The story of a fervent atheistic communist woman in Moscow who was denied entrance to medical school because she was Jewish. She applied to leave Russia and was denied, thus becoming a Refusenik. It describes her two-year tortuous struggle to leave, her humorous adjustment to American society, and her challenging journey to become a physician and learn what it meant to be Jewish. Her historian husband interweaves her life with the history of Soviet Russia and the Cold War period, including the fail of the Soviet Union. A fascinating and gripping biography and history, with a paradoxical ending.