Marina Sapir: UConn Stamford program becomes the road to Jewish identity
By Cindy Mindell

STAMFORD – There are two points in Marina Sapir’s life, separated by more than 30 years, that describe the arc of a journey toward Jewish identity. While in first grade in Moscow during the late ’70s, a fellow student called Sapir “Zhid,” a racist slang word for “Jew.” “I hit him because it sounded offensive and I knew it belonged to me,” she says.

Last year, while enrolled in the Judaic studies certificate program at UConn Stamford, Sapir took a course on the Holocaust. She wrote a paper about conditions in the ghetto, using written accounts and the first-hand stories of her father, a Holocaust survivor. “I got an award from Storrs and it was mine,” she says.
Each incident marks a defining moment in Sapir’s life, from Moscow to Stamford, and from being the only openly Jewish student in elementary school to being able to openly study Jewish history and culture at UConn. In May, Sapir received her certificate of Judaic studies, a subject she could not have even dreamed of studying while a student at the Oil and Gas University in Moscow.
Sapir was born in 1971 in Moscow and grew up in a Jewish family typical of the times. Her grandparents knew Yiddish; her maternal grandfather spoke Hebrew. Her father would bring home matzah in the spring but never led a Passover seder in the Sapir home. The family would go to the Great Synagogue in Moscow for the holidays.
It was in middle school that Sapir felt compelled to explore her heritage. “I started to appreciate my nation’s past,” she says. “I would say to non-Jewish classmates, ‘Okay, I’m a Jew and very proud of it and you are nothing and your people were sitting in a tree when mine had a book.'”
She was a good student, graduating with a gold medal.
Sapir began to read. By the time she graduated from high school in 1988, she was well educated in Jewish history.
Many universities in Moscow were closed to Jews, and humanities programs did not allow Jewish students. Sapir earned a degree in computer science from the Oil and Gas University, where the Jewish population was large enough to establish a student synagogue and attract visits from representatives of the local Chabad.
Sapir got married and had two sons, and the eldest was able to finish second grade at a Moscow Jewish day school before the family relocated to Stamford in 2003. Her husband saw an ad for the UConn Center for Judaic and Middle Eastern Studies Lunch and Learn program and encouraged Sapir to attend. Her English wasn’t very good at the time, but she liked the idea of pushing herself.
Two years later, with both sons at Bi-Cultural Day School in Stamford, Sapir enrolled in the certificate program. Her parents immigrated to Stamford from Moscow in 2007. Sapir’s studies have become something of a family project, with her father opening up for the first time about his Holocaust experiences and her sons taking an interest in the family’s Russian history.
Directed by Dr. Nehama Aschkenazy, the certificate program is an interdisciplinary curriculum integrating English, Hebrew, sociology and political science into the greater amalgam of Judaic and Middle Eastern studies. It was designed for students interested in teaching in religious schools, or who wish to prepare for advanced training in Judaic scholarship, Jewish communal work, Middle East and Israeli studies, or for professional careers in government and foreign service.
Sapir and her family have been back to Moscow several times, where Sapir’s sons have attended Jewish summer camp. Several universities now offer courses in Judaic studies. Sapir says she misses some aspects of her former life – friends, places, the extensive library she and her husband amassed and left behind in her parents’ apartment.
Sapir can now mix the best of her past and present. “All the courses in the program added something new to my life – bible as literature, Abrahamic religion, the Holocaust,” Sapir says. “This was such big enrichment and I’m so happy that I took the courses. I’m so glad that I can share this knowledge with my children.”

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