Join us for a conversation with Maxim D. Shrayer, who will discuss his memoir, "Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story," a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards. His remembrances are set against a backdrop of politics, travel, and ethnic conflict on the brink of the Soviet empire’s collapse. He will share the triumphs and humiliations of a Soviet childhood, and the dreams and fears of a Jewish family that never gave up its hopes for a better life. Growing up the son of Jewish intellectuals in Moscow, his parents applied for and were refused emigration when he was ten, thus becoming “refuseniks” for almost 9 years. "Leaving Russia" is a searing account of the KGB’s persecution of refuseniks, a poet’s rebellion against totalitarian culture, and Soviet fantasies of the West during the Cold War.