During an extended visit to Soviet Russia in the Brezhnev era of stagnation, on several occasions I was asked by acquaintances of only a casual nature whether or not I believe in God. Why, I wondered, would anyone on the streets of Moscow in the 1970s care about my personal religious life? This had never been a topic of interest in the United States, except, if ever, among close friends.
–from the introduction to Doubly Chosen: Jewish Identity, The Soviet Intelligentsia, And the Russian Orthodox Church; Judith Deutsch Kornblatt says as much about where in America she lived–or rather, where she didn’t live–as about Russia….