Especially for my father it was a great change. He used to be a socialist and even a member of the socialist party. But then he became an orthodox Jew.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My father was an ardent socialist for many years.
I was raised a socialist by two very socialist parents, and I still feel very animated about socialist principles.
At the time I belonged to the socialist party, and Hitler came to power.
My mother's father was Jewish, so she was very conservative. She liked little, pretty music-orchestral-type things.
My grandfather was Orthodox, and he was religious, but neither of my parents were. Of course, as they got older, it seems like they get more religious the older they get, even though they're still not practicing Jews.
Again, I was influenced by my father, who was very much an atheist and took pride in combating the traditional or orthodox forms of Judaism, which his parents and which my mother's parents were very steeped in.
My father was ethnically Jewish, but his family converted to Catholicism.
In 1989 when I switched from Democrat to Republican, with God as my witness, not one thing changed about what I believed about one man and one woman in a marriage or about diversity of color. That's a good thing.
I am also one of those persons who were transformed, who grew out of the Soviet system and transformed myself into the new Russia.
The whole upbringing was interesting because we grew up Orthodox Jews all the way until we were teenagers.