“Only two under dhimiitude”…

 My family are Krymchak Jews from Feodosiya, Crimea. My family has a lot of small stories from living there, but some that stood out were the effects of pogroms along with dhimmitude. My great-grandfather was two years old during the second pogrom on the village, him and his older brother survived. The other 20+ people in the family were ruthelessly murdered infront of them. They decided to head out to Greece to get tickets to the US and escape the Russian Empire. On their way here, his brother died from illness and he was left alone. When he arrived to the US around 17-18y/o, it didn't get any better. He joined a Jewish community and started a small shop. The shop was soon raided and he was held hostage along with his coworkers who were killed for being Jews. The lasting stress never left him, he became mute and eventually died from stress related illness. Due to his mutism and obvious fear of persecution, we were taught to stop practicing and speaking our language. My family still faces being othered by Ashkenazim and Goyim alike. My mother and I were forced to give up most of our culture do to antisemitism in abuse, so I am still reconnecting. Luckily, I was able to work with my family to revive some of our culture. The sad part is that due to constant genocide and persecution, we no longer can look back into our own history. My family was erased from records, our graves don't exist. There is very little left to undo such forced assimilation but we continue to practice the traditions we haven't lost.

-Anonymous