every year around passover, my dad makes his fAaAmous matzah ball soup. while we’re not quite religious, we do enjoy partaking in a little tradition here and there. for context, my mom is russian orthodox and my dad is russian jewish, but with neither party being outwardly observant, our family kind of ended up in a middle ground of. sure we’d paint easter eggs for russian easter and make matzah ball soup around passover and maybe we’ll even fast for yom kippur if the stars align (my dad does, but my sister and I gave that up after a few years)




but if I had to resonate with one side more, it would have to be my dad’s - growing up around my grandparents telling us chilling stories of the holocaust, being surrounded by all of our jewish cousins (aka all the bat mitzvahs) and of course the obligatory birthright trip in college.
but even then, I’m often stumped when people ask me “what am I” - it feels weird to say I’m nothing, but I also don’t resonate with being jewish “enough”, then there’s the fact I’m technically not jewish at all based on the principle of inheriting your mother’s religion. I wouldn’t say I’m atheist - I mean someone’s gotta be responsible for all this life. and obviously whoever is up there listens to me when I beg for a sign to move forward with a plan I have (spoiler alert: I take anything for a sign)
me and alex joke around that we don’t believe in god, we believe in gawd. and while that may not be funny to some (and I mean no harm, I respect the idea of religion for others) we get a good laugh out of it every single time.
but listen, I’ll unpack that on my own another time! we outta start talking about this soup before I lose you to boredom. this week I had my dad come over to show me how to make his matzah ball soup. but with the soup comes a story - a lore if you will. and while I’ve hear this story many a times before, it has a grip on me and I owe it to you to share.
if you listened to my IG/Tiktok on it you can probably skip to the recipe!


leonya’s lore:
so back in 1985 during the socialist era of the ex soviet union (belarus is where this story takes place), businesses weren’t allowed to make profit. now, specifically matzah wise - production and sales were tightly controlled under government authority. this means you had to request approval to begin selling matzah and even if granted, you were only allowed 3 months, leading up to passover, to make it. as you know, matzah is a core element of Passover, so it was highly sought after.
enter my dad: he decided to start his own matzah production so he got approval from the government, built a wood fired oven with his brother and cousin and they would make matzah 24/7 for those 3 months. most matzah production, including theirs, was based out of major cities. in rural areas, it was very hard, close to impossible to find matzah.
so once word got out of their business, elders in those rural areas would ask them to deliver the matzah as it would be too far and expensive for them to travel to the city via train.
and so, they used my cousins van and started driving 300+ miles with over 2,000 kilos of matzah (4,000 lbs) they would charge 2 rubles (about 75 cents) for 1 kilo of matzah (2 lbs) and delivery. now, this is where the rats come in. since they were technically profiting the delivery charge, someone found out and snitched on them!!!!
enter the KGB (!!) they had the police arrest my dad. he told me he ~nobly~ took the blame, as his cousin was younger than him. they took him to court, saying these elderly people he was selling to were “victims” of his business. however, this ultimately backfired in court when the grandmas refused to uphold this narrative, and instead they said he was helping them with his service. but still, its the KGB after all - and they weren’t letting down. turns out they had been silently watching him for years, waiting for him to slip up. they threatened to take my dad’s house, put him in jail for 3 years etc. so my dad had no choice but to bribe the prosecutor in the sum of what would equal to $50,000 today. but once the case was dropped, he also lost the job he had at the time. and they would send a notice to every company he would attempt to apply to thereafter, stating he was a criminal (dramatic muuuch) so he was shit out of luck on any work! that’s when he started his next business quest of becoming russia’s greatest car salesman. and well that’s just a story for another day!!



