Jewish Luck: A True Story of Friendship, Deception, and Risky Business

Jewish Luck recounts the intertwined stories of two women who-in their struggles against the anti-Semitism and patriarchy of the Soviet regime and the rebranded "New" Russia-succeed by creating their own luck.

Their sisterhood is kindled when Vera and Alisa grudgingly line up to register for classes at the Institute that produced experts in Marxist-Leninist economics, a field on its way to extinction. For the next three decades, Vera and Alisa fight for their dreams of self-expression and status. To do so they must deprogram their minds of Soviet theory and learn the new language of a free market economy.

After Vera dares to approach author Leslie Adler on a Leningrad corner in 1976, a forbidden friendship is formed. Leslie becomes Vera's confidante and link to the West. With help from her Minneapolis connections, Vera builds a successful business in Russia despite her disdain for her country and the disruption of Russian mafia attacks. In contrast, Alisa secretly escapes the Soviet Union and constructs a life in Sweden from scratch.

Jewish Luck invites readers to inhabit the lives of two extraordinary and headstrong women as they fight to establish themselves in a time and place where women, Jews, and capitalism were disparaged.