For the first twenty odd years of my life Little Odessa was to me what it was to the Q train: the end of the line, oh I did lie about my name, it's not really "Yuri Orlov" there have been a few occasions in the twentieth century where it's been an advantage to be a Jew but in the seventies to escape the Soviet Union our family pretended to be Jewish, little about my life has been "kosher" since, my younger brother was just as lost as me, he just didn't know it yet, my father took his assumed identity to heart, he was more Jewish than most Jews which drove my Catholic mother crazy