Simsbury speaker recounts Soviet-Jewish immigration, family’s experience with antisemitism

Paulina Bodner Shapiro, a “book” with the Simsbury Human Library, told a local meeting that she immigrated from the former Soviet Union in 1993 at age 15 and that her parents chose to leave in part because of longstanding antisemitism in their home region.

Shapiro said her family arrived in the United States with little money and relied on an aunt in Springfield, Massachusetts, and local Jewish social services for help finding housing, English classes and work. “Local Jewish family services were of huge help to not just our family, but to all new immigrants from the Soviet Union,” she said.

Her remarks summarized three themes she said shaped her family’s decision and experience: institutional antisemitism in the Soviet period, the practical supports that aided resettlement in the U.S., and a continuing concern about antisemitism. Shapiro described how quotas and other institutional barriers limited opportunities for Jewish people in higher education and certain jobs in the Soviet era and said her parents did not want their children to face the same limits.

Shapiro recounted that her family’s move was partly timed to a political opening in the early 1990s; she referenced Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms as part of the context that made emigration possible. She said her parents believed the United States would offer safety and opportunity: “United States is my home,” she said, adding that she has lived in the country for about 32 years and in Simsbury for about 15.

On resettlement supports, Shapiro said the family lived with her aunt in Springfield after arrival and used services including free English-language instruction and job-placement help. She said financial constraints shaped her education choices: she attended Springfield College because it allowed her to work while studying and left college with roughly $20,000 in loans. She described getting a job at a law office as a turning point that led her into a legal career.

Shapiro distinguished her own personal experiences from those of her parents. She said she encountered only occasional offensive comments but that her parents had faced more direct and institutional antisemitism, including being taunted in public and subject to quotas for university admission and employment. “My parents left Soviet Union because of antisemitism,” she said.

She closed by expressing gratitude for opportunities in the United States and urging civic appreciation and contributions to community life, referencing a familiar public-service sentiment: that citizens should think about what they can give back.

The remarks were delivered as part of a single speaker’s presentation; there were no motions or formal actions recorded in the transcript related to this comment.