An Improbable Life: My Father’s Escape from Soviet Russia

Educator/artist/executive coach Rashkovsky’s book, presented in her father’s voice, follows his extraordinary life through the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Shortly before he was born, the Rashkovsky family fled Romanian fascism for the Soviet Union at the dawn of the Second World War, a move that turned out to be a poor choice among a handful of possibilities. Rashkovsky’s father was bullied as one of the only Jews in his elementary school, and antisemitism and communist orthodoxy stymied his education and aspirations. After finishing his studies in Israel, he moved to France to teach, eventually settling in Canada. Some readers may tire of the numerous details about his family life, and, at times, the narrative fits perhaps a little too neatly with his own politics and interests, but none of this, however, takes away from the high quality of the book.