles Jewish community had for, did not meet the reality of the Soviet Jews. Jewish Angelenos assumed that the newcomers would remind them of their grandparents, When comparing the immigration of previous groups of Ashkenazi Jews to Los Angeles to the waves of Soviet migrants, there were many differing aspects. Previous waves shared a deep sense of Jewish culture and, once settled, tended to vote liberal. The Soviet Jewish newcomers, however, were largely confined in keeping their religion a secret and practiced Jewish traditions without much knowledge. Moreover, once in the United States, many Soviet Jews tended to vote conservative since the liberal programs, perhaps unfairly, reminded them of socialist policies in Soviet Russia.