This story has stuck with me. I read it but didn't review it right away because I wanted time to reflect. It is a story that is built for that as it is a powerful story about a Jewish family living under the Iron Curtan in Moscow in 1965. The graphic novel format is fitting as the author mentions he cannot be sure what parts of the story retold to him by Rabbi Rafael Grossman are fact and which are fiction. The illustrations contain mixed textures which are fitting of a story that with cold grey facts and hazy recollections. There are parts of the story where the author imagines what the character Zev thinks and feels. Those pages don't engage as much as the middle, main storyline of an American rabbi who travels to the Soviet Union to find the brother of a friend. The back of the book contains helpful information about Soviet Jewry after the Holocaust.

I received a copy from LibraryThing Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Inspired by the true events of Rabbi Rafael Grossman. In 1965, the American rabbit traveled to the Soviet Union to investigate reports on persecution of the Jewish community. One afternoon, he slipped away from his group and embarked on a secret journey to the address on an envelope he carried. Upon getting to the address, his life changed forever.

The artwork is different than what I usually see in graphic novels - more sharp edges and mixed colors - but I absolutely loved it. The way the art of each panel flowed together, I could almost see the characters moving like a small film.

This novel only really scraps the surface of the persecution of the Jewish Community in the Soviet Union. It’s only about one young boy who hasn’t left the small one bedroom apartment since he was born - an act his parents did to protect and teach him their culture.

Just because it only scraps the surface though, it is a good opener to go out and explore more of this history and to learn more.

There’s a note at the end of the novel from Anna Olswanger about how she and Rabbi Rafael Grossman had planned on writing a novel about this trip, but that the Rabbi passed before they finished it. While going through her notes on it, Olswanger couldn’t remember what was real and what was part of the story they created, so she made A Visit to Moscow. Regardless, I still appreciate the telling of this story.

This is a great story to add to your list of Jewish books.

*Thank you West Margin Press and the Library Thing for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

A Visit to Moscow is a brief but thought-provoking graphic novel, especially for those who are not familiar with the Stalin era’s oppression of Jews – or anyone who disagreed with the official party line. The story could stand on its own but the beautiful illustrations and the notes describing its origin give it greater depth and impact. While I am not sure of the book’s intended audience, I believe it would work best as part of a study unit with other works on antisemitism or past and present treatment of religious and political minorities or dissidents in Russia and elsewhere. I appreciate receiving my copy as a LibraryThing Early Reviewer. ( )

This slim volume is an intersting addition to the several books I have in my library on Jewish history, the Jewish religion and Jewish practices. The "boy behind the curtain" is the foundation of the simple but touching story about a visit to Mocow by Rabbi Grossman in 1965, but it functions just as well as a metaphor for the lives Jews have historically been forced to lead and, as amply shown in the story, must, in some places in the world, still lead even today. Slavery and anti-semitism are the two original sins of western civilization, the former for the most part purged from our system, the latter still very much an infection in the body politic. ( )