A casualty of a naïve belief in Israel’s potential to adopt a secular Hebrew culture beyond Judaism’s defining religious difference, the Russian-born writer was also revived as a feminist icon in the 1970s

When people ask questions about my Soviet past, the answers aren’t easy. I’d rather be defined by my future.

As a Soviet Jewish émigré, I broke all ties to Russia and its language—or so I thought, until my daughter was born