Tag #127735 - Interview #78103 (Linka Isaeva)

My personal convictions about the so-called Jewish problem, and how we could possibly solve it, have also evolved. While in the 1950s and 1960s, and even at the beginning of the 1970s, I used to think that the solution lay in assimilation, today I share a completely different view. Until recently I wasn't much interested in my roots, but as time goes by I indulge deeper and deeper into history. I used to think that assimilation was the only way to solve the Jewish problem in Bulgaria. I believed that assimilation would save me and my children from a new persecution against Jews. Now I don't think so any more because I see that assimilation hasn't been very helpful to the Jews. Yet I don't consider the pure fanatic isolation of the Jewry to be our way either. I don't see why religiosity should be related to the idea of belonging to the Jewry. One should recognize himself as a Jew even without being religious. I understand that the Jewry has survived thanks to its religion, yet I don't understand why I shouldn't be considered a Jew if I don't obey each law of the Jewish religious tradition.