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The Story of the Family Samovar

June 7, 2020/ Nadja Maril

My great grandmother’s samovar is made of brass, and for many years it sat on the top of a small marble top bureau in the hallway collecting dust. There’s a little spout you turn where the water is supposed to come out and there’s a tray underneath. It was used to heat hot water for tea. Hot coals were placed in the bottom. I imagine my ancestors huddled in a small thatched cottage, residing in a village in Ukraine where Jews were allowed to live. Shivering from the cold, they drink their strong hot tea in glass cups, wrapping their hands around the cups to stay warm. Too frightened to walk freely at night, worried the Cossacks may ride by on their broad horses swinging their swords, ready to indiscriminately beat up and rob any Jew foolish enough to show his face, they huddle around the samovar, study the Torah and tell stories.

During childhood I heard the stories about the shtetls and the pogroms that escalated to become the Holocaust where six million Jews—two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe— were killed for no other reason than for being Jewish.

When my ancestors came to the United States, they brought their worldly possessions. The most valuable item was their samovar.

*     *     *

In my entire life, I have never seen the samovar used for any purpose. It is large and squat in shape. It moved from my grandmother’s house to my mother’s house after my grandmother died. The brass has grown dark and tarnished.

My daughter is getting married. She is dubious about wanting ownership of the samovar. She lives in a small apartment in northern California. She shares the results of her genetic profile with me. “I am fifty percent Ashkenazi,” she says, “which means you are one hundred percent.”        One hundred percent! I am surprised at the purity of my genetic heritage. But that is what the report from 23 and Me says. No mention of countries of origin. The gene pool from which I descend is so small that countries don’t matter.

*     *     *

Ashkenazi, I like the way the four syllables sound, soothing and rhythmic on my tongue. Ashkenazi—a small tribe of Jews who moved into northern Europe, then migrated east, looking for a place to call home.

Americans of Christian heritage may find it exotic to discover they are ten or fifteen percent Ashkenazi, but the ratio doesn’t work the other way. No outsiders ever joined the Ashkenazi community. The bloodline, my bloodline is pure.

*     *     *

During childhood I heard the stories about the shtetls and the pogroms that escalated to become the Holocaust where 6 million Jews—two thirds of the Jewish population in Europe— were killed for no other reason than for being Jewish.

“Are you Jewish?” I am my daughter’s age, mid-twenties. At a cocktail party, an elderly woman from Albania asks me. “You have such a lovely complexion. Are you Jewish?” She stares at me and I hesitate. I look down at her wrinkled hands with glittering jewelry and try to think of what to say. I have never practiced the Jewish religion, never learned Hebrew, never was confirmed or had a bat mitzvah, but on the high holy days of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, I stayed home from school.

“Never forget you are Jewish,” my father and mother would say. “It is your identity.”

My fiancé has told me emphatically that if I do not practice the Jewish religion, I am not a Jew. He has rejected Catholicism and no longer considers himself a Catholic.

“It is a religion,” he says. “Believe me. You are not Jewish.”

“Are you Jewish?” the woman asks.

“No,” I answer.

She smiles and compliments my dotted Swiss dress and my fine young man, before she starts to tell me about the filthy Jews who have stolen her waterfront property. “They have to be near the water because they stink and need to bathe all the time,” she says. “They are all crooked lawyers, bankers, and thieves.”

I am burning up inside and I want to tell her that Jewish people don’t smell any different from anyone else or ask her why she would have to ask me if I am Jewish. I want to shake this elegant lady with her diamond earrings and her manicured nails and tell her she is the one who is dirty.

But I say nothing. I nod and act polite and rush outside to breath clean air as soon as our conversation has ended. I am angry. I am angry at myself. Ashamed that I’d let myself blend in with everyone else in the room instead of identifying myself as different. The next time someone asks me, I will answer, “Yes, that is my heritage.”

My grandmother Pauline Schapiro told me stories about the farm where she grew up, the delicious sauerkraut they made and how she loved to eat the apples that fermented along with the cabbage. What she didn’t tell me was how the children at school would make fun of her odd accent and how hard she worked to sound like everyone else. A fire in the courthouse provided the opportunity for Pauline and her sister Bessie to obtain replacement birth certificates saying they were born in America like their four younger siblings. She wanted to be able to proudly say she was an American.

The acts of discrimination are subtle. “He tried to Jew me down,” a friend says describing an interaction at the local flea market.

“What did you say?”

My daughter Alex tells me that stress can affect your DNA, that centuries of persecution can cause molecular changes. I’m not certain that is true. What I have observed is that we tend to create unreliable narratives about people different from ourselves when they remain strangers. The unfamiliar is scary.

I do not need my great grandmother’s samovar to remind me of where I came from and who I am. I look in the mirror and see my high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes. In another decade, my hands will probably become as wrinkled as the hands that belonged to the lady from Albania. I carry the knowledge and tell the stories of those who lived before me. One of the chosen people—or maybe just one of many who have chosen to be proud of who we are.

Nadja Maril is a former magazine editor and journalist living in Annapolis, MD. She has an MFA in creative writing from the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine and her short stories and essays have been or will be published in several literary journals and anthologies including the Scarlet Leaf Review, Change Seven, Storynews, and Burning Love and Bleeding Hearts. Additional credits include two reference books on American Antique Lighting as well as two children’s books illustrated by her artist father, the late Herman Maril.

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Genre Archive

  • Creative Nonfiction
  • Essays
  • Fiction
  • Flash Prose
  • Lunch Specials
  • Poetry
  • Interviews
  • Translation
  • Visual Art
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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published every Friday.

Today’s course:

Peace, Love, and a lot of Loud Rock & Roll

June 17, 2022/in A Transfer, Blog / Sunee Lyn Foley
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Crosses to Pentacles

June 10, 2022/in A Transfer, Blog / Jazmine Cooper
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Table to Trash

June 3, 2022/in A Transfer, Blog / Franz Franta
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Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

QVC-land

May 6, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / D. E. Hardy
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Escape Artists at the End of the World

April 29, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / Lisa Levy
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The House in the Middle

April 15, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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More coming soon!

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every Monday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Eggs, No Basket

June 27, 2022/in A Transfer, Amuse-Bouche, CNF / Kelsi Long
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The Revolution Began at Book Club

June 20, 2022/in A Transfer, Amuse-Bouche, Fiction / Sari Fordham
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A Letter to the Dead Grandmothers That Raised Us

June 13, 2022/in A Transfer, Amuse-Bouche, Poetry / Levi J. Mericle
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

The variety in this issue speaks not only to the eclectic world we inhabit but to the power of the human spirit. We live in an uncertain world. In the U.S., we’re seeing mass shootings daily. Across the world, we’re still very much in a pandemic, some being trapped in their homes for weeks on end, others struggling to stay alive in hospitals. War continues to wage in Ukraine. Iran and North Korea are working diligently to make nuclear weapons. The list goes on. Still, we have artists who are willing and able to be vulnerable with one another, to share stories and art to help us try and make sense of our world.

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