[during the memorial service for Ivanova's father]
Susan Ivanova: When I was thirteen, I developed a passion for Kasharev, one of the radical neocommunist authors.
Rabbi Koslov: Oy! Your father felt that Kasharev would be personally responsible for the destruction of Russian culture!
Ivanova: Exactly! But he was invited to a reading by Kasharev, and I begged him to take me. Of course, he had no intention of going, but I whined and pouted as only a thirteen-year-old can, and eventually, he was forced to surrender. So, after the reading there was a question and answer session, and for days I had been formulating the perfect question with which to impress my idol. So the time comes, and I stand up, I'm trembling, and I ask my question.
Rabbi Koslov: And?
Ivanova: He promptly said that it was the most foolish thing that he had ever heard, and that he had no intention of bandying words with a bourgeois little twit who was barely out of diapers. [Laughs] I was crushed. But then Papa stood up. And he said that his daughter was neither bourgeois, nor a little twit, and had been out of diapers for many, many years, while Kasharev's writings had yet to rise above the contents of those garments!
Rabbi Koslov: That sounds exactly like Andrei!
Ivanova: He then added that were he not a man of peace, he would have horsewhipped Kasharev through the streets of St. Petersburg, as his own father should have done many years ago!
Rabbi Koslov: Bravo, bravo!
Ivanova: Well, of course I was mortified. But then Papa took my hand and he turned, and as we walked out, he said to me: "It was a good question, dushenka."

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